Gender, work and family (1)

Maternal health in Nigeria is among the poorest in the world. Factors responsible for the poor state of maternal health in the country include low women’s empowerment. Quantitative data was extracted from the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health. Qualitative data will be collected to augment the secondary data. The Stata (Version 10.0) computer software was used for statistical analysis. Results of logistic regressions reveal that women’s autonomy (i.e. control over own healthcare) significantly influence place of delivery (OR =1.64, p < 0.01); assistance during delivery (OR = 1.64, p < 0.01); and antenatal care visits (OR = 1.65, p < 0.01). Women who participated in decision making about household large purchases have higher odds for facility delivery (OR = 1.05), and higher antenatal care visits (OR = 1.03). Furthermore, women who accepts male dominance when: wife goes out without permission; argues with male partner; and when wife refuses sex with male partner have less likelihood of facility delivery, skilled assistance during delivery and adequate antenatal visits. The study showed that women empowerment is an important concern that must be addressed to improve maternal health in Nigeria.

In 2000, the number of floating population was 3.5 million, and the number reached to 9.6 million in 2012, accounting for 40% of the permanent residents in Shanghai. According to China’s censuses in 2010 and 2000, the increase of the number of female floating population was as quick as that of males within the ten years. Now, females are playing increasingly important role in migration stream due to expanded employment opportunities, however, the status of female floating population, especially the income, was lower than their counterparts. This paper explores gender difference in income of floating people in Shanghai.

Data used is from the updated dynamic monitoring survey of the floating population in Shanghai, conducted in May, 2012, which examined the living and development conditions of 14993 floating people at the age of 15 to 59 and 44675 their family members. The interest of this study lies in gender based income difference. We check whether there is income difference between males and females, by using multiple linear regressioncontrolling for potential confounders (age, occupation, education). Then, the comparison of income difference in gender perspective is conducted both before and after floating experience of floating people.

The empirical gap that necessitates the research question is that, in spite of the fact that well over 90% of rural communities in Ivory Coast is sufficiently covered by the Global System of Mobile Communication (GSM), majority of rural women farmers are not making use of the facility in the process of food production, transportation and distribution in the country. This study aims to diagnose the impact of the use of GSM in the balance of information between producers of food made by women in the west-central Côte d'Ivoire (area of high agricultural production) and the urban cities surrounding, in view of the distribution and improving rural women life-being. The results of the research are about the perception of mobile phone, the level of mobile phone used by women in commercial works, the contribution of mobile phones in improving their revenues and the distribution of food between the city and countryside in Ivory Coast is diagnosed.

Though the Gir forest area has opened up different wage employment opportunities to the women of Afro-Indians community in Gujarat, they mostly get employed in the non-agricultural sector and earn cash which they keep with themselves but without having right to use it. The present study attempts to understand the disparity in participation of young women in wage employment, the role in family level decision making and its impact on their life and well being in one of the particularly vulnerable tribal group of Gujarat. The study finding shows that though Siddi women who have achieve ideal family size or comparatively older are allowed going out for wage employment, they are also allowed to keep cash but they lack decision making power. Irrespective of the purpose, husband’s permission has to be taken before utilizing cash. The role of woman in family level decision making is found to be always secondary and supportive. Most of the Siddi women especially of young age are over burdened due to their triple role which has a direct impact on their overall health and well being.

This study critically investigates the suitability of United Nations’ composite indices and other related measures – among which the Gender Inequality Index (GII) just released in 2010 – to capture gender inequalities in the context of “highly developed” countries, focusing on the case of Europe. Our results indicate that many of the gender gaps in health and education variables have either vanished or even reversed, thus questioning their appropriateness to capture women’s disadvantage in Europe and inviting to construct region-specific measures. Alternatively, parliamentary representation and labor force participation are variables with large gender gaps that highlight important dimensions where women disadvantage prevails. Different cross-section and cross-time associations between economic growth and gender equality are generally not statistically significant – or at most weakly correlated – at European level. This is basically due to the fact that the gender gaps included in UNDP gender-related indices reached their normatively desirable values long ago, therefore leaving no room for further improvement.

While family policies are increasingly designed to help reconcile work and family life, their effects may, in practice, be quite limited.
This paper aims to assess women's socio-occupational status in relation to their reported fertility in 12 countries of the Mediterranean basin: Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco.
The data required for the analysis – fertility estimates (if necessary using the "own children method") measures of women's educational level and their socio-occupational status, their place in the household and, more generally, in society – will be taken from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series International (IPUMS international) database.

The process of urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa has had gendered consequences as economic, socio-cultural and environmental transformations have resulted in the greater intensification of women’s burdens compared to men’s. In such shifting contexts the combination of maternal productive and reproductive roles may be increasingly difficult which raises the question of how mothers cope with their multiple responsibilities. This research develops a greater understanding of the coping strategies adopted by mothers of young children in Accra, Ghana through the use of mixed methods. Qualitative data was analyzed according to Hall’s (1972) typology of coping mechanisms. Whilst a diversity of coping strategies was found to be employed by mothers, the majority of these were of a structural role redefinition approach. Of primary importance was the childcare strategy utilized. In order to quantitative investigate variation in the adoption of this coping strategy multinomial regression was performed on data from the Accra Urban Food and Nutritional Security Survey. This study found that mothers are active agents involved in the shaping of the expectations of their work and family roles. In particular the implementation of coping strategies, which vary by the age of their children allows them to reduce vulnerability.

Using panel data from 1,878 participants of the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS), this study examines early work experience of Filipino youths aged 20-22 years and the possible implications of this experience on their educational attainment, current work status, and health. Seventy two percent of the youth reported having worked at or before age 16 years (median age at first work is 13), of which 81% worked while studying and 19% stopped schooling in order to work. Of those who were working at ages 14-16, 46% were working for pay, while 54% were unpaid family workers. Gender differences were apparent in these experiences, thus gender-stratified analysis was employed. At the bivariate level, early work experience in conjunction with schooling status is shown to be associated with educational level, work status and earnings, and psychosocial and nutritional wellbeing at ages 20-22 years. Multivariate linear and multinomial logistic regression analyses took into account possible confounding factors such as mother’s age, education, number of living children, household assets and the community’s level of urbanization. Preliminary analysis has shown that early work experience demonstrated adverse and gender-specific influences on some aspects of human capital formation among Filipino young adults.

The purpose of this study is to investigates the profiles of the busiest people in Korean Society. I have composed the typology of time experience in the population by combining paid work hours, an objective measure of time use, and subjective time pressure. Research questions are follows: 1) How prevalent people experience time shortage (especially for those who are workaholic or time complainers) in our society 2) Who are they? , and 3) Why do they feel harried (or not harried)? From the original 2009 Korea Time Use Survey, the study sample of 5,251 diary data from second shift family was selected. The results of CHAID revealed that about 14% of the sample was likely to experience long work hour- heavy time pressure (Type 1). About 22% