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1. BOOK REVIEWS
Basia Zaba and John Blacker (eds), Brass Tacks: Essays in Medical Demography: A
Tribute 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 to
the 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, each
of which has at least one author who was a ‘Brass student’ at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine between 1965 and 1988. If, as Griffith Feeney states
in 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 book
includes 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 somewhat
compensated for by the opportunity to write this review.
The papers fall into four groups, to all of which Bill contributed in one way or
another: demographic estimation of which Bill was the pioneer, biodemography,
developing-country demography (which includes applications of demographic
estimation) 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 build
on the best-known of the Brass methods, that of estimating child mortality from
proportions dead among children ever born to women by age. Both address the
problem of estimation bias arising from higher mortality risks for children born to
mothers 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 proxy
for exposure to the risk of dying. The method has the advantage of avoiding the
problems associated with using either age or marital duration, but requires extra
questions on month and year of first birth to be included in data collection. Martine
Collumbien and Andy Sloggett propose two population-specific adjustments for
the 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 15–19
and 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 models
of fertility and mortality, of the effect of higher infant mortality of births to teenage
mothers on proportions dead of children ever borne by women aged 20–24.
The third paper on demographic estimation, by Ian Timaeus, Basia Zaba and
Mohamed Ali, presents a new method for estimating adult mortality, based on the
survivorship of siblings. The method draws on the earlier sisterhood method for
estimating maternal mortality, and incorporates several important advances. It
Vol. 19, No. 1, 2002 Journal of Population Research
85

2. provides estimates of the mortality of all adult females, and is extended to cover
male mortality. The model of age differences between siblings incorporates the
asymmetry arising from non-stationarity of the population, and the coefficients
used 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 is
that 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 the
results of several studies involving the collection of biomedical data at the popula-
tion level, rather than in highly unrepresentative clinical settings. Two of these
studies use urinary hormonal markers, one to address the relationship between
breastfeeding and amenorrhoea which contributed to the development of the
Lactational Amenorrhoea Method of contraception, and the other to address infer-
tility and early pregnancy loss. The third study, conducted in Uganda with high
compliance rates, involves the voluntary home collection from women of urine and
blood 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 of
HIV-positive women have implications for HIV surveillance systems that rely on
pregnancy-related services.
HIV infection in women and children is also the subject of Marie-Louise
Newell’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 1970s
have shown a recent decline, only to be contradicted by the next survey, a situation
that is attributed to data problems. After detailed examination of the 1990–91
Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey in which a battery of Brass techniques
are applied, Juarez and Sathar are able to conclude that total fertility had declined
slightly during the last ten years and was estimated to be 6.1 in 1986–91. Noting a
convergence towards an achieved family size of about four, they confidently predict
a further quite sharp decline in the near future. It remains to be seen whether this
turns out to be the case.
The paper by Sheila Macrae, E. Bauni and John Blacker also addresses the issue
of whether or not fertility decline is under way, but in Kenya. Brass had himself
been 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 verified
by analysis of subsequent data. Using no less than six sources of data, which
showed remarkable consistency once deficiencies were taken into account, Macrae,
Bauni and Blacker clearly demonstrate that the decline not only had occurred but
was ‘sudden and substantial’ (p.159) and continued at a rapid pace to descend
below 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 shown
to be primarily postpartum infecundity, followed by contraceptive prevalence
which was increasing. Though there has been a transition to later marriage, this was
partly offset by increases in extramarital childbearing. Interestingly, the analysis
86 Book Reviews

