Gender and population

Assessment of social disparity by various grades of employment provides comparative insight into the impact of affirmative policies in India. Affirmative policies in India have been implemented for almost six decades, which are expected to bring the historically backward groups representation in employment in par with the forward caste group. In this paper, we use the simple arithmetic and geometric ratios and further theil index of disparity to measure between and within group disparities among the social groups in terms of representation in various grades of employment. Further, analysis is done to measure the population inertia in terms of growth of population in employment by social groups using Stable Equivalent Ratio. Results reveal existing disparities between the social groups in terms of participation in employment further increased with the inclusion of population with higher education. Consistently, the gap between the forward caste and backward caste further widened in participation in employment . Analysis by gender also reveals between male and female disparities are significant within social group in employment. Results reveal that backward caste group of India still lag far behind compared to forward caste group in terms of representation at higher grades of employment.

We examine the effects of community fertility levels on women’s education in South Africa, conceptualizing community fertility as a socio-cultural construct with bearing on individual outcomes. This paper contributes to the recent assertion that fertility decline may be a catalyst for women’s empowerment. We examine the effects of community fertility levels for older women on educational attainment for younger women as compared to younger men through two outcomes: 1) highest educational level attained for 25-29 year olds; and 2) grade for age for 14-18 year olds. We use data from the South African Community Survey (2007). We expect that lagged community fertility will be more strongly associated with women’s as compared to men’s educational attainment when controlling for indivudal, household and other socio-economic community-level effects. We do not find this to be the case for completed education, but do find this to be the case for grade for age models. We discuss the implications of our findings for our conceptualization of community fertility; as well as the implications for the intersections between gender, population and development in sub-Saharan Africa.

Most research on transgender healthcare is based on small, nonprobability samples. Since many transgender people are reluctant to participate in studies, a transgender task force and university research group worked together as full partners to assess provision of transgender health services in a southern US state. Online and paper questionnaires were used for a statewide health assessment. The hypothesis that sample characteristics and findings would vary by response mode was tested (N=350). 61% responded online; 39% completed paper forms. Modality differences in sociodemographics, geography, and public health indicators were explored, using SAS, sign. set at .05. Online respondents were significantly older, had higher incomes, were 4 times as likely to finish high school, 2-5 times more likely to have health insurance. Online responders were primarily Caucasian (85%); the paper sample was promarilty racial/ethnic minorities (71%). Public health indicators (substance abuse and mental health) did not vary by response mode; higher percentages of paper responders experienced sexual violence.

Background
Sex ratio data provides strong evidence for increasing gender inequality in India. Nutrition and mortality data reiterate this finding for different regions and periods. For historical periods, we do not have data except the aggregated data on sex-ratios from the Census that started only in 1871. Moreover, under enumeration of unmarried and young females was common in some regions in historical periods. Hence, we investigate gender inequality using adult height data.

Data and methods
We use ship records of "coolie" (indentured) emigrants from India to Fiji, Natal, Jamaica and Mauritius during the 19-20c. Also, Indian DHS (NFHS-3) was used to investigate gender inequality from 1955 to 1982.

Results
On an average, the gap between male and female heights was between 10 and 12 cm and the female heights stagnated after 1950. There is an increase in gender dimorphism from 1820-1830, 1855-1870 and 1955-1982. In the 19c, gender dimorphism increased when the male heights declined. However, in the 20c, we observe a slight increase in dimorphism despite of increase in male height. South Indian women were taller than North Indian women during the 19C pointing towards higher gender inequality in the North. Stature can be used as an indicator of gender inequality along with other traditional indicators like sex-ratio.

This paper considered maternal mortality as a human right concern and specifically a gender issue. The relationship between maternal mortality and gender issues is not obvious. However, most of women problems in some countries could have their roots in the important level of discrimination based gender. In this paper, we believe that inequalities and inequities based gender issues on education, employment, health, etc, increase considerably the risk of women death during pregnancy, delivery and post-partum period. Maternal mortality and discrimination base gender are two important women matters in Burkina Faso. But, the relationship between them is neglected by researchers as well as policy makers and deciders. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between gender issues and maternal mortality. Findings show a real and important influence of discrimination base gender in the domain of education, age at marriage, economic activities and empowerment on maternal mortality.

