Estimates of recent fertility were produced for all Nigeria and for the four broad geographical regions using data from the Nigeria Fertility Survey (NFS) of 1981/1982. The results indicated that fertility was quite high in the decade of the 1970s at an average total fertility rate of 6.8. Analysis of differentials by demographic and other background characteristics, and of determinants, did not show evidence of large shifts in fertility trend in any specific direction, especially when the quality of the data is considered alongside the estimates. It was suggested that, the influence of reporting errors in the NFS notwithstanding, fertility for all of Nigeria appeared to have remained roughly stable at very high levels in the 1970s. Chapter 1 introduced the project, its aim, scope and methodology, and highlighted some features which should be put into consideration in any analysis using the NFS data. Chapter 2 drew attention to possible effects of the quality of the information collected in the NFS on estimates and analysis of fertility. In Chapter 3, the estimated results were presented and, with additional data from other sources, used to examine whether fertility was stable, rising or falling in the recent past in Nigeria. Chapter 4 examined any variations in fertility due to age, age at marriage and age at motherhood with measures estimated when analysis was indexed by age at survey and durations of marriage and motherhood as further search for possible sources of any early fertility change. Chapter 5 carried out an integrated examination of the socioeconomic and proximate determinants of fertility with the same aim as in Chapter 4. Chapter 6 presented a summary of the major findings with a brief discussion of their implications for further research in Nigerian fertility and for the fertility target of the 1988 government policy on population.

Previous studies have suggested four hypotheses regarding the outcomes in the migration-fertility relation (i.e. 'socialization', 'adaptation', 'selectivity', and 'disruption' effects). However, there has been a lack of attention to the intervening mechanisms that help to understand the interaction between social factors and the reproductive patterns of migrants, and that has led to contradictory findings. In this thesis a Proximate Determinants approach is used as the appropriate analytical framework to elucidate the interaction between geographical mobility and reproductive behaviour, and its macro-demographic policy implications. This framework is used to analyze the reproductive behaviour of the migrant and native groups of Baja California, Mexico. The main data source used for this analysis is the 1986 Baja California Demographic Survey (BCDS), which was based on a probability self-weighted multi-stage household sample, selected from four independent Municipal sampling frames. In relation to those groups of the population of Baja California, the two main findings of this study are: i) patterns of marriage, contraceptive use and effectiveness, and the practise of breast-feeding amongst the native group seem to reflect a more 'modernized' attitude toward fertility behaviour, since in relation to the migrant group, lower proportions marry and they marry at older ages; higher proportions use contraception, and; fewer breast-feed and for shorter periods than their migrant counterparts, and; ii) regardless of birth-cohort, migrant women who spend their formative period in a rural environment, are more likely to achieve 'high' marital cumulative-fertility than native women in the same birth-cohort who spent their formative period in a urban setting and, furthermore, after controlling for education there is no evidence that within a given birth-cohort, migrants with longer periods of exposure are more likely to have 'low' marital cumulative-fertility than women of the same age who had shorter exposure periods to the new socio-economic environment.

This thesis examines the dynamics of fertility in Eastern Africa with a particular focus on urban women. Urbanisation has long been closely associated with demographic transition and the reproductive behaviour of urban women is thought to provide insights about the future fertility transition at the national level. A mixed methods approach is used to explore birth intervals, family building strategies and women‟s fertility intentions. The quantitative analysis uses Demographic and Health Survey data from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, while the qualitative analysis uses data from focus group discussions that I conducted in two informal settlements of Nairobi, Kenya. The analysis of birth intervals uses survival analysis to calculate interval-duration-specific fertility rates, median birth intervals and parity progression ratios. These are used to make inferences about fertility decision-making at the population level. Birth intervals are long and lengthening in all four countries, particularly among women who have used contraception and women with higher levels of education. Large differences exist in birth interval lengths between rural and urban women, even when the results are disaggregated by contraceptive use and educational status. Generally, lengthening birth intervals are being driven by increasing birth postponement and birth spacing, with postponement dominating among women with very long birth intervals. In Ethiopia, there is some evidence of parity-specific family size limitation. The focus group discussions were analysed using a thematic approach. Urban living, particularly in the informal settlements, is characterised by high levels of social uncertainty, especially among new immigrants from rural areas. This is an important influence on women‟s relationships, which are found to be highly unstable. Fertility intentions are found to be fluid and contingent upon a variety of different factors in women‟s lives. As a result, women‟s decisions about birth spacing and family size are less distinct than demographic theory often assumes. In sum, this thesis contributes to the body of research suggesting that long birth intervals and postponement are both important features of the fertility transition in Sub-Saharan Africa. These phenomenon are related to each other: social uncertainty leads to fluid fertility intentions, which, in turn cause the widespread postponement of births and lengthening birth intervals.