3. also reveals that before the decline, fertility had been increasing steadily: women
born in the nineteenth century had about six births on average, while those born in
the 1940s had nearly eight.
The paper by Hoda Rashad on Arab fertility experience shows that though the
fertility transition began somewhat later than in other parts of the world and from
higher 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 been
largely due to changes in marriage patterns, rather than to any significant increase
in contraceptive use. Through comparative analysis of the experience of Sudan,
Syria and Yemen, Rashad identifies worsening economic conditions, rather than
development, as an important determinant of fertility decline, to levels that are
below desired family size. She also shows how different factors have resulted in
similar levels of fertility in countries with dissimilar levels of socio-economic devel-
opment and contraceptive prevalence (Sudan and Syria), and in dissimilar levels of
fertility 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 Sara
Randall of the difficulties involved in measuring population growth and population
dynamics in the populations of the Northern Sahel. Randall convincingly argues
that the conventional categorization according to production systems is of no use for
addressing 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 the
advantages and disadvantages of adopting an ethnicity-based demography. She
concludes that ethnic homogeneity should be built into the methodology and that
the most fruitful method of data collection is to carry out rapid single-round surveys
asking 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 Joshi
examine the stability of individual male and female family members as markers for
the identification of families in longitudinal studies. The idea was originally pro-
posed by Brass, and he suggested that females would be better markers than males
despite conventional ideas about the sex of a household head. The study shows that
Brass was right: in Britain women are indeed more consistent family markers since
they 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 and
they have lower mortality.
The paper by John Osborn, Angela Spinelli and Maria Sofia Cattaruzza presents
a ‘novel’ method of comparing regional and national measures for different points
in time by expressing the regional levels in terms of years behind or ahead of the
national 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 for
Italy and regions, showing mean lead and lag times and identifying regions by their
Book Reviews 87

4. 88 Book Reviews
temporal position, relative to the national, and whether changes in position are
made.
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 registers
contain information on age and sex only, and a proportional allocation method is
employed 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 the
practical effects and implications for health service use and planning. They also
illustrate the proportional allocation technique and discuss the methodological
problems 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 of
a possibly changing relationship between the two. This chapter includes a brief
review of relevant theoretical debates and of health and social policy in Britain dur-
ing the period in question. Though improvements in mortality occurred at younger
ages, little improvement took place at age 65+, particularly for males. Grundy
points to the emergence of new viruses (Asian influenza), the harsher implementa-
tion of assistance schemes for the impoverished elderly, and increased heart disease
mortality from smoking and dietary fat intake as factors impeding mortality
decline. However, the evidence for increased morbidity is weak, not least because
of a paucity of data.
These papers are testimony not only to the breadth of Bill’s contribution to
demography, 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 note
that 16 of the 24 authors are women. This is no happy coincidence. Bill used to say
that 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 of
errors and presentational defects that proofreading should have removed. Among
the citation problems, for example, are incorrect authors’ names (including my
own!), 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 collection
shows that to indeed have been the case.
Heather Booth
Demography and Sociology Program
Research School of Social Sciences
The Australian National University
Jacob S. Siegel, Applied Demography: Applications to Business, Government, Law and
Public Policy. San Diego: Academic Press. 2002. 686 pp.
The recent years have seen significant changes to the emphases and structures of
Australian universities. In particular, disciplines with clearly defined career paths,

5. Book Reviews 89
especially the various branches of business studies, have grown rapidly in their
number of staff, the number of courses they offer, and the number of students they
serve. In this changed context there is a need for university demography disciplines
to reassess the relevance of their units to the study programs and career directions
of the students who elect to enrol in their course, and to change the emphasis of
their 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 towards
equipping the reader for ‘real work’. Pragmatic priorities would appear to underlie
the 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 a
wonderfully varied range of examples, drawn from the business, government and
non-profit sectors.
According to the preface, Applied Demography is intended for use as a textbook
by advanced undergraduates and postgraduates and as a reference handbook for
demographic practitioners. Certainly some prior knowledge of the elements of
demography 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 statistical
techniques which in my experience are taught only at more advanced levels.
This is clearly a book designed with the American market in mind, since the
examples of demographic trends and applications almost invariably relate to the
United States, with passing mentions of examples from other countries relegated to
appendices. Educators using this text to teach students from other countries will
face a need to make clear the distinctions between their countries’ demographic
trends, 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’ before
briefly, to my mind too briefly to serve as a useful reference, sketching some of the
more important methods that would be covered in an introduction to technical
demography. In Chapter 2 a concise account of recent demographic trends in the
United 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 and
federal 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 race
and 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 displays
of demographic data, presented in Appendix A, would be a most useful compilation
were it not for a significant number of the addresses being either out of date or not
functioning. Chapter 4 discusses the sources of error in census and survey data.
Chapter 5 covers the classification, retrieval and analysis of geographically
defined demographic data. Whilst the analysis of the spatial distribution of demo-
graphic data is undoubtedly of major importance in applied demography, the lack