Despite impressive fertility decline and drastic increase in gender ratio (male to female), little attention has been given to understand the relationship between these two aspects of reproductive behaviour in India. Using unit level data from three waves of Demographic Health Survey (National Family Health Survey), the present study tries to unfold the relationship between fertility pattern and birth masculinity. The analysis reveals that son preference is embedded in Indian family system as efficient family limitation behaviour, though its manifestation varies with stages of fertility transition as well as its regional variations.

Key words: birth masculinity, fertility, parity progression ratio, sex ratio at birth, latent variable model, bivariate LISA, etc.

JEL Classification: J13, J16, C12, C31, Z13, etc

Women as half of the population play a vital role in socio-economic life of any society. Improvement or diminishing status of women makes socio-economic life process of the society enhanced or critical. Given the fact that women deal with the most important demographic event, fertility, and they cooperate closely in the family continuation, it is necessary to analyze their status. It helps to plan appropriate policies to enhance their situation. This paper aims to portrait status of women in Kermanshah province using data from different sources.

Drinking during pregnancy is currently defined as a serious public health problem in all Western countries. In the paper we analyze recent Swedish public health campaigns against drinking during pregnancy. Our data consist of campaign material produced by Swedish National Institute of Public Health and Swedish National Food Administration. The research question is tripartite. First, we analyze how drinking during pregnancy is defined in the public health campaigns as a health risk by using specific kind of scientific knowledge. Secondly, we ask what kinds of techniques the health campaigns recommend for women to restrain from drinking during pregnancy. Thirdly, we study how the health campaign messages address women. Do they address women as rational decision-makers by neutral risk information or as irrational and emotional actors by sentimental, exaggerated and fear raising risk images? The study will increase the understanding of how scientific research is used in the public health campaigns. It will also be informative in specifying how women can be addressed in the public health interventions as rational decision-makers or emotional actors or in both ways. This kind of information is much needed when developing rational and egalitarian alcohol policies, health campaigns and prevention projects.

The present study attempts to enquire the selective gender differentials in health seeking behaviour and outcome among the children in small families using NFHS III data. The analysis has covered the states which have attained replacement level fertility. The study hypothesizes three facts: first, there exist gender preferences towards son in small families as an outcome of desired sex; second, assuming this reference get reflected in differential health treatment of boys and girls, families possessing same sex children are relatively worse than those having both the sexes. Finally, even among the same sex siblings, boy-boy combination has lower discrimination in higher parity than girl-girl. Findings reveal that boys who are born into a household with no other boys and an older sister appear to be most ‘wanted.’ They have significantly higher odds in favor of immunization and lesser chance of being underweight than a single girl child. Girls are seemed to be most discriminated when they are the younger ones. It is higher when they have an older sister than an older brother. In terms of same sex composition of siblings, younger girls are significantly more discriminated when they have a same sex sibling than the younger boys.

Keywords: Selective, Replacement Level, Parity, Discrimination

Despite the challenges to efforts in Russia over the last 20 years to address the problem of violence against women, there is recognition of the problem. However, lack of domestic violence legislation in Russia is a barrier to the systematic collection of official statistics recording cases of violence against women.
The inclusion of questions on violence against women into the 2011 Russia Reproductive Health Survey (RURHS11) will help meet the need for more current and detailed information on family violence and characteristics of its victims.
38,1% of Russian women reported on lifetime verbal abuse, 19,8% reported lifetime physical abuse, and 3,9% reported having been forced to have sex by a current or previous partner. Almost three-quarters of physically abused women had spoken to someone about the violence, but only 10 % of them sought help from police.
Alcohol use is one of the most consistently identified risk factors for intimate partner violence. Recent physical or sexual violence was reported by 19% percent of women whose husbands were drunk almost every day or more.
Childhood exposure to violence is also a well-established risk factor for intimate partner violence later in a woman’s life. Almost half (45%) of women who had been physically or sexual abused as an adult, had witnessed abuse in their childhood home.