BOOK REVIEWS

Basia Zaba and John Blacker (eds), Brass Tacks: Essays in Medical Demography: ATribute to the Memory of Professor William Brass. London: The Athlone Press. 2001. 301+ xi pp.

As its subtitles clearly state, this book is a collection of essays written as a tribute tothe memory of William Brass. Bill, as he was known, was a demographer of out-standing talent and achievement. The book is a collection of research papers, eachof which has at least one author who was a ‘Brass student’ at the London School ofHygiene and Tropical Medicine between 1965 and 1988. If, as Griffith Feeney statesin his Introduction, serendipity played a role in Bill’s achievements (p.1), serendip-ity may also be said to have played a role in crafting this collection. The bookincludes contributions by all former students who responded positively to the invi-tation, sent by email, to contribute. Inevitably some former students were disen-franchised by poor communications, though in my own case this is somewhatcompensated for by the opportunity to write this review.

The papers fall into four groups, to all of which Bill contributed in one way oranother: demographic estimation of which Bill was the pioneer, biodemography,developing-country demography (which includes applications of demographicestimation) and developed-country demography.

All three papers on demographic estimation address mortality and are refine-ments or extensions of methods originally developed by Brass. The first two buildon the best-known of the Brass methods, that of estimating child mortality fromproportions dead among children ever born to women by age. Both address theproblem of estimation bias arising from higher mortality risks for children born tomothers aged less than 20. Ken Hill and Maria-Elena Figueroa present an adapta-tion in which time since first birth replaces age (or marital duration) as the proxyfor exposure to the risk of dying. The method has the advantage of avoiding theproblems associated with using either age or marital duration, but requires extraquestions on month and year of first birth to be included in data collection. MartineCollumbien and Andy Sloggett propose two population-specific adjustments forthe bias. The first uses relative risks of mortality for births to teenage and non-teenage mothers to adjust proportions dead among births to women aged 15–19and 20–24. The second adjustment is based on an empirical model of infant mortal-ity risk by age of mother combined with simulations, using Brass relational modelsof fertility and mortality, of the effect of higher infant mortality of births to teenagemothers on proportions dead of children ever borne by women aged 20–24.

The third paper on demographic estimation, by Ian Timaeus, Basia Zaba andMohamed Ali, presents a new method for estimating adult mortality, based on thesurvivorship of siblings. The method draws on the earlier sisterhood method forestimating maternal mortality, and incorporates several important advances. It

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provides estimates of the mortality of all adult females, and is extended to covermale mortality. The model of age differences between siblings incorporates theasymmetry arising from non-stationarity of the population, and the coefficientsused in applying the method are based on simulated combinations of the Brass rela-tional models of fertility and mortality. An important advantage of the method isthat it is robust to variation in mortality patterns, and thus promises to perform bet-ter than existing methods in populations significantly affected by HIV/AIDS.

There are two papers on biodemography. In the first, Ron Gray describes theresults of several studies involving the collection of biomedical data at the popula-tion level, rather than in highly unrepresentative clinical settings. Two of thesestudies use urinary hormonal markers, one to address the relationship betweenbreastfeeding and amenorrhoea which contributed to the development of theLactational Amenorrhoea Method of contraception, and the other to address infer-tility and early pregnancy loss. The third study, conducted in Uganda with highcompliance rates, involves the voluntary home collection from women of urine andblood samples, vaginal swabs and even the placenta, allowing detailed investiga-tion of HIV, STDs, cervical cancer and postpartum infections. Infants are also exam-ined. The lower conception rates and higher pregnancy wastage rates ofHIV-positive women have implications for HIV surveillance systems that rely onpregnancy-related services.

HIV infection in women and children is also the subject of Marie-LouiseNewell’s review essay. This second paper on biodemography focuses on pregnancy,vertical transmission, transmission through breastfeeding, the timing of transmis-sion, and available therapies.