This is an ethnographic study of users of the oral contraceptive pill at a London specialist clinic. The pill was introduced in the United Kingdom in 1964 and is currently provided free of charge to twenty-five percent of British women. It has had a major impact on the sexual and reproductive lives of people in contemporary Britain. This ethnographic analysis of the pill contributes to our understanding of the cultural meanings and practices associated with the pill and shows some of the fundamental assumptions and expectations of pill users about their lives, including particularly ideas of femininity and nature. In this thesis, the central question of how the 'natural facts' of femininity are constantly negotiated in both private and public domains will be explored through the related examples of pregnancy, sex, and menstruation, as experienced and conceptualised by the women in this study. The ways in which these women use, think and talk about the pill demonstrate their efforts to balance the often contradictory demands made upon their bodies and persons in various social fields as they participate in social terrains once inhabited primarily by men. Therefore, a key argument will be that the social life of the pill is inseparable from the constitution of femininity and female bodies more broadly. This thesis contributes to the anthropological theory of "natural facts" by providing an example of how they are mobilised by women using the pill. It suggests that "natural facts" continue to provide a privileged ground for femininity. It adds to research on gender in the UK by illustrating the strategies employed by women at both symbolic and relational levels as they attempt to control their identities in the face of changing conventions and institutions. Finally, it is hoped that this ethnographic illustration of the experiences of pill users will provide insights relevant to the work of public health practitioners.

Chromosome translocations that disrupt the Mixed Lineage Leukaemia (MLL) gene are associated with a unique subset of acute myelogenous and lymphoblastic leukaemias. MLL translocations are most prevalent in infant leukaemia, where they comprise 80% of cases of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and 60% of cases in acute myeloid leukaemia. To identify transcriptional target genes required for the immortalisation, previous work in our laboratory involved generating constitutively and conditionally immortalised primary mouse haematopoietic progenitor cells. Global gene expression analysis, upon loss of MLL-fusion protein, identified a number of genes that were differentially expressed. This project aims to investigate the importance of two differentially expressed genes, Msi2 and Ruvbl2, in MLL-fusion mediated leukaemogenesis. To examine the efficacy of targeting Ruvbl2 and Msi2 in leukaemia elimination in vivo, shRNA inducible models were generated for the human leukaemic cell line, THP1 and murine MLL-ENL leukaemic cells. While targeting Msi2 had no significant impact on leukaemia progression in vivo, inhibiting RUVBL2 function significantly delayed leukaemia onset. RUVBL2 is a member of the AAA+ family of DNA helicases and plays an important role in diverse cellular processes. RUVBL2 was inhibited either via shRNA-mediated knockdown or through the expression of a dominant-negative mutant form of RUVBL2, and its inhibition resulted in a marked increase in apoptosis, reduction in colony formation and a block in cell cycle. In parallel, while expression of dominant-negative RUVBL2 induced apoptosis in mouse MLL-ENL leukaemic cells, it had a relatively mild impact on normal haematopoietic progenitor colony formation in vitro. Further experiments indicated that RUVBL2 functioned mainly through influencing the transcriptional activity of c-MYC. Taken together, our data suggest that a potential therapeutic window exists for targeting RUVBL2 function in MLL-rearranged leukaemia.

From 1929 to 1930 the total puerperal mortality rate in the County of Lancashire has been substantially higher than the rate for England and Wales In 1920 the Lancashire rate was 4.98, in 1923 it had fallen to its lowest level, 4.43, in 1926 it reached its highest level, 6.70, and In 1930 the figure was 6.19. The Minister of Health draws attention to the fact that the highest rates are found in sparsely populated rural areas e. g., Wales and Westmorland, or in Counties with a large industrial population such as Lancashire and the West Riding. He also publishes a table giving those County Boroughs which have had an average maternal mortality rate of over 5 per 1,000 live births for the seven years 1923-29 inclusive. There 18 of them. Eight of them are In Lancashire, 7 are in Yorkshire and only one is in the South.

