Jennifer Glass

This course is intended to provide graduate students in sociology with (a) a level of literacy in statistical methods that will permit a basic understanding of most publications in the field's major journals, (b) the basic tools needed for a master's thesis that uses quantitative methods, (c) preparation for more advanced courses in this department and for independent study, and (d) a sensitivity for the limitations, as well as the strengths, of quantitative methods.

 

Description

 

Why do birth rates rise and fall?  How can the U.S. have both record rates of childlessness as well as the highest rates of teen childbearing and unwanted pregnancy in the industrialized world?  Why does educating women lower birth rates faster than any population control program in the Third World?  This course will explore when, why, how, and with whom Americans bear children, and how we compare to other developed and developing countries in the world.  We will explore infertility and its treatments, the ethics of surrogacy, voluntary childlessness, the rapid rise of nonmarital childbearing in the U.S. and other countries, the politics of childbirth and risks of maternal mortality in developed and developing countries, and the declining populations and rapid aging  of  rich countries including Japan, Italy, and Spain where women have basically stopped having children.