Women empowerment and infant mortality in Bangladesh

This study attempts to investigate the effects of women empowerment on infant mortality in Bangladesh. Four indicators have been considered to measure four dimensions of women empowerment: the level of education, participation in household (HH) decisions, autonomy in movements and employment status. The rotated factor analysis technique is used to construct the last three dimensions. The Weibull parametric survival model has been specified and estimated using the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data of 2011. The results show that three measures of empowerment (the level of education, participation in HH decisions and autonomy in movements) contribute significantly to the reduction of infant mortality. But women employment is associated with increased mortality for infants. The findings of this study have a number of policy implications on this issue for a developing country like Bangladesh.     

Improving Assessments of Gender Bargaining Power: A Case Study from Bangladesh

Gender bargaining power has entered into mainstream economic theory and public policy. However, common empirical measures are only loosely related to the theoretical concept, and research has not produced consistent results regarding the causal chains underlying women’s empowerment. This study critically examines accepted measures of bargaining power, arguing that participation in specific household decisions is not directly associated with the theoretical concept of bargaining power. The study analyzes the relationship between measures of participation in household decisions and individual and household characteristics thought to contribute to bargaining power. Using Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data on Bangladesh over the period 1999–2011, the study finds that despite the loose relationship of the survey questions to the theoretical construct bargaining power, the decision-making questions provide relatively consistent and theoretically supported measures of this unobservable characteristic. Simple changes in using the measures would contribute to more robust and consistent findings.     

A Cross Country Comparison of Child Nutrition and Investigation of its Demographic Determinants

This study pools data on child anthropometrics and on their determinants from Pakistan, Peru, Jamaica, Russia and South Africa. It, then, estimates regression equations of child height and weight, measured by the Z-scores, on both combined country data and, separately, for each country. Moreover, the study estimates the child height and weight equations, separately, for young (0–36 months) and older children (37–72 months) and provides evidence on the impact of household assets and of a household’s access to basic amenities on the health of its children. The child health in the five countries chosen, which are culturally, economically, politically and geographically, quite diverse, are compared. The paper finds that the hard core cases of child malnutrition are not necessarily related to poverty or inequality. Female education plays an effective role in improving child health, with its beneficial effects considerably enhanced in households with access to public information through the radio or the TV.

     

Cities,slums, and child nutrition in Bangladesh

This study uses novel household survey data that are representative of Bangladesh's large cities, and of slum and nonslum areas within the cities, to investigate the effects of demographic and socioeconomic factors on child nutrition status in 2013. The study also decomposes the difference in mean child nutrition status between slum and nonslum areas in 2013, and the increase in mean child nutrition status in slum and nonslum areas from 2006 to 2013. Mother's education attainment and household wealth largely explain the cross‐sectional difference and intertemporal change in mean child nutrition status. Although positive in some cases, the effects of maternal and child health services, and potential health‐protective household amenities, on child nutrition status differ by the type of health facility, household amenity, and urban area (slum or nonslum). Focusing on nutrition‐sensitive programs for slum residents and the urban poor is consistent with the results.     

妇幼保健院规模与妇幼保健水平的关系:基于全国省级面板数据的研究

妇幼保健院在中国医疗卫生领域具有相当特殊的地位。在妇幼保健院对中国妇幼健康水平有积极作用的假设下,采用31个省级地区的面板数据构建实证模型,研究妇幼保健院规模对妇幼保健水平和医疗费用的影响。妇幼保健院床位数与孕产妇死亡率有显著的正相关,对活产数有显著的消极影响,出现这一现象的原因可能是妇幼保健院相对落后的医疗技术条件。同时,妇幼保健院床位数的增长对卫生机构支出存在正向影响,但对于居民家庭人均医疗支出则存在城乡差异。建议应重视妇幼保健院的发展,全面提升妇幼保健院的技术和服务水平,缓解大综型医疗机构接诊压力。     