6. 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 Applied
Demography from other demographic textbooks. Chapter 6 focuses on the role of
demography in the strategic planning of business expansion and contraction. Since
most demography graduates will seek work in the private sector, this is arguably
the most important chapter. Siegel’s eye for the practical considerations is evident
in 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 demographic
variables in the definition of market segments and target markets, and discusses the
demographic and non-demographic factors affecting business location. The inclu-
sion of a section on the use of multiple regression in the analysis of the profitability
of business establishments is a particularly pleasant surprise, because too many of
the existing demographic textbooks omit coverage of this essential element of
empirical 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 placed
later 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 by
government and nonprofit organizations, devotes much attention to the use of
measures of race and Hispanic origin, socio-economic disadvantage, and life tables
in 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, sex
and race, paying particular attention to the subnational level. Chapter 11 focuses on
estimates and projections of households, labour force, school enrolment, educa-
tional attainment and health. All three chapters discuss a wide range of methods
and include lengthy sections on the evaluation of accuracy and utility. Whilst these
chapters offer an authoritative coverage of the topics which would be useful for
specialized statistical demographers, I fear some sections may prove too technical
to 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 US
Congress, state legislatures and local councils, and the use of demographic data in
the allocation of public funds. Chapter 13 discusses some of the implications of
demographic trends for America’s public debate. Issues highlighted include the
economic effects of immigration; the legitimacy of sex differentials in the premiums
and benefits of insurance and retirement programs; the implications of age-
structure changes for the solvency of the US Social Security program; the allocation
of 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 the
analysis of organizational populations, for example to counts of business units or
schools, provides additional examples to those in the final section of Chapter 6 of
the wider transferability of demographic skills.
90 Book Reviews

7. All chapters are backed up with extensive lists of suggested readings, which are
helpfully classified by section heading. A brief epilogue muses on the nature of
applied demography, before pointing the reader to lists of professional associations
and 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 of
Commerce in Business ‘Demographic Analysis in Business’ unit at Macquarie
University. Reading Applied Demography I was fascinated to learn about the wide
range of uses of demography in the United States, and delighted to discover a text
which provides such authoritative coverage not only of the standard demographic
fare 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 limited
means, 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 with
enough dollars saved up and an interest in applied demographic methods or the
uses of applied demography in America.
Nick Parr
Demographic Research Group
Department of Business
Division 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 is
almost a single-handed version of James Jupp’s The Australian People. The book pro-
vides accounts of nineteenth and twentieth-century migrant movements from
Britain, Europe and Asia to Australia. Burnley explores the factors which have
shaped the movements of these peoples and their subsequent settlement patterns.
The work is highly descriptive and organized around the main migrant locations in
Australia, no doubt reflecting Burnley’s academic role as a geographer. This is an
impressive 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 the
area. This descends to the level of patterns of residence and business in particular
local communities. To the extent that I was familiar with this detail it appeared to
be accurate. The odd error crept in, as with his account of the Chinese community
in Australia and the role of former students in contributing to this community. He
notes that some 20,000 Chinese students were in Australia at the time of the
Tiananmen massacre in mid-1989 – all of whom were granted permanent residence
by the Hawke government. He does not note that another 20,000 or so of those who
had already applied for student visas by mid-1989 were also subsequently allowed
to 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 Mr
Ruddock was immigration minister.
Book Reviews 91

