The theoretical concept of the neutral migration process is examined in this paper and is used to : (1) assess the relative importance of the departure and destination choice processes in determining the redistributional effect of interregional migration, and (2) reveal the basic properties of Shryock's preference indices, offering a better alternative in the process. These objectives are demonstrated with data on U.S.-born (and foreign-born) migration between the four regions of the United States. Our reason for using a small number of regions instead of the 50 states or hundreds of economic areas is to simplify the visualization of the entire procedure and its empirical results.

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate a simultaneous determinant mechanism between population change and economic growth using an overlapping generations model (0GM). Demand for children is classified into three types of utility according to Leibenstein's theory, and we focused on consumption utility and security utility. The model is constructed to denote the path of economic and population growth and to find steady state solutions. First, a traditional result, that a positive relationship between income and the demand for children is derived, and we show that the direct and indirect cost of children has a negative influence on child demand. Then, assuming particular production function, a dynamic economic path is calculated and some steady state solutions ascertained, which satisfy both child demand and capital accumulation simultaneously. Second, introducing a pension system, we investigate how the results on the above analysis were affected. As a result, a rise in pension benefits increased the demand for children, while an enrichment of the public pension reduces the level of capital stock since an increase in the cost of children induces private savings in a steady state. Finally, considering family allowances which support a rational individual in the decision to have children, we concluded that the policy which reduces the cost of children has a positive influence on the demand for children to a greater extent than the income policy which increases disposable earnings.

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This article deals with a long-standing unsolved issue in Japanese historical demography. This is the issue of birth underregistration in shumon aratame-cho (SAC) which has been the main data source in the field for the last thirty years or so. The issue of the birth underregistration prevents researchers from accurately estimating infant mortality as well as fertility, and makes it very difficult to compare these indices with those of other societies. To solve this problem has become an urgent issue in Japanese historical demography not only because infant mortality is one of the best indices to know the standard of living of society, but also because fertility recently has become the most active area of research in historical demography in Europe and the U.S. To solve the problem of birth underregistration in the SAC, this article treats infant mortality and fertility separately. The first part of the article discusses a method to estimate infant mortality from the SAC. By using data of the early vital statistics of the Japanese government as well as information from the SAC, I tried to find out an empirical relationship between infant mortality and SAC first-year-death-rates (SFDRs), the only index related to infant death which can be calculated from the SAC, and used this relationship to estimate infant mortality. An application of this method to the SAC of a village in Northeastern Japan yielded a reasonable result for infant mortality of Tokugawa peasants, and thus proved its validity. This method can easily be applied to other regions of Japan since the method is reasonably straightforward and does not require much computation. The second part of the article examines the level of birth underregistration in the SAC through microsimulation. The main portion of the model used in the simulation is based primarily on the studies by Bongaarts and Potter, and those by the Institute of Population Problems, Ministry of Public Health, but I modified the model to handle the problem more properly. The simulation result reveals that the level of the birth underregistration is positively associated with infant mortality; and with the level of infant mortality in Northeastern Japan during the Tokugawa period (in the neighborhood of 180 to 230 per thousand), the level of the birth underregistration is likely to have ranged between 14 and 18 per cent of the actual number of births. It is well known that infant mortality of peasants in Northeastern Japan was generally higher than in Southwestern Japan. If we take 150 to 230 per thousand as a reasonable estimate for infant mortality of Tokugawa Japan as a whole, the level will range between 12 and 18 per cent. Recent studies in Japanese historical demography often assume the level of birth underregistration in the SAC to be 20 per cent. But the simulation result indicates this assumption is somewhat overestimated. Some demographers caution us that the level of birth underegistration in the SAC may vary according to SAC compilation dates. This is because Tokugawa Japan, or pre-industrial society in general, is characterized by having the clear seasonality of births. The microsimulation is used to examine whether the difference in SAC compilation dates could have any serious effect on the level of the birth underregistration. The answer is negative: the effect is only minor; the difference in SAC compilation dates can hardly make any difference in estimated fertility in a measurable way. Finally, by using the microsimulation, the article experimentally examines variances in fertility of small cohorts of different sizes. Since historical demographers are not always as fortunate as to be able to find 100-year unbroken records of SAC, but rather they often encounter SAC of a much shorter period, the result of the simulation gives a measure of variance in fertility of a small population and helps us deal with fragmentary SAC.

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