Son Preference,Autonomy and Maternal Health in Rural India

The primary objective of this paper is to identify factors that affect maternal health in rural India. This is important given the high maternal and infant mortality rates in India, particularly rural India. The paper will focus particularly on whether and how the culture and practice of son preference (which is well documented in South Asia) has had an impact on maternal health. Assuming parents do not have access to knowledge about the sex of their unborn child, this paper examines whether a pregnant mother's maternal care (prior to giving birth) is affected by the presence of son(s) from earlier pregnancies. Additionally, the paper will analyze the impact of mothers' autonomy on their maternal health. The results show that existence of sons reduces the likelihood of receiving maternal care for successive pregnancies. Maternal autonomy, especially the mother's education, increases the likelihood of receiving maternal care. The results have meaningful policy implications.     

Land fragmentation,women empowerment and school dropout of children in Vietnam

This study examines the effect of land fragmentation on school dropout of children in Vietnam. To address the endogeneity issue, the study proposes an instrumental variable – that is land per capita at the commune level. The study also uses another instrumental variable – the percentage of land plot acquisition before 1993 – to check the robustness of the results. The findings are that higher land fragmentation decreases child school dropout. Land fragmentation has significant impacts on school dropout of children aged 10–15, however, it does not have any impact on school dropout of children aged 6–10. We explain these findings through one particular mechanism – that is women empowerment. A higher level of land fragmentation increases women empowerment in deciding to visit family, friends or relatives, the purchase of daily goods, large purchases, their own health, and their children’s health. A variety of robustness checks corroborate these findings.     

Does having more children increase the likelihood of parental smoking? Evidence from Vietnam

Evidence has shown that parental smoking can cause health problems for children. It might be expected that parents who are aware of the harmful effects of second-hand smoke will reduce their smoking, especially as they have more children. However, based on instrumental variable regressions using data from the 2006 and 2008 Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys, we find a strongly positive and significant effect of the number of children on the probability of tobacco smoking in households in Vietnam. An additional child increases the probability of tobacco consumption in the household by approximately 15%. These findings imply low levels of awareness of the harmful effects of second-hand smoke on children’s health in Vietnam, and indicate the need for policy action to disseminate knowledge on the harmful effects of smoking.     

Sibling Differences in School Attendance and Child Labour in Ethiopia

This paper examines the effects of sibling composition on children's school attendance and participation in market and domestic work in Ethiopia. The major finding is that earlier-born males in rural areas are more likely to attend school than their younger siblings. A similar effect is apparent for rural females and urban children as well, though it is not as robust to varying estimation methods and sensitivity tests. In both areas, the chances of participation in market work are higher for older children, particularly males, while in domestic work, which remains largely the domain of female children, being an earlier-born girl also increases the odds of working. These effects of birth order on work are largely unaffected by the gender of the younger siblings or by the age difference with the last child.     

Water Management,Spanish Irrigation Communities and Colonial Engineers

In the nineteenth century, Spanish irrigation was studied by a number of British and French engineers, who sought to acquire knowledge that could be applied to India and Algeria. In their reports, they said that Spanish irrigation communities were run by the irrigators themselves in a totally democratic way, which was not true. Although such ideas had hardly any practical consequences in colonial India and Algeria, they did have important repercussions in Spain, where the irrigation institutions came to resemble the image they had been given by the reporters, with the best results. Through the work of Elinor Ostrom, the myth created by the nineteenth‐century reporters has also eventually become an argument in favour of irrigation projects in today's developing countries being managed by water users’ associations.     

权属意识、资源禀赋与宅基地退出意愿

农户宅基地的退出意愿会受到农民显性权属意识、隐性权属意识和资源禀赋等的影响。研究结果表明,显性权属意识对农户宅基地退出意愿的影响并不显著,原因可能是农户的从众、好面子等心理会对直接表面的权属意识造成干扰。只有当涉及农户的切身利益时,农户的隐性宅基地权属意识才会表现出来,并且宅基地私有权属意识越强,农户越不愿意退出宅基地。此外,农户的资源禀赋如所在市区的GDP、小区的经济状况、绿化状况、家庭人口特征等对宅基地的退出意愿也具有一定影响。从政策角度讲,确权颁证和还权赋能、良好的城市就业和公共服务、尊重农民的退出意愿,以及城乡一体的社会保障是实现闲置宅基地退出合理有效的重要举措。     