8. The major topical issue explored in the book concerns the implications of ethnic
concentrations, especially those in Sydney. On this question, Burnley takes a
strongly polemical stance. He wants to refute the ‘several social scientists, numer-
ous politicians, and sections of the media [who] have consistently criticised spatial
concentration of immigrant communities, and more specifically, post-1970 arrivals’
(p. xv). He does not name the social scientists in question, reference their work or
give any precision to their arguments. It is a debate with an empty chair. But since
Burnley’s position on this issue is so insistent it is likely to attract the attention of
readers, 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. On
these 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 group
dominant. He concludes that ‘most areas of residential concentration are culturally
heterogeneous’ (p. 288). By this criterion there are no ghettoes.
Burnley puts great emphasis on this finding. He takes a post-modernist stance
arguing 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 who
worry about concentrations of migrants are mistaken. After a long discussion of
Western Sydney suburbs, including Fairfield, which feature high ethnic concentra-
tions, Burnley puts the rhetorical question, is diversity good or bad? His answer is
that it is positive (p. 268). For example, in schools in these areas, ‘opportunities have
been 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 in
which cultural differences have played a part’. But ‘there are no intrinsic reasons
why these difficulties cannot be solved and once they are, most will benefit from
diversity’ (p. 267).
Perhaps Burnley is right. But it would have helped in judging his case if he had
provided a clearer analysis of the relationship between ethnic diversity and the
global city (in which category he places Sydney). Is there an intrinsic relationship
as implied in the post-modern imagery quoted above? Burnley shows that there is
in relation to the presence of overseas corporation personnel, such as finance and IT
specialists, operating in Australia. There are significant concentrations of these peo-
ple in the North Shore communities of Sydney. But the ethnic concentrations which
are central to the debate with which Burnley is engaged concern Sydney’s western
suburbs. The Middle Eastern, Indochinese and other non-English-speaking-back-
ground (NESB) communities resident in this area are a product of family reunion
and 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 their
relative 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 be
related to the formation of enclave economies (p. 239). Burnley claims that ‘most
Australian researchers have found that the enclave model is as inappropriate as the
ghetto in explaining labour market and residential trends’ (p. 239). But there is no
92 Book Reviews

9. discussion of this theory in the theoretical introduction (Chapter 2) and no mention
of the work of A. Portes, the leading theorist on the subject. Portes’s work on
enclave economies, such as the Cuban enclave in Miami, explores the ways NESB
communities react to their economic disadvantage. One response is to focus on the
servicing 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 for
goods and services outside the enclave (Portes 1985). An example is the prolifera-
tion of out-work in the clothing industry within the Vietnamese community in
Sydney 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 draw
persons 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 of
employment, it is hard to see how their economic activities are ‘normative’ for the
global 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 a
reader 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 book
contains a detailed description of the activities within the Indochinese community
in 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 be
expected in an ethnic-enclave economy. According to Burnley, by the late 1990s
‘Cabramatta was a vibrant commercial and cultural dynamo’ (p. 254). This is not
the way the area is described in the press. Burnley implies that it is the unnamed
critics who have (improperly) sullied this ‘dynamo’ with the tag of drug dealing
and criminal behaviour. Nevertheless, his fact-gathering zeal is such that he pro-
vides ample information about these criminal activities. A reader might well reach
a 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: University
of 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 wisely
noted that ‘a good study on a single village could be worth a great deal; defective
work 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 not
dealing specifically with demography, the author’s detailed ethnographic work
Book Reviews 93