Three of the four papers on developing-country demography address fertility.Fatima Juarez and Zeba Sathar examine the difficult question of whether there has,or has not, been a decline in fertility in Pakistan. Several surveys since the 1970shave shown a recent decline, only to be contradicted by the next survey, a situationthat is attributed to data problems. After detailed examination of the 1990–91Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey in which a battery of Brass techniquesare applied, Juarez and Sathar are able to conclude that total fertility had declinedslightly during the last ten years and was estimated to be 6.1 in 1986–91. Noting aconvergence towards an achieved family size of about four, they confidently predicta further quite sharp decline in the near future. It remains to be seen whether thisturns out to be the case.

The paper by Sheila Macrae, E. Bauni and John Blacker also addresses the issueof whether or not fertility decline is under way, but in Kenya. Brass had himselfbeen involved in the analysis of the 1989 Kenya DHS, which had shown that fertil-ity had begun to decline during the 1980s, but this conclusion had yet to be verifiedby analysis of subsequent data. Using no less than six sources of data, whichshowed remarkable consistency once deficiencies were taken into account, Macrae,Bauni and Blacker clearly demonstrate that the decline not only had occurred butwas ‘sudden and substantial’ (p.159) and continued at a rapid pace to descendbelow five in the late 1990s. This decline took place among women of all parities,even those with only one birth. The proximate determinants of fertility are shownto be primarily postpartum infecundity, followed by contraceptive prevalencewhich was increasing. Though there has been a transition to later marriage, this waspartly offset by increases in extramarital childbearing. Interestingly, the analysis

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also reveals that before the decline, fertility had been increasing steadily: womenborn in the nineteenth century had about six births on average, while those born inthe 1940s had nearly eight.

The paper by Hoda Rashad on Arab fertility experience shows that though thefertility transition began somewhat later than in other parts of the world and fromhigher levels on average, these characteristics are not exceptional. Rather, the dis-tinguishing feature of the Arab fertility transition is the homogeneity among coun-tries in both pretransitional levels and the timing of change. The decline has beenlargely due to changes in marriage patterns, rather than to any significant increasein contraceptive use. Through comparative analysis of the experience of Sudan,Syria and Yemen, Rashad identifies worsening economic conditions, rather thandevelopment, as an important determinant of fertility decline, to levels that arebelow desired family size. She also shows how different factors have resulted insimilar levels of fertility in countries with dissimilar levels of socio-economic devel-opment and contraceptive prevalence (Sudan and Syria), and in dissimilar levels offertility in countries with similar levels of development and contraceptive preva-lence (Sudan and Yemen). The challenges to transition theory are clear.

The fourth paper on developing-country demography is a discussion by SaraRandall of the difficulties involved in measuring population growth and populationdynamics in the populations of the Northern Sahel. Randall convincingly arguesthat the conventional categorization according to production systems is of no use foraddressing the population issues of the day. This is for a variety of reasons: the dif-ferent economic activities represent a continuum rather than distinct categories,changes occur over the lifetime, there are lifecycle effects, and households are eco-nomically diverse. Further, nomadism, transhumance and labour migration all con-tribute to methodological difficulties in data collection. Randall discusses theadvantages and disadvantages of adopting an ethnicity-based demography. Sheconcludes that ethnic homogeneity should be built into the methodology and thatthe most fruitful method of data collection is to carry out rapid single-round surveysasking the simple questions required for indirect estimation.

The final group, on developed-country demography, is more varied in the top-ics covered, though three use data from Britain. Lynda Clarke and Heather Joshiexamine the stability of individual male and female family members as markers forthe identification of families in longitudinal studies. The idea was originally pro-posed by Brass, and he suggested that females would be better markers than malesdespite conventional ideas about the sex of a household head. The study shows thatBrass was right: in Britain women are indeed more consistent family markers sincethey have longer durations in most adult family statuses. This is due to several fac-tors: women leave the parental home earlier, they are less likely to repartner andthey have lower mortality.

The paper by John Osborn, Angela Spinelli and Maria Sofia Cattaruzza presentsa ‘novel’ method of comparing regional and national measures for different pointsin time by expressing the regional levels in terms of years behind or ahead of thenational level. This has the advantage of basing the comparison on the same unit(years) regardless of the level of the measure (or point in time). This method of rep-resentation has been used before, but Osborn et al. fit regression equations to esti-mate average change over time. They apply the method to infant mortality rates forItaly and regions, showing mean lead and lag times and identifying regions by their

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temporal position, relative to the national, and whether changes in position aremade.

