Cross Cultural Study of Demographic Processes in Maya and Pume Transitional Subsistence Economies

世界上大多数自给人口，狩猎采集者和农业家，正在融入劳动力市场经济，对生育率产生了意想不到的影响。 以前对玛雅人的研究表明，经济发展增加了儿童的经济价值，提高了父母的生育率。 当儿童死亡率低时，如墨西哥和危地马拉的玛雅人，这导致人口迅速增长。 这一趋势在全国人口普查数据中并不明显，并提出了一个问题，即在向现代化过渡的过程中，生育率的变化是否比以前想象的要大得多。这项研究旨在拓宽我们对总体数据和个体数据如何对当前人口统计过程以及发展对非工业化人口的潜在人口影响给出不同看法的理解。 小规模人口研究的优点是，其方法可以更直接地观察经济发展影响生育率和死亡率的系统性相互作用和复杂途径。本研究在几个委内瑞拉Pume觅食和农业社区发起民族志研究，以解决经济发展和人口过程之间的相互作用，并将结果与玛雅人先前研究的结果进行比较。 实地工作包括在资助期间每年与Pume一起生活几个月，以收集几个稀树草原和河流村庄的经济，人口普查和生殖历史数据。 数据收集和随后的分析将侧重于查明在维持生计、定居、教育、市场食品供应、保健和交通路线邻近程度方面的差异，以及这些经济指标如何随童工价值、儿童死亡率和生育率而变化。普梅人是比较分析的理想研究人群，因为1）稀树草原和河流群体在相同的一般环境中表达了连续的经济战略和人口状况，因为2）普梅人通过参与工资劳动而不是农业集约化进入国民经济，玛雅人也是如此。 比较玛雅人口对经济变化的反应与对比普梅社区将确定其他人口对营养，劳动力和经济机会变化的反应。 更广泛的影响：这一项目的新知识将使发展中区域的人口规划人员和服务提供者感兴趣。 除了这项研究对发展计划和政策制定的价值外，该项目还将启动一项Pume文化生存计划，促进来自阿根廷，委内瑞拉和美国的学生和学者的国际参与，并为学生提供参与国外学习的机会，积极追求自己的先进研究。

Most of the world's subsistence populations, hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists, are becoming incorporated into the labor-market economy, with unexpected effects on fertility. Previous research among the Maya suggests that economic developments augment children's economic value and raise parental fertility. When child mortality is low, as it is among the Maya of Mexico and Guatemala, this leads to rapid population growth. This trend is not evident in national census data and raises the question of whether fertility processes through the transition to modernization are far more variable than previously thought. This research seeks to broaden our understanding of how aggregate and individual data give different views of current demographic processes, and the potential demographic effects that development has on nonindustrialized populations. The advantage of small-scale population studies is that the methodology allows more direct observation of the systematic interactions and complex pathways through which economic development affects fertility and mortality. This research initiates ethnographic study in several Venezuelan Pume foraging and agricultural communities to address the interaction between economic development and demographic processes and compare the results to results from prior research among the Maya. Fieldwork involves living with the Pume for several months each year during the funding period to collect economic, census and reproductive history data in several savanna and river villages. Data collection and subsequent analyses will focus on identifying variation in subsistence, sedentarization, education, availability of market foods, health care and proximity to transportation routes, and how these economic markers vary with the value of children's labor, child mortality and fertility. The Pume are an ideal study population for comparative analyses because 1) the savanna and river groups express a continuum of economic strategies and demographic situations in the same general environment, and because 2) the Pume are entering the national economy through participation in wage labor rather than agricultural intensification, as are the Maya. Comparing the Maya demographic response to economic change with the contrasting Pume communities will identify additional demographic responses to alterations in nutrition, labor, and economic opportunity. Broader Impacts: The new knowledge from this project will be of interest to population planners and service providers concerned with developing regions. In addition to the value of this research to development programs and policy making, the project will initiate a program in Pume Cultural Survival, promotes international involvement of students and scholars from Argentina, Venezuela and the U.S, and provides an opportunity for students to participate in foreign study and actively pursue their own advanced research.