Market structure and the demand for veterinary services in India

The livestock sector is emerging as one of the fastest growing agricultural sub‐sectors in India and the expectations are that this growth could further accelerate due to growing incomes and the high income elasticity of demand for livestock products. Given the size and relatively equitable distribution of livestock in India, this presents an excellent opportunity for the country to boost rural incomes and accelerate the pace of poverty reduction. But, successful capitalisation of such opportunities requires a policy regime that facilitates growth in productivity at the farm level as well as in the processing sector. The productive potential of animals depends crucially on the quality of nutrition, genetic material and the animal health system, and on all these counts, India has a poor record. The public sector continues to be the primary provider of veterinary services, and the deteriorating fiscal situation of most state governments is making it extremely difficult to either expand the reach of these services or improve the quality of service delivery. Although, on efficiency grounds, there is good rationale for commercialised delivery of these services, serious concerns prevail in India about the equity implications of private sector delivery or full cost recovery within the government system. Evaluation of the desirability of user fees or private delivery of livestock services requires an understanding of the factors influencing the demand for these services. This paper examines the nature of demand for veterinary services in three states of India and presents first estimates of demand elasticities for veterinary services. The results indicate that price is not an important determinant of the decision to use these services. Also, practically no variation is found in price elasticities across income groups. These results suggest that the fears of sharp declines in the use of these services as a result of full cost recovery and/or private sector delivery are unfounded.     

Does maternal employment affect child nutrition status? New evidence from Egypt

Even though maternal employment can increase family income, several studies suggest that it could have adverse consequences on children’s health. In this study, we use a nationally representative sample of 12,888 children, aged 0–5 years from Egypt to examine the impact of maternal employment on child nutritional indicators, namely: stunting, wasting, and being underweight and overweight. We adopted various estimation methods to control for observable and unobservable household characteristics in order to identify the causal effect of maternal employment. These different techniques include, propensity score matching (PSM), OLS regression with controlling for a wide range of individual characteristics, and an instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV 2SLS) approach. Results of the PSM and OLS suggest that maternal employment is weakly associated with having a malnourished child. On the other hand, the IV 2SLS suggests a stronger and significant association between maternal employment and poor nutritional status among children.     

Modeling farmers' decisions on child labor and schooling in the cocoa sector: a multinomial logit analysis in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2000, children working in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire have found themselves in the media spotlight. This situation has assumed particular importance because approximately 40% of the world's cocoa production occurs in Côte d'Ivoire. Concerned parties have since taken great interest in this thorny issue. There is a need to better understand the reality of child labor utilization in this sector. This article investigates child labor issues in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire in conjunction with schooling status of children. The study is based on a survey done in 2002, over a representative sample of more than 11,000 members of cocoa households. The multinomial logit model is used to capture choice probabilities across work and/or school options. The results reveal that child labor in cocoa farms and nonenrollment in schools are significant. Moreover, many children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or harmful tasks. Data also highlight gender and age dimensions in the participation of children in tasks and the way labor is allocated. Econometric results generally indicate that the gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household head, parents' education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, and communities' characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child work/schooling outcome in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire.     

食用香料在印度瑜伽饮食中的应用及其影响研究

印度传统瑜伽以其特殊的饮食为基础,而印度饮食色彩鲜艳、风味十足,香料功不可没。很多食用香料有助于疾病的预防和治疗,不仅对身心健康和瑜伽练习有益,且能为瑜伽练习提供良好的辅助功效。本文尝试从印度瑜伽饮食的特点和常用食用香料的角度,结合笔者常年旅居印度学习传统瑜伽的经验,探讨香料在印度瑜伽饮食中的应用及其对瑜伽练习的影响。     

Policy recommendations for enabling transition towards sustainable agriculture in India

Aligning existing agricultural polices with UN-Sustainable Development Goals is imperative for the transition towards a cleaner and planet friendly food production, especially for a geographically and demographically diverse country like India. In this context, the present study focuses on ascertaining the major social and environmental challenges affecting agriculture in India, while evaluating the potential of efficient policy restructure in boosting growth within this sector. The methodology incorporates a quantitative assessment of social, ecological and economic indicators of agricultural sustainability in India, coupled with a co-relation analysis between several nutrition and land-based indicators for leading agriculture states across the country. The results highlight that despite attaining sufficiency in terms of food production, access to food by all in the country remains a major challenge along with incoherence between certain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators and their corresponding data values. Furthermore, a critical analysis of operational as well as recommended agriculture and farmer welfare policies indicate that formulation of an overarching policy influencing sustainable management of agricultural systems, combined with proper implementation of social welfare schemes, would lead to the timely realisation of SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), and SDG 3 (good health and well-being) in India. Consequently, an umbrella policy (National Policy on Eco-Agri-Food Systems) has been proposed by authors for sustainable management of the country’s entire agricultural value chain. Recommendations related to agricultural waste management and adoption of planetary healthy diets have also been suggested for enabling the smooth transition of agriculture as a sustainable enterprise in India.     

