Gender and population

This paper uses a modeling approach to answer the question: "to what extent can strategies that focus on women and girls benefit health and development outcomes, including child survival, maternal mortality, family planning, and general economic development?"
An empirically-based model was developed that links women-centered program strategies to health and development outcomes. To develop the model statistical relationships were established between key indicators using international cross-section data. Inputs include indicators on women’s education, family planning effort, women’s empowerment and proximate fertility determinants. The human development Index (HDI) was used as a quality of life and development organizing framework for outcomes since it includes education, life expectancy and income per capita. Additional outputs include standard demographic variables as well as child survival and maternal health indicators.
Results from Mali show that women-centered strategies have a positive impact on development and health outcomes. Similarly, family planning strategies have positive effects. When both strategies are implemented simultaneously synergies are realized and the gains

In this paper we use the concepts of Behavioral Intention (a person’s relative degree of intention to perform a given behavior) and the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (behavioral intention can be predicted by the individual’s attitude and subjective norms of other people’s attitude) to develop a model of fetal sex selection in rural China. Using the TRA model and primary data collected from surveys conducted in three counties of SX Province, we analyzed the impact of subjective norms on an individual’s behavioral intention to select the sex of their fetus. Results suggest that, whether or not to select the sex of one’s fetus during pregnancy is determined primarily by the individual’s attitudes toward the relative worth of having a male or female child (son preference). In this model, the subjective norms of groups in an individual’s social ties structure strongly affect the individual’s intention to sex-select. Different types of social ties correlate differently with the intention to sex-select indicating that the choice to sex-select during pregnancy is an outcome of a tension between blood ties and marital ties, strong ties and weak ties.

Today there are many working parents in the labour market, especially, the increase in the labour participation of mothers is one of the most prominent changes of the recent labour market in Korea. While, at the same time, the family's living circumstances and the requirements imposed by work make working parents' child-rearing more and more difficult. The conflict between work and family life may lead either to a clear dominance of work over the family life or to a reshaping of the present everyay lives of families through changes in existing family policies.
The situation apperars to be more difficult in Korea, where, despite childcare services have expended rapidly, the working parents still have difficulties to find appropiate childcare methods because of their long workng hours. As s result the balancing work and family life through the reduction of working time is the very requisitie of working parents in Korea.
Based on these backgrouds, the aim of my paper is to look at what is happening to the family life under the Long Working Hours Culture in Korea with the issue of childcare. For example, the time pressure of working parents, and their perception of the imbalance of work and family life, and their childcare problems.

This paper investigates women’s sexual behaviour to demonstrate how different forms of agentic skills are employed in initiating sexual intercourse. Drawing on the narratives of 25 married women aged 25 to 52 years in an urban community in Accra, Ghana, findings reveal that women are active initiators of sexual intercourse although there are some silences about their sexuality. Consistent with other studies, the present work shows that a significant number of women have experienced sexual abuse which impacts negatively on their sexual reception within marital relationships. Differences in socio-demographic profile (such as Age, marital status, commitment to moral and religious values), past sexual experience, partners’ understanding, being in a ‘bad mood for sex, and menstrual cycle create different barriers to sex initiation amongst different categories of women. Compared with older women, younger women were more likely to initiate sex with their partners, and held low commitment to religious beliefs. For the older women, high commitment to upholding moral and religious values posed major barriers to sex initiation. Yet within all these constraints, women exercised differential agentic skills in initiating sexual contact in marriage.

Tens of thousands of women in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been subjected to sexual violence. Using data from a multi-method qualitative research conducted in 2011, this paper explores attitudes towards survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in eastern DRC and highlights the underlying role of gender norms. Across the study locations, a woman’s dignity and the level of respect she commands depend on her well she performs her roles of mother, cultivator of the land and caretaker of the household. A woman is expected to be respectful, well-behaved, dress appropriately, not be a troublemaker, and not be a “witch”. She must not exhibit any masculine traits such as wearing pants or nitiate sex. Any attempt by the woman to cross the lines of normative expectations can lead to conflict. The woman is also often perceived as an object of pleasure for the man. A woman who has experienced SGBV is often believed to have done something to warrant the action; for example, by crossing the lines of responsibility, acceptable dress code, or decorum. A survivor of SGBV is seen as having brought shame and dishonor to her family. Therefore, a woman that has experienced SGBV is not only regarded as “damaged goods”, she is seen as decreasing the value of her husband and the male members of her family.