The paper by Kath Moser and Sandra Eldridge discusses the use of general-practice registers as a source of population data for health planning. The registerscontain information on age and sex only, and a proportional allocation method isemployed with census data to estimate the socio-economic characteristics of gen-eral-practice populations. Moser and Eldridge use data from East London to illus-trate the variability in general-practice age-sex distributions and point to thepractical effects and implications for health service use and planning. They alsoillustrate the proportional allocation technique and discuss the methodologicalproblems and limitations involved.

Emily Grundy describes the mortality and morbidity of older adults in mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century Britain, with a view to examining the thesis ofa possibly changing relationship between the two. This chapter includes a briefreview of relevant theoretical debates and of health and social policy in Britain dur-ing the period in question. Though improvements in mortality occurred at youngerages, little improvement took place at age 65+, particularly for males. Grundypoints to the emergence of new viruses (Asian influenza), the harsher implementa-tion of assistance schemes for the impoverished elderly, and increased heart diseasemortality from smoking and dietary fat intake as factors impeding mortalitydecline. However, the evidence for increased morbidity is weak, not least becauseof a paucity of data.

These papers are testimony not only to the breadth of Bill’s contribution todemography, but also to the high esteem in which he is held by his former students.There can be no doubting that Bill’s approach to demographic research was influ-ential, and the list of institutions in which these former students now work indi-cates how far-reaching that influence continues to be. It is of some interest to notethat 16 of the 24 authors are women. This is no happy coincidence. Bill used to saythat he preferred female students and staff because he found them to be more inter-ested than their male counterparts in their research per se.

Unfortunately the quality of the volume is marred somewhat by a sprinkling oferrors and presentational defects that proofreading should have removed. Amongthe citation problems, for example, are incorrect authors’ names (including myown!), and in one case the second author is missing from the citation. These prob-lems aside, the collection serves its purpose well. In my day, we used to talk of‘Brass rubbings’, hoping that some of Bill’s brilliance would rub off. This collectionshows that to indeed have been the case.

Heather BoothDemography and Sociology Program

Research School of Social SciencesThe Australian National University

Jacob S. Siegel, Applied Demography: Applications to Business, Government, Law andPublic Policy. San Diego: Academic Press. 2002. 686 pp.

The recent years have seen significant changes to the emphases and structures ofAustralian universities. In particular, disciplines with clearly defined career paths,

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especially the various branches of business studies, have grown rapidly in theirnumber of staff, the number of courses they offer, and the number of students theyserve. In this changed context there is a need for university demography disciplinesto reassess the relevance of their units to the study programs and career directionsof the students who elect to enrol in their course, and to change the emphasis oftheir programs accordingly.

Against this background, the arrival of a demographic textbook which is dis-tinctive in its degree of focus on ‘real world’ uses of demography is most welcome.The selection of methods for inclusion clearly has been guided with a view towardsequipping the reader for ‘real work’. Pragmatic priorities would appear to underliethe extent of its coverage of the sources of data, both demographic and non-demo-graphic, that may be useful in such applications, and of their limitations. The prac-tical value of such demographic tools and resources is illustrated with awonderfully varied range of examples, drawn from the business, government andnon-profit sectors.

According to the preface, Applied Demography is intended for use as a textbookby advanced undergraduates and postgraduates and as a reference handbook fordemographic practitioners. Certainly some prior knowledge of the elements ofdemography would be advantageous for the reader. A sound grasp of basic math-ematics and statistics also is assumed. A few sections of the book refer to statisticaltechniques which in my experience are taught only at more advanced levels.

This is clearly a book designed with the American market in mind, since theexamples of demographic trends and applications almost invariably relate to theUnited States, with passing mentions of examples from other countries relegated toappendices. Educators using this text to teach students from other countries willface a need to make clear the distinctions between their countries’ demographictrends, sources of data, geographic area classification, governmental and legal sys-tems and those of the United States, and the implications of those differences.Viewed from an Australian perspective, the attention devoted to the role of demog-raphy in litigation, especially litigation related to racial equality, is striking.

