INTERAGE TRANSFERS AND THE ROLE OF THE ELDERLY IN MAYA

这个拟议的合作项目将一位高级经济人口学家(Lee，Pi)与一位初级人类学家/人口学家(Kramer，Co-Pi)配对，研究墨西哥尤卡坦地区一群玛雅自给自足的农学家的代际转移。该项目将利用个人层面的数据，这些数据是基于克莱默早期实地考察中对各种活动的时间使用情况的详细观察和计算得出的。这些数据允许计算各个家庭内不同年龄的资源流动，以及消费和生产的总体年龄概况。更多的田野工作将收集更多关于工作年龄成年人和老年人的数据。这些数据将以不同的方式进行分析：结合Lee的中间转移的数学框架；根据个人数据计算特定年龄的流动矩阵；估计家庭的人口构成对劳动力努力、消费和中间转移的影响。这些分析将解决以下几类问题。这一群体的净转移方向是向上(从年轻到年长)还是向下？与其他研究(大多使用不太详细的数据)以及类似的食品生产系统中发现的模式相比，模式如何？老年人生产的产品比消费的产品多还是少？幸存子女和孙辈的存在如何影响老年人的工作努力？年龄较大但仍然共同居住的孩子是否提供了资源，使他们的父母能够在晚年继续生育？这些问题的答案将有助于我们认识和理解特定年龄的转移模式及其变化，老年人的经济角色，并可能有助于对长寿和更年期进化理论的讨论。

This proposed collaborative project pairs a senior economic demographer (lee, PI) with a junior anthropologist/demographer (Kramer, Co-PI) in a study of intergenerational transfers in a group of Maya subsistence agriculturalists in the Yucatan, Mexico. The project will draw on individual-level data, which are based on detailed time use observations and calculations of energetic expenditure and production for various activities from earlier fieldwork by Kramer. The data permit the calculation of resource flows across age within individual households, as well as aggregate age profiles of consumption and production. Additional fieldwork will collect further data on working age adults and older adults. These data will be analyzed in various ways: in conjunction with Lee's mathematical framework for interage transfers; to calculate a matrix of age-specific flows based on individual data; to estimate the effects of demographic composition of the household on labor effort, consumption and interage transfers. These analyses will address the following kinds of questions. Is the net direction of transfers in this group upwards (from younger to older) or downwards? How do patterns compare to those found in other studies (which mostly use less detailed data), and with similar food production systems? Do elders produce more or less than they consume? How does the presence of surviving children and grandchildren affect the work effort of older people? Do older, but still coresident children provide the resources that permit their parents to continue childbearing in their later reproductive years? The answers to these questions will contribute to our knowledge and understanding of age- specific transfer patterns and their changes, the economic role of the elderly, and possibly contribute to the discussion of evolutionary theories of longevity and menopause.