Girls for Sale? Child Sex Ratio and Girl Trafficking in India

ABSTRACT

Illegal trafficking of girls results from their disadvantageous position in society, often reflected by preference for sons and neglect of daughters. India has both higher levels of illegal trafficking of girls and abnormal child sex ratios in favor of boys. This paper examines if the skewed sex ratio in India is associated with trafficking of girls. Using panel data from twenty-nine Indian states from 1980 to 2011, the study finds that a 100-unit increase in the child sex ratio is associated with a 0.635 percent increase in girl trafficking. Further, the association is heterogeneous by women’s empowerment, crime against women, and party rule in the state, and the association between the child sex ratio and trafficking of girls is stronger and larger in magnitude in states with greater women’s empowerment. Overall, it appears the results are driven both by greater reporting and a greater incidence of illegal girl trafficking.     

Assessing fishers' empowerment in inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh

The Community Based Fisheries Management (CBFM) approach has made a significant contribution towards improvement of fishers' empowerment of inland openwater fisheries in Bangladesh aiming to manage their resources efficiently. This arrangement introduced CBFM approaches named fisher-led, community-led and women-led approach. A wider range of local institutional arrangements as community based organizations (CBOs) have been established through participatory process with legal entity. Now, the CBOs as local institutions and fishers are more empowered in participation of fishery management under co-management arrangement. The study reveals that there is still lack of institutional arrangement to be achieved at optimum level. This paper presents and assesses the empowerment status of the fisher communities in inland openwater fisheries under co-management arrangement in Bangladesh through Factor analysis and regression model. This study might have policy implication to replicate the community based fishery management approach to promote empowerment for better management.     

Son Preference and Gender Gaps in Child Nutrition: Does the Level of Female Autonomy Matter?

This paper examines the association between parental son preference and child anthropometric status, and the extent to which this relationship depends on the level of female autonomy. Results highlight the importance of maternal son preference and mothers' involvement in household decision making when gender gaps in child nutrition are considered. These findings have important policy implications.     

Effect of public programs on family size,child education and health

"A bulk of public resources in developing countries is devoted to the subvention of population control and health investments. The effects of these programs have been evaluated in this study with household and community data from Bangladesh. The results suggest that subsidy on family planning and secondary school would be most effective in the achievement of harmonious goals of reducing fertility and mortality and fostering investments in child education."     

Reproductive behaviour in peasant societies: a theoretical and empirical analysis

In spite of the concern and repeated attempts to promote population control programs, a coherent and unified theory of peasant reproductive behavior has not emerged. The author attempts to extend the microeconomic foundations of reproductive behavior by considering a dynamic intertemporal model of household production emphasizing survival uncertainty and age specific differences in productive ability. An optimal policy is derived in a single sex model in which decisions are made sequentially based on new information. It is shown that households will follow a stopping rule; the household will continue to reproduce until an optimal number of living children is reached. As a consequence of the stopping rule households will appear to be replacing infant and child deaths if these occurred early in the program. After presenting the model, empirical applications of the theory are explored and the model is estimated using sample survey data collected in Bangladesh in 1977. Issues raised in the analysis are discussed.     

Selective Mortality and Malnutrition in India

India presents itself as a paradox with low infant mortality and high malnutrition. This paper provides survival bias as an explanation of the paradox. Using pooled health surveys from 1993 to 2005 and a pseudo-panel selection model, this study finds that the change in Height-for-Age Z-Scores (HAZ scores) can be explained by mortality selection. Specifically, children with sample average characteristics that survive have 17.4% less HAZ scores than a child randomly drawn from the population indicating an overestimation of malnutrition in India. This is consistent with the hypothesis of weaker children surviving due to skilled delivery which pulls down the overall HAZ scores. The results are robust to controls for unobservable characteristics of groups of women. Son preference is also apparent in the results. The selection is more evident among male children and in the states where sex selection is historically seen as a problem in India.