Chapter 1 rather wades through the definition of ‘applied demography’ beforebriefly, to my mind too briefly to serve as a useful reference, sketching some of themore important methods that would be covered in an introduction to technicaldemography. In Chapter 2 a concise account of recent demographic trends in theUnited States is followed, before one has the time to think ‘so what?’, by a discus-sion of their consequences for the provision of education, housing, transport andfederal tax collection. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the limita-tions of demographic determinism.

Chapter 3 describes the basic sources of demographic data, classified by collec-tion agency. A potentially dry topic is enlivened with accounts of the continuing con-troversies relating to adjustment for underenumeration and the classification of raceand Hispanic origin in the United States, and a discussion of the uses of record link-age. The extensive list of the website addresses for collection agencies and displaysof demographic data, presented in Appendix A, would be a most useful compilationwere it not for a significant number of the addresses being either out of date or notfunctioning. Chapter 4 discusses the sources of error in census and survey data.

Chapter 5 covers the classification, retrieval and analysis of geographicallydefined demographic data. Whilst the analysis of the spatial distribution of demo-graphic data is undoubtedly of major importance in applied demography, the lack

of international standardization of geodemographic classification limits the appli-cability of much of the material in this chapter to other national contexts.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8, which address the applications of demography to business,government and nonprofit organizations, most clearly distinguish AppliedDemography from other demographic textbooks. Chapter 6 focuses on the role ofdemography in the strategic planning of business expansion and contraction. Sincemost demography graduates will seek work in the private sector, this is arguablythe most important chapter. Siegel’s eye for the practical considerations is evidentin his inclusion of a section on the methods of measuring the characteristics of cus-tomers. The next section provides a range of examples of the use of demographicvariables in the definition of market segments and target markets, and discusses thedemographic and non-demographic factors affecting business location. The inclu-sion of a section on the use of multiple regression in the analysis of the profitabilityof business establishments is a particularly pleasant surprise, because too many ofthe existing demographic textbooks omit coverage of this essential element ofempirical research. That said, since the fairly detailed coverage of small-area esti-mation methods and projections in Chapters 9 to 11 also have clear relevance to it,I think this section (along with sections of Chapter 7) could have been better placedlater in the book. The final section of this chapter discusses the application of stan-dard demographic techniques to the analysis of consumer behaviour and the dura-bility of manufactured goods. Chapter 7, which covers the uses of demography bygovernment and nonprofit organizations, devotes much attention to the use ofmeasures of race and Hispanic origin, socio-economic disadvantage, and life tablesin the analysis of service and facility provision. Chapter 8 deals at length (79 pages)with the demography of labour forces, making extensive use of formal demo-graphic techniques.

Chapters 9 and 10 cover estimates and projections of the population by age, sexand race, paying particular attention to the subnational level. Chapter 11 focuses onestimates and projections of households, labour force, school enrolment, educa-tional attainment and health. All three chapters discuss a wide range of methodsand include lengthy sections on the evaluation of accuracy and utility. Whilst thesechapters offer an authoritative coverage of the topics which would be useful forspecialized statistical demographers, I fear some sections may prove too technicalto be accessible to students without a strong statistical and mathematical back-ground.

Chapters 12 and 13 address the interface between demography and democracy.Chapter 12 focuses on the demographic basis for the apportionment of the USCongress, state legislatures and local councils, and the use of demographic data inthe allocation of public funds. Chapter 13 discusses some of the implications ofdemographic trends for America’s public debate. Issues highlighted include theeconomic effects of immigration; the legitimacy of sex differentials in the premiumsand benefits of insurance and retirement programs; the implications of age-structure changes for the solvency of the US Social Security program; the allocationof public funds between children and the elderly; and the costs of health care pro-vision.

Chapter 14, which discusses the application of demographic-like methods to theanalysis of organizational populations, for example to counts of business units orschools, provides additional examples to those in the final section of Chapter 6 ofthe wider transferability of demographic skills.