Natural resource-collection work and children's schooling in Malawi

This paper presents results of research that investigates if long hours of work spent by children in fuel wood and water-collection activities, i. e., natural resource-collection work, influence the likelihood that a child aged 6–14 attends school. Potential endogeneity of resource-collection work hours is corrected for, using two-stage conditional maximum likelihood estimation. Data from the 1997–1998 Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS) conducted by the Malawi National Statistics Office (NSO) in conjunction with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are used. The study finds that Malawian children are significantly involved in resource-collection work and their likelihood of attending school decreases with increases in hours allocated to this work. The study further shows that girls spend more hours on resource-collection work and are more likely to be attending school while burdened by this work. Consequently, girls may find it difficult to progress well in school. However, girls are not necessarily less likely to be attending school. Results further show that presence of more women in a household is associated with a lower burden of resource-collection work on children and a higher probability of children's school attendance. Finally, the research shows that children from the most environmentally degraded districts of central and southern Malawi are less likely to attend school and relatively fewer of them have progressed to secondary school compared to those-from districts in the north.     

昆明市森林康养产业经营战略分析

采用问卷调查法,分析昆明森林康养市场需求。结果表明:不同性别的森林康养需求存在差异。据此,昆明森林康养产业的市场定位是:根据不同性别的森林康养需求和昆明的自身优势,开发设计森林康养项目。提出了从产品、服务、人员、形象、促销方式五方面实施昆明森林康养产业的性别差异化战略,即依据男女体质和健康需求、消费心理的不同,研发设计森林康养特色产品和体验服务,组建专业人才队伍,利用昆明特色、新媒体方式做好品牌宣传,并通过激发顾客好奇心理、消费欲望发展促销手段的建议。     

Microfinance: Development Intervention or Just Another Bank?

This paper is based on a systematic review of evidence of the impact of microfinance on the lives of poor women, men and children in sub‐Saharan Africa. It focuses specifically on longer‐term non‐financial outcomes related to health and nutrition and education. The paper contrasts microfinance's early days' initially refreshing and encouraging promises of a development initiative that empowers people to help themselves while ‘paying for itself’ with a more gloomy picture that derives from the synthesis results of our systematic review. It presents two simple models that show the pathways from microfinance to increased investment in improved health and education, contrasting theory with our synthesis results. Our discussion highlights that thinking through microfinance makes it necessary to thoroughly investigate both the theory behind interventions and the evidence for their impact. It raises the essential question: Is microfinance about providing banking services to the unbanked, or is microfinance a development intervention that concerns itself with the attainment of long‐term sustainable responses to high levels of poverty?     

Integrated rural development—helping people help themselves

Sanjit Roy argues that the quest for social justice and the equal distribution of wealth is implicit in any integrated rural development (IRD) project. He claims that up until now, these issues have been rarely linked in India, which has lead to failure. In setting up any IRD programme, the questions of which people and what form of participation is necessary, must be addressed with care. The author argues that those who live below the poverty line should be the main target of such schemes, and these communities must be reached without intermediaries. There is a desperate need in India for face-to-face encounters between the professional and the beneficiary: between geologist and farmer, nurse and pregnant woman, teacher and truant. Such an approach is more likely to bring about a degree of participation beyond that reached so far. Sanjit Roy explains how basically it is a matter of trust; the poor must be trusted to think positively about their own development and the social barriers which have prevented this must be broken down.     