10. 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 of
San 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 return
visits to Italy and conducted many in-depth interviews. The migration experiences
between Italy and Australia are described against a backdrop of regional social and
economic history, local festivals, organizations, public and private spaces.
The unifying theme of the book is that the migration experience cannot be
understood 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 indelibly
affected both by the family and community they left behind, and the one they
encountered 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 to
link those who left and those who stayed. Even this dichotomy is insufficient: peo-
ple work in different countries, return, emigrate again, visit, their children settle
close to one or another’s ‘home’ or move somewhere else again.
This approach, according to Baldassar, amounts to treating the home and host
countries as part of the same ‘social field’; within this field, ‘persistent circulation
gradually endows places and regions of origin with heightened meaning both for
the locally born and for outsiders’. She notes that routine immigration statistics are
not designed to capture the complexity of such community weaving: they tend to
record the total number of entries and exits, but not the persons who travel; so it is
not 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 depressed
area, sometimes called the ‘south of the north’; today it is one of the richest parts of
Italy, routinely referred to as the ‘America’ migrants originally set out to discover.
This economic miracolo had fundamentally altered the relations between emigrants
and townspeople. In explaining their decision to emigrate, many of those who left
in the period of la misèria after World War II stated simply ‘there was no work, no
money, no choice’. In leaving, they not only made possible their own economic
security, but through remittances underwrote the economic survival of those who
remained. In this way, emigration did not break up families, but rather formed a
means of keeping a family together. In the 1950s and 1960s, emigrants were indeed
much 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 of
migration: 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 to
riches, or lost the gamble to become successful. The town of San Fior is both an unfit
provider and abandoner of its children; it is both remorseful and forgiving.
Whatever the case, the ‘symbolic competition’ between the two places must be
negotiated carefully for the emigrants to be accepted when they visit.
Baldassar notes that when she asked Italians in Australia why they visited Italy
so 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
94 Book Reviews

11. town, she concluded, are proof of a successful establishment in Australia. Visits
reveal not only the importance of ties to family, and in particular bonds between
mother and child, but also the significance of attachment to place, to the sights and
smells of the home town. Visiting and sharing meals with the family help develop
consociate identity; more recently, sight-seeing and shopping for clothing and
household goods have become important for the construction of particular versions
of 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 become
truly Italian, and cement ties of reciprocity and mutual obligation with kin. Unlike
their parents, however, the Australian-born second generation tend to define what
it 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 and
pellagra common in the region fifty years ago. Indeed, Baldassar claims that the
course of ethnic identity in Australia is strongly influenced by the rise of what she
calls 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, migrants
gained 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 struggle
to integrate each other into competing worlds of meaning: as superior or subordi-
nate, success or failure, wealthy or impoverished, cultured or uncouth. San Fiorese
Australians, for example, interpret their informal dress code as a symbol of their
freedom and individuality, viewing their Italian counterparts as gossip-mongers
steeped in outmoded, fixed traditions. Women in particular prefer life in Australia
because they feel it gives them more freedom; they agree with their daughters that
the 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 no
sense 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 and
collective identity; the competition ensures that each group can compare itself to
the 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 and
time of departure. In Australia, some make a distinction between Australians who
regard 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

12. fertility rates of different social groups. In much of this work, ‘ethnic traditions’ are
seen as a store of normative behaviour transmitted primarily through the family,
and gradually getting diluted as children acquire the norms of the host society. In
contrast, Baldassar emphasizes ethnicity as a contested cultural construction
accomplished over historical time. Opposed both to ‘primordial’ and to ‘instru-
mental’ notions of ethnicity, she sees ethnicity as dynamic, constantly reconstituted
in a process in which the return visit, or even planning such a visit, is crucial. Ethnic
groups in modern settings are constantly recreating themselves, and ethnicity is
constantly being reinvented in response to changing realities within the group.
Group boundaries are renegotiated, new ‘traditions’ and symbols of ethnicity
invented. Contradictory and variable notions of ethnic identity are not a function of
imprecise measurement; they are the very essence of intensely felt but contested
belonging.
Baldassar’s accomplished and well-written book is the result of more than ten
years’ work. This is both a strength and a weakness. Visits Home brings together a
wealth of information and insight that would be difficult if not impossible to gather
in 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 on
recent post-modern scholarship. In most instances, this mixing of styles and refer-
ences does not really matter. However, closer attention to changes which have
occurred during the long period since Baldassar first visited ‘home’ would have
strengthened the study, if only by providing longitudinal statistics. As it is, the
author 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 San
Fior, for example, some commentators note that the recent influx of immigrants into
Italy – not least as cheap labour in economically prosperous regions – has con-
tributed to the creation of an unprecedented sense of Italian identity. But these are
minor quibbles. The book provides a sophisticated complement to the study of
populations.
Reference
Caldwell, J.C. 1976. Toward a restatement of demographic transition theory. Population and
Development Review 2 (3–4): 321–366.
Pavla Miller
School of Social Science and Planning
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
96 Book Reviews