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All chapters are backed up with extensive lists of suggested readings, which arehelpfully classified by section heading. A brief epilogue muses on the nature ofapplied demography, before pointing the reader to lists of professional associationsand publications that may further assist him or her.

I began reading this book hopeful that it might be a suitable textbook for the sec-ond year undergraduate ‘Business Demographics’ unit and the Master ofCommerce in Business ‘Demographic Analysis in Business’ unit at MacquarieUniversity. Reading Applied Demography I was fascinated to learn about the widerange of uses of demography in the United States, and delighted to discover a textwhich provides such authoritative coverage not only of the standard demographicfare but also of important topics that appear to have been neglected by other texts.At the end of 686 pages, only the cost (A$212.30), particularly to those of limitedmeans, and the USA-specificity or technical complexity of some sections are signif-icant concerns in relation to recommending it to my students. I have no such inhi-bitions about recommending it to readers of the Journal of Population Research withenough dollars saved up and an interest in applied demographic methods or theuses of applied demography in America.

Nick ParrDemographic Research Group

Department of BusinessDivision of Economic and Financial Studies,

Macquarie University

Ian H. Burnley, The Impact of Immigration in Australia: A Demographic Approach.Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 2001. 388 pages

Burnley has written a mini-encyclopedia on Australia’s migration experience; it isalmost a single-handed version of James Jupp’s The Australian People. The book pro-vides accounts of nineteenth and twentieth-century migrant movements fromBritain, Europe and Asia to Australia. Burnley explores the factors which haveshaped the movements of these peoples and their subsequent settlement patterns.The work is highly descriptive and organized around the main migrant locations inAustralia, no doubt reflecting Burnley’s academic role as a geographer. This is animpressive work; it will make a valuable resource for the next generation of stu-dents and scholars interested in these issues.

Much of the detail comes from Burnley’s decades of empirical research in thearea. This descends to the level of patterns of residence and business in particularlocal communities. To the extent that I was familiar with this detail it appeared tobe accurate. The odd error crept in, as with his account of the Chinese communityin Australia and the role of former students in contributing to this community. Henotes that some 20,000 Chinese students were in Australia at the time of theTiananmen massacre in mid-1989 – all of whom were granted permanent residenceby the Hawke government. He does not note that another 20,000 or so of those whohad already applied for student visas by mid-1989 were also subsequently allowedto enter. Almost all of these too, gained permanent residence after a series of quasi-amnesties, the last of which occurred under the Coalition Government when MrRuddock was immigration minister.

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The major topical issue explored in the book concerns the implications of ethnicconcentrations, especially those in Sydney. On this question, Burnley takes astrongly polemical stance. He wants to refute the ‘several social scientists, numer-ous politicians, and sections of the media [who] have consistently criticised spatialconcentration of immigrant communities, and more specifically, post-1970 arrivals’(p. xv). He does not name the social scientists in question, reference their work orgive any precision to their arguments. It is a debate with an empty chair. But sinceBurnley’s position on this issue is so insistent it is likely to attract the attention ofreaders, and in any case deserves attention.

The book provides birthplace, language and other indicators of ethnic residen-tial patterns for Sydney and Melbourne, mainly derived from the 1996 Census. Onthese indicators Sydney is indeed an ethnically diverse society. This diversity is evi-dent in both affluent and low-income parts of the city. But even where migrant con-centrations are at their highest, Burnley shows that it is unusual to find one groupdominant. He concludes that ‘most areas of residential concentration are culturallyheterogeneous’ (p. 288). By this criterion there are no ghettoes.

Burnley puts great emphasis on this finding. He takes a post-modernist stancearguing that ethnic diversity is a normal feature of global cities. As he puts it, ‘eth-nic concentration and even segregation may be a normative option and even out-come of the “post-modernist” developed society’ (p. 23). The assimilationists whoworry about concentrations of migrants are mistaken. After a long discussion ofWestern Sydney suburbs, including Fairfield, which feature high ethnic concentra-tions, Burnley puts the rhetorical question, is diversity good or bad? His answer isthat it is positive (p. 268). For example, in schools in these areas, ‘opportunities havebeen taken to capitalise on cultural diversity in the context of learning and toler-ance’ (p. 267). He admits that at times ‘adolescent gang frictions developed inwhich cultural differences have played a part’. But ‘there are no intrinsic reasonswhy these difficulties cannot be solved and once they are, most will benefit fromdiversity’ (p. 267).