Determinants of Schooling in Egypt: The Role of Gender and Rural/Urban Residence

In this paper, we examine if there are gender differences in schooling attainment and the extent to which these differences are exacerbated for rural children in Egypt. Using a nationally representative cross-sectional survey, our estimation results find strong support for the hypothesis that being male and living in urban areas significantly improves child schooling. We show that relative to a female child who is “never enrolled” in school, a male child is over twice as likely to be currently attending school, and over two-and-a-half times more likely to have some schooling. These positive effects are particularly strong for rural male children. There are also regional variations, with a child (male or female) living in Upper Rural Egypt having a significantly lower likelihood of being currently enrolled. Finally, our estimation results point to large positive effects of father's education on the probability of current enrolment for all children. Mother's education, however, improves only the likelihood of current enrolment for female children, with no significant effect on male children.     

食品微生物检测的质量控制措施分析

现如今,人们对于自身的身体健康和生活质量等方面有着高质量的要求,食品安全问题逐渐受到重视。为保证食品安全,相关部门要及时开展相应的食品检测工作,其中微生物检测尤为重要。本文主要分析了食品微生物检测的主要内容及食品微生物检测技术的应用,并制定了相应的质量控制措施,以促使食品微生物检测工作水平及质量的不断提升,进而可以更好地控制食品中的微生物含量,保证我国的食品安全,保障人们的身体健康。     

Urban agriculture and sanitation services in Accra,Ghana: the overlooked contribution

While urban agriculture has long been valued for providing food security and nutrition within cities, it contributes to many other urban services that are seldom cited as rationales for protecting or even expanding urban food production. Articulating the actual and possible contributions of urban agriculture to municipal sanitation and health services is critical for sustaining these urban farms and their functions into the future. In the context of the low coverage and performance of wastewater treatment plants in Accra, Ghana, health risk reduction measures implemented on and off farm can substitute to a large extent for this absence of conventional wastewater treatment. We estimate that Accra generates approximately 80,000,000L of wastewater per day, of which urban vegetable farms alone use up to 11,250,000L. By mitigating the health risks for farmers and consumers associated with widespread wastewater irrigation, these urban farms have the potential to significantly contribute to the city's sanitation needs. This could allow partial outsourcing of public health services from treatment plants to the farm, where wastewater is considered an asset instead of a problem. Urban agriculture could also significantly support buffer zone management along streams and rivers, resulting in a reduction of solid waste dumping and environmental pollution, but most importantly an improvement in flood control and related public health challenges. While urban agriculture is not the panacea for addressing these urban challenges, it can significantly contribute to their solution.     

The Boundary of Smallholder Producers’ Cooperatives: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis

In this study we explain the concepts, determinants and imperatives of boundary in smallholder producers’ cooperatives both conceptually and empirically. The conceptual framework indicates the importance of the type of goods (being a club good or not) and range of activities that a cooperative provides to its members in defining a competitive boundary. Using unique organisational and market level data from Ethiopia, we then test empirically whether the observed (weak) performance of producers’ cooperatives in Africa is explained by their organisational boundary – the type and range of goods or services they provide to members. The empirical results confirm that the competitiveness of producers’ cooperatives is significantly correlated with the type and number of services – i.e. cooperatives that provide club goods and a limited range of services are found to be more competitive. The results also suggest that a considerable number of cooperatives in Ethiopia engage in markets where they do not have competitive advantage. Overall, we demonstrate the importance of properly defining a viable boundary – proper selection of services (or markets) and limiting the range of services – for improving the competitiveness of membership‐based producer cooperatives in Africa.     

Climate,weather and child health in Burkina Faso

It is now clear that anthropogenic climate change is having a negative impact on human health. In this paper, we provide the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of climatic stressors on child health in Burkina Faso. We undertake a rigorous empirical analysis of the impact of climate and weather shocks on mortality, stunting (height-for-age Z-score) and wasting (weight-for-age Z-score), using Demographic and Health Surveys, combined with high-resolution meteorological data, controlling for household and individual covariates. We find robust evidence that both lifetime and short-term exposure to high temperatures and droughts have a negative impact on child health, as do increased temperature anomalies during crop seasons, suggesting a link between climate and health through domestic food production. Income and household wealth, access to electricity, sanitation and a health facility for childbirth negate some adverse impacts of climate change. Combining our econometric estimates with updated CMIP6 scenarios, we compute policy-relevant projections of future child health. Our results show that future warming is projected to significantly increase child mortality, and share of underweight and stunted children, in all but the Paris Agreement scenario. Given the links between health, a key element of human capital, and economic growth, our findings and projections provide yet more evidence of the importance of a rapid reduction in global emissions combined with adaptation funding, if lower-income countries are to achieve poverty reduction and increasing prosperity.