Gerda Neyer, Gunnar Andersson, Hill Kulu, Laura Bernardi, and Christoph Bühler (eds.): The Demography of Europe

This edited volume is an extremely useful book with two powerful strengths. It has rich information on trends in fertility, mortality, and age structure for many parts of Europe and it provides major contributions to demographic theory on fertility, on life course changes for both the youngest and oldest adults, and even on migration. This collection began as a conference in honor of the retirement of Jan Hoem as Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research; it is a tribute to his impact on demography, in Europe and across the world. The coverage of European demography is, of course, uneven. There is nothing on European migration or immigration, despite the importance of the movement of people into and around the continent. However, David Lindstrom’s paper is a potential contribution for those interested in European migration. Using data on the occupational mobility of migrants returning from the United States to Mexico, he shows that few were able to convert their experience into upward occupational mobility in Mexico. The major payoff is that the increased resources allow return migrants to purchase farmland or establish businesses. Whether the problem is the lack of fit between the two economies, the segregation of Mexican workers in the US, or some other factor (or a combination of them all) challenges potential parallel studies of European flows. The life course papers also make important contributions. Two focus on older adults, one on inequalities in life expectancy (Vallin) and the other on Europe as the ‘‘oldest-old’’ continent (Rau, Muszynska, and Vaupel). Vallin delineates a wide range of inequalities (e.g., by age, gender, and geography) and shows how progress on three revolutions: control of infectious diseases, of cardiovascular illness, and ‘‘old-age mortality’’ shapes inequality of life expectancy. He shows, for example, how France has been more successful on the third revolution than the Netherlands, achieving three more years of female life expectancy at age 65.