Perhaps Burnley is right. But it would have helped in judging his case if he hadprovided a clearer analysis of the relationship between ethnic diversity and theglobal city (in which category he places Sydney). Is there an intrinsic relationshipas implied in the post-modern imagery quoted above? Burnley shows that there isin relation to the presence of overseas corporation personnel, such as finance and ITspecialists, operating in Australia. There are significant concentrations of these peo-ple in the North Shore communities of Sydney. But the ethnic concentrations whichare central to the debate with which Burnley is engaged concern Sydney’s westernsuburbs. The Middle Eastern, Indochinese and other non-English-speaking-back-ground (NESB) communities resident in this area are a product of family reunionand humanitarian flows. They are notable for their lack of ‘new economy’ skills.What is their economic role in the global city? It is clearly problematic given theirrelative isolation in outer suburban locations, their high levels of unemployment,low income and welfare dependence (all of which Burnley documents).

Despite his great interest in this issue, Burnley’s account lacks a systematic the-oretical context. He dismisses any notion that residential concentrations may berelated to the formation of enclave economies (p. 239). Burnley claims that ‘mostAustralian researchers have found that the enclave model is as inappropriate as theghetto in explaining labour market and residential trends’ (p. 239). But there is no

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discussion of this theory in the theoretical introduction (Chapter 2) and no mentionof the work of A. Portes, the leading theorist on the subject. Portes’s work onenclave economies, such as the Cuban enclave in Miami, explores the ways NESBcommunities react to their economic disadvantage. One response is to focus on theservicing of the co-ethnic market and for small ethnic entrepreneurs to use the low-cost labour of their families and fellow community members to develop markets forgoods and services outside the enclave (Portes 1985). An example is the prolifera-tion of out-work in the clothing industry within the Vietnamese community inSydney and Melbourne, where co-ethnic brokers act as intermediaries with main-stream wholesalers. The problem is that where such economic activity predomi-nates, it is usually associated with low wages. It also serves as a mechanism to drawpersons of the same ethnic background to the area in question. Where such com-munities are located in outer suburbs like Fairfield, far from the dynamic centres ofemployment, it is hard to see how their economic activities are ‘normative’ for theglobal city. It also raises questions about how readily persons caught up in this eco-nomic activity can move elsewhere within Melbourne or Sydney.

The strength of the book is that it contains a vast assembly of information that areader can use to test a range of hypotheses about the migrant settlement process,including hypotheses Burnley himself is not keen to pursue. For example the bookcontains a detailed description of the activities within the Indochinese communityin Cabramatta (in Fairfield). The account of the 820 ethnic businesses and institu-tions in and around the Cabramatta town centre is consistent with what would beexpected in an ethnic-enclave economy. According to Burnley, by the late 1990s‘Cabramatta was a vibrant commercial and cultural dynamo’ (p. 254). This is notthe way the area is described in the press. Burnley implies that it is the unnamedcritics who have (improperly) sullied this ‘dynamo’ with the tag of drug dealingand criminal behaviour. Nevertheless, his fact-gathering zeal is such that he pro-vides ample information about these criminal activities. A reader might well reacha different conclusion to that of the author about the situation in Cabramatta.

Reference

Portes, A. 1985. Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the USA. Berkeley: Universityof California.

Bob Birrell Centre for Population and Urban Research

Monash University

Loretta Baldassar, Visits Home: Migration Experiences between Italy and Australia.Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. 2001. 396 pp. + xi.

Twenty-five years ago, one of Australia’s most influential demographers wiselynoted that ‘a good study on a single village could be worth a great deal; defectivework on a nation could be dangerously misleading’ (Caldwell 1976:358).Baldassar’s book is an example of ‘the good study of a single village’. While notdealing specifically with demography, the author’s detailed ethnographic work

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provides valuable insights into many of the conceptual building blocks of demo-graphic explanations. Particularly useful are her reflections on notions of culture,migration, tradition, community, ethnicity and identity.