     

Maternal Healthcare in Tajikistan: A Bargaining Framework

Abstract

This study examines women's declining use of maternal healthcare services in post-socialist Tajikistan. Using data from the 2003 and 2007 Tajikistan Living Standards Surveys (TLSS), the findings support previous evidence that a woman's use of prenatal and delivery care depends on her education, household income, and proximity to services. However, previous models have not specified who makes the decision to use maternal healthcare services. This study finds that in Tajikistan a woman shares decision making with her spouse and the eldest woman in the household. There is limited evidence that traditional proxies for bargaining power, such as relative earnings level, affect outcomes. The authors conclude that where women's exit options are limited, surveys evaluating the value of women's assets and their services in the home, as well as questions about decision making, will allow more refined measures of women's bargaining power.     

My Choice: Women’s Contraceptive-Use Autonomy in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT

Using a nationally representative household survey for two cohorts of married women, this study examines women’s contraceptive-use autonomy (CUA) incidence and correlates in Bangladesh, focusing on the role of education. Previous research has examined the incidence and correlates of contraceptive use and of several dimensions of female autonomy but only rarely the intersection of the two – that is, CUA. This study finds that women from the younger cohort are far more likely to have complete autonomy over contraceptive use than women from the older cohort. Detailed decompositions reveal that the improvement in education across cohorts is the main correlate of the improved generational CUA gap. Health knowledge, especially knowledge that the use of condoms can help avoid contracting HIV/AIDS, is part of the transmission mechanism between women’s education and women’s CUA but also exerts an additional influence on CUA.     

Does the relationship between income and child health differ across income groups? Evidence from India

This study explores the relationship between child health and socioeconomic status (health-income gradient) using the Indian Human Development Survey-II (2011-12) for children up to 5 years of age. Unlike previous studies our empirical analysis allows the gradient to vary across different income intervals using linear and cubic spline regressions. We use objective measure of child health - height-for-age Z-scores and find that an increase in income, on an average leads to reduction in prevalence of stunting. We also find differential effect of income on health across the income distribution with no effect of income on child health for very poor households. Further we explore underlying factors explaining the gradient and find that maternal health, housing quality, sanitation, non-infectious environment, media exposure to women and a safe neighbourhood are transmission channels that affect child health and together they explain almost 40% of the overall income effect. One of the major implication of our findings is that any policy to increase income of poor households should be complemented with a health policy designed specifically towards children as poor households are less likely to allocate additional income to child health.     

Family policy,intrahousehold bargaining,and child health

This study examines the effects of an exogenous change in family policy in Ethiopia on women empowerment and the allocation of resources toward child health. Empowerment is formalized as an unobserved latent variable based on a large set of questions pertaining to women's autonomy and decision-making power. Exploiting the time and regional variation in the implementation of the law, the study finds that early implementation of the reform increases women's access to information, literacy and education levels, and their assertiveness toward family planning and domestic violence. In addition, more decision power in the hands of women is found to have a positive impact on investments in the health and nutrition of children. The findings suggest that factors that do not enter the individual's preferences may affect outcomes for individuals and emphasize the role of intrahousehold heterogeneity. The results are robust to a battery of validity and specification checks.     

Trade openness and child health: a heterogeneous panel cointegration analysis

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we examine the impact of trade openness on child health, based on a cross-country panel data set covering 66 countries for the period 1960–2013. To account for the time-series properties of the data and potential cross-country heterogeneity in the impact of trade openness, the study employs heterogeneous panel cointegration techniques that are robust to omitted variables and endogeneity problems. The results reveal that trade openness and child health are cointegrated, and that trade works to reduce the child mortality rate significantly in the long-run. The results are robust to the methodology and trade openness and child health indicators employed, as well as to the presence of cross-sectional dependence and changes in the sample composition. The findings also suggest that the impact of trade on child health tends to be stronger in countries with better institutional quality, lower corruption, good governance, political stability, and sound policies that promote private sector development.     

