Gender and population: policy and policy outcomes

A large body of evidence has documented the effectiveness of mass media entertainment-education programs in increasing family planning use and changing reproductive behavior. But the potential impact of these programs on the mediating role of gender norms has not been systematically assessed in Nigeria. Baseline and endline representative data collected for the evaluation of a family planning radio serial drama intervention program aired in Northern Nigeria are examined for program effects on both reproductive and gender outcomes. Results show that 70% of the sample listened to the program. On all reproductive outcomes, respondents were more likely at endline than at baseline to report positive changes, especially on behavioural outcomes. Comparison of listeners and non-listeners found positive program impact only on two of these outcomes. The same pattern of effects is seen for the gender outcomes with impact stronger at endline than in listenership. Implications for both sets of outcomes are discussed.

Agrarian development in China was basically characterized by contrasting stages of collectivization and decollectivization over the past six decades, and each resulted in sweeping social and economic changes. The lived experiences of rural women’s and men’s daily productive and reproductive activities in specific geographic settings, may have shaped their surrounding environment and vice versa. So far, research on the linkages between gender and the environment in rural China has received little attention and no empirical study at the village level has been carried out. Based upon an ethnographic fieldwork in an Inner Mongolian village, this article seeks to document the evolution of the gender-environment nexus and explore its determinants in larger processes over the past 60 years. A closer look at everyday experiences of local men and women indicates that the complex intersections of gender and the environment occurred in larger processes at the macro level, which were closely linked to the role of the powerful state. The dynamic relations were implicated simultaneously in shifting social norms and practices at the local level. This paper therefore suggests a holistic approach towards understanding of shifting and complex intersections, contributing to ongoing feminist debates on women/gender and the environment.

Gender mainstreaming has been a fundamental in the Gender and Development discourse. This has necessitated simplifying concepts related to gender inequality which in turn has created unrealistic expectations as to the ways in which social change takes place. It has thus legitimized an approach of rolling out programs, getting a few “jobs for the girls” and making development cooperation ‘right’ for women as main instruments of change. The strategy, which was linked to dominant existing modernization paradigm of the 1960s and 1970s, was also only concerned with women-specific activities, where women were seen as passive recipients of development assistance like the provision of extension services, credit facilities and other income generation activities. There is still a long way to go before we have managed to significantly reduce inequalities between women and men globally. Equality between men and women constitutes an indicator of success in good governance. However women are not treated equally in governance institution and process. The gender issues become a core consideration not simply for specific departments or ministries dealing with women, but for all actors across a range of issue-areas and also at all stages in the policy process from conception and legislation to implementation and evaluation.