Population Genetics theory suggests that gene flow plays a prominent role in reducing genetic heterogeneity in a species. This project attempted to assess the opportunity for gene flow in an eastern Durham population in the ~nineteenth century by measuring the migration that is associated with marriage, then utilised these observations to predict changes in the genetical structure of the population. The marrriage data, obtained from Anglican Parish registers (1797-1876) and the 1851 Census, were analysed in the form of migration matrices which predicted the time taken for two places to become related and therefore genetically uniform. Coal-mining transformed the four parishes of the study area from an agricultural~ sparsely populated region to a populous industrial complex. Historical observations suggested that this 'nev1' population was both spatially and socially distinct from the rural one and this was confirmed by the matrix analysis that indicated strong positive assortment for occupation which, it was thought, would lead to a 'patchy' distribution of genetical traits. The relative merits of the two data sources, the defects in the matrix technique and the implications for other industrial areas were discussed.

The purpose of the study is to explore the trend in natural fertility and its components in China over half a century from the 1940s to the 1980s. One of the most important components of fertility, natural fertility and its secular rising trend in modern China, have never been systematically addressed, thus providing the scope for the present study. By fully using recent information on China's population and social development, this thesis documents and analyses the trend of natural fertility in China since the 1940s. The literature review of natural fertility and its proximate and background determinants comes as the first part after the introduction. An important methodological part of the study comes next. The main data sources are introduced, problems of applying Coale and Trussell's model are discussed and an adjusted version of the model is proposed. Finally, technical problems are also addressed, including such matters as modifying data sources to meet required measurements, assessing the limitations of estimated results, suggesting ways to avoid data truncation and so on. The major part of the thesis consists in the next four chapters, which involve a thorough demographic analysis of natural fertility levels and trends for the nation as a whole, and of different aspects such as urban-rural differentials, regional variations and educational divergences. The proximate determinants: fecundability and birth intervals, breastfeeding, primary sterility, and age at first marriage are also analyzed at length. Finally, the importance of socio-economic conditions on natural fertility change is analysed. The quantitative relationship between natural fertility and these socio-economic conditions was statistically tested and an analytical model was built, which proves to be well able to simulate the identified trends in natural fertility.

Official fertility estimates in Ethiopia show that fertility is high and varies regionally. However, the causes and correlates are not well understood. This thesis investigates the levels, trends and differentials of fertility in two administrative regions, Arsi and Shoa in Central Ethiopia using data from the Population, Health and Nutrition Project baseline survey conducted by the Ministry of Health in 1986. It also provides the socioeconomic and demographic explanations of high fertility in these regions. The thesis examines data limitations and identifies the types and sources of error. Missing, incomplete or inconsistent dates in the birth history are imputed and the validity of the data for fertility studies is assessed. Indirect demographic techniques and period-cohort analysis of birth histories are used for estimating fertility trends, and multivariate analysis is applied for examining fertility differentials. The population is shown to have high and rising fertility. Total fertility increased from about six children per woman around 1970 to about eight children in the early 1980s. Most of this increase occurred between 1977 and 1982. Significant rural-urban, religious and ethnic differentials are also observed. Early and universal marriage, high infant and child mortality, pro-natal cultural and religious values, low levels of infertility and the absence of birth control methods are investigated as possible explanations for the fertility patterns. Change in marital fertility brought about by the decline in the duration and intensity of breastfeeding and increase in exposure to the risk of childbearing through reduced spousal separation are identified as the major causes of the recent rise, while variations in breastfeeding patterns, infant and child mortality and stability of marriage rather than differences in contraceptive use appear to explain most of the observed differentials. The study concludes by identifying methodological problems and needs for future research. The implications of the study are underscored with specific policy recommendations.

Following the logic of the proximate determinants framework for child survival analysis, the study shows how the main socioeconomic inequalities in neonatal, post-neonatal, and child mortality observed in 1981-86 Ondo State were produced. Unlike most previous studies of early childhood mortality factors in Nigeria, the study explicitly investigates the linking mechanisms between key socio-economic factors and child survival. Local area infrastructural development is shown to be the main socioeconomic factor in neonatal mortality while household disposable income status along with local area infrastructural development showed the strongest impacts upon post-neonatal mortality. Household disposable income status emerged as the main socioeconomic factor affecting mortality during ages 1-4, with maternal education showing no strong effects even in this age segment where its impact may be expected to be most strongly felt. The integrated analysis demonstrates that much of the observed infant mortality advantage of residence in more developed local areas is due to easier physical and real access to modern health services and that most of the child mortality benefits conveyed by high household income status derive primarily from better home sanitary conditions and secondarily from better quality of curative and home care for very ill children.