Visits Home focuses both on the people who emigrated from the small town ofSan Fior in northern Italy to Perth, and on the inhabitants of San Fior itself.Baldassar began her fieldwork in 1987; since then, she has made a number of returnvisits to Italy and conducted many in-depth interviews. The migration experiencesbetween Italy and Australia are described against a backdrop of regional social andeconomic history, local festivals, organizations, public and private spaces.

The unifying theme of the book is that the migration experience cannot beunderstood in terms of a linear event; a one-off move from one place to another.Rather, the economic and cultural strategies of Italians in Australia are indeliblyaffected both by the family and community they left behind, and the one theyencountered and are making for themselves in Australia. A fine mesh of expecta-tions, mutual obligations, memories, remittances, visits home, friendships, ten-sions, enmities, resistances, invented traditions and everyday rituals continue tolink those who left and those who stayed. Even this dichotomy is insufficient: peo-ple work in different countries, return, emigrate again, visit, their children settleclose to one or another’s ‘home’ or move somewhere else again.

This approach, according to Baldassar, amounts to treating the home and hostcountries as part of the same ‘social field’; within this field, ‘persistent circulationgradually endows places and regions of origin with heightened meaning both forthe locally born and for outsiders’. She notes that routine immigration statistics arenot designed to capture the complexity of such community weaving: they tend torecord the total number of entries and exits, but not the persons who travel; so it isnot possible to discern whether an immigrant is making her first or seventh journey.

Historically, the Veneto region in which San Fior is situated was a depressedarea, sometimes called the ‘south of the north’; today it is one of the richest parts ofItaly, routinely referred to as the ‘America’ migrants originally set out to discover.This economic miracolo had fundamentally altered the relations between emigrantsand townspeople. In explaining their decision to emigrate, many of those who leftin the period of la misèria after World War II stated simply ‘there was no work, nomoney, no choice’. In leaving, they not only made possible their own economicsecurity, but through remittances underwrote the economic survival of those whoremained. In this way, emigration did not break up families, but rather formed ameans of keeping a family together. In the 1950s and 1960s, emigrants were indeedmuch better off than the majority of their Italian relatives. Today, against the back-drop of rapid economic expansion, it appears as if it was the emigrants who gam-bled and lost. Together, these circumstances give rise to multiple meanings ofmigration: the migrant is, at one and the same time, the town’s painful sacrifice,deserter-escapee and lucky fortune hunter; one who made the journey from rags toriches, or lost the gamble to become successful. The town of San Fior is both an unfitprovider and abandoner of its children; it is both remorseful and forgiving.Whatever the case, the ‘symbolic competition’ between the two places must benegotiated carefully for the emigrants to be accepted when they visit.

Baldassar notes that when she asked Italians in Australia why they visited Italyso often, they were invariably bemused: the reason was both obvious and impossi-ble to explain. Return visits made by emigrants and their children to their home

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town, she concluded, are proof of a successful establishment in Australia. Visitsreveal not only the importance of ties to family, and in particular bonds betweenmother and child, but also the significance of attachment to place, to the sights andsmells of the home town. Visiting and sharing meals with the family help developconsociate identity; more recently, sight-seeing and shopping for clothing andhousehold goods have become important for the construction of particular versionsof Italian identity for display back in Australia.

Many people see their visits ‘back home’ as transformative, as creating a differ-ent and more robust Italian-Australian identity; they teach children how to becometruly Italian, and cement ties of reciprocity and mutual obligation with kin. Unliketheir parents, however, the Australian-born second generation tend to define whatit means to be Italian at a national level, rather than in terms of belonging to their‘home’ town of San Fior. For many, to be Italian is to share a cultured, cosmopoli-tan identity (unlike that of most of the actual inhabitants of San Fior), and a roman-ticized, imagined peasant past, far distant from the begging, semi-starvation andpellagra common in the region fifty years ago. Indeed, Baldassar claims that thecourse of ethnic identity in Australia is strongly influenced by the rise of what shecalls the ‘ethnicity industry’: Italian cafes, designer labels for clothing and house-hold goods, and ‘authentic cuisines’.