Prices,infrastructure, household characteristics and child height

A Brazilian household survey, ENDEF, in 1974-75 and the 1974 Informacoes Basicas Municipais (IBM) provided data for the analysis of the impact of community services and infrastructure and household characteristics on the logarithm of child height, standardized for age and gender. The sample was comprised of 36,974 children stratified by residential location, the child's age, and the educational level of the mother. Variance and covariance matrices were estimated with the jackknife developed by Efron (1982). Household characteristics included the logarithm of per capita expenditure as a measure of household resource availability, income, and parental education. Community characteristics were local market price indices for 6 food groups (dairy products, beans, cereals, meat, fish, and sugar), level of urbanization, buildings with sewage, water, and electricity connections per capita, per capita number of buildings, and population density. Health services were measured as per capita number of hospitals and clinics and doctors and nurses, and the number of beds are hospital. Educational services include a measure of student teacher ratios, elementary school class size, and per capita number of teachers living in the community. the results show that expenditure had a positive, significant effect on the height of children 2 years and older. Expenditure was a significant determinant for literate and illiterate mothers, and not well educated mothers. The impact of maternal education was largest on the length of babies and declined with the age of the child. Father's education had not impact of length of babies. The effect of parents' education was complementary. The effect of father's education was largest when mothers had some education. Better educated parents had healthier children. Maternal rather than paternal height had an impact of the length of a baby. In the community models, prices had a significant effect on child height, in both urban and rural areas, in all age groups, and for all levels of maternal education. Higher prices were associated with shorter children. Joint price and expenditure interactions were significant. Children at the top of the expenditure distribution were more affected by some prices than by others. Capital building improvements alone and with expenditures were all positively associated with child height. Only nurses per capita impacted on child height.     

Diverging Stories of “Missing Women” in South Asia: Is Son Preference Weakening in Bangladesh?

ABSTRACT

South Asia is a region characterized by a culture of son preference, severe discrimination against daughters, and excess levels of female mortality, leading to what Amartya Sen called the phenomenon of “missing women.” However, the onset of fertility decline across the region has been accompanied by considerable divergence in this phenomenon. In India, improvements in overall life expectancy have closed the gender gap in mortality rates among adults, but persisting gender discrimination among children and increasing resort to female-selective abortion has led to growing imbalance in child sex ratios and sex ratios at birth. In Bangladesh, by contrast, fertility decline has been accompanied by a closing of the gender gap in mortality in all age groups. Using quantitative and qualitative data, this study explores changing attitudes toward sons and daughters in Bangladesh to explain why the phenomenon of “missing women” has played out so differently in these two neighboring countries.     

Child Schooling and Work Decisions in India: The Role of Household and Regional Gender Equity

Abstract

This paper tests three hypotheses about how mothers' autonomy in India affects their children's participation in school and the labor market. To do so it extends the concept of mothers' autonomy beyond the household to include the constraints imposed by the extent of gender equity in the regions in which these women live. This study began with the expectation that increased autonomy for Indian mothers living in heterosexual households would increase child schooling and decrease child work. However, the results are mixed, indicating that mother's autonomy can be reinforced or constrained by the environment. The paper concludes that mothers and fathers in India make different decisions for girls vis-à-vis boys and that the variables reflecting mothers' autonomy vary in their impact, so that mothers' level of education relative to fathers' is not often statistically significant, while mothers' increased contributions to household expenditure decrease the probability of schooling and girls' work.     

Groping for Stones to Cross the River versus Coordinated Policy Reforms: The Case of Two Reforms in China

Abstract

China’s economic transition has reached a stage where the past experimental approach is no longer sufficient. Future policy reforms need to be carried out in a holistic rather than a piecemeal manner. This paper analyzes the reforms of two related institutions in China: the household registration system and the rural land system. We argue that further institutional changes warrant national initiatives and coordinated reforms rather than merely drawing on local pilot experiences. A holistic policy package that can simultaneously promote the reforms of the household registration and the rural land system is proposed. We use fiscal simulations to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed holistic policy package.