Yet return visits, and the larger relations of reciprocity of which they form a part,are fraught with tensions. If the emigrants do not visit, they cannot fulfil their obli-gations to family, nor can they maintain their cultural identity. When they do visit,however, their return is seen as proof that life is better in Italy. By leaving, migrantsgained mastery over their own affairs, but by the same token lost the right to com-mand those who remained in Italy. During return visits, visitors and hosts struggleto integrate each other into competing worlds of meaning: as superior or subordi-nate, success or failure, wealthy or impoverished, cultured or uncouth. San FioreseAustralians, for example, interpret their informal dress code as a symbol of theirfreedom and individuality, viewing their Italian counterparts as gossip-mongerssteeped in outmoded, fixed traditions. Women in particular prefer life in Australiabecause they feel it gives them more freedom; they agree with their daughters thatthe extended households common in San Fior are ‘the worst’ living arrangements.The ‘Italians’, on the other hand, see the ‘Australians’ as a primitive people with nosense of dress or fashion, no history, spirituality, or culture.

These strongly felt and often irreconcilable tensions, Baldassar notes, are evi-dence of particular forms of intense cultural production. Her view is that the inter-nal divisions and rivalries actually contribute to San Fior’s vitality, integrity andcollective identity; the competition ensures that each group can compare itself tothe other while together they represent parts of a collectivity. It is in comparison,competition and argument that people attempt to define who they are. Among emi-grants, people are identified not only by place of origin but also by generation andtime of departure. In Australia, some make a distinction between Australians whoregard themselves as Italians (good, cosmopolitan, from the North, living exem-plars of multiculturalism), and others who are trying to live as Italians in Australia,and do not mix with their English-speaking neighbours (bad, peasant, uncivilized,from the South, ‘woggy’).

How is this material relevant to demographers? To give just one example,notions of tradition, ethnicity and family are essential to explanations of differential

Book Reviews 95

fertility rates of different social groups. In much of this work, ‘ethnic traditions’ areseen as a store of normative behaviour transmitted primarily through the family,and gradually getting diluted as children acquire the norms of the host society. Incontrast, Baldassar emphasizes ethnicity as a contested cultural constructionaccomplished over historical time. Opposed both to ‘primordial’ and to ‘instru-mental’ notions of ethnicity, she sees ethnicity as dynamic, constantly reconstitutedin a process in which the return visit, or even planning such a visit, is crucial. Ethnicgroups in modern settings are constantly recreating themselves, and ethnicity isconstantly being reinvented in response to changing realities within the group.Group boundaries are renegotiated, new ‘traditions’ and symbols of ethnicityinvented. Contradictory and variable notions of ethnic identity are not a function ofimprecise measurement; they are the very essence of intensely felt but contestedbelonging.

Baldassar’s accomplished and well-written book is the result of more than tenyears’ work. This is both a strength and a weakness. Visits Home brings together awealth of information and insight that would be difficult if not impossible to gatherin a shorter space of time. Indeed, the book contains layers of investigation, refer-ences and statistics, some dating back to a 1986 Honours thesis, some drawing onrecent post-modern scholarship. In most instances, this mixing of styles and refer-ences does not really matter. However, closer attention to changes which haveoccurred during the long period since Baldassar first visited ‘home’ would havestrengthened the study, if only by providing longitudinal statistics. As it is, theauthor emphasizes the profound changes in the north during the period of ‘mirac-ulous’ economic development, but makes little reference to contemporary changes.While she remarks on the absence of a national identity among the people of SanFior, for example, some commentators note that the recent influx of immigrants intoItaly – not least as cheap labour in economically prosperous regions – has con-tributed to the creation of an unprecedented sense of Italian identity. But these areminor quibbles. The book provides a sophisticated complement to the study ofpopulations.

Reference

Caldwell, J.C. 1976. Toward a restatement of demographic transition theory. Population andDevelopment Review 2 (3–4): 321–366.

Pavla MillerSchool of Social Science and Planning

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

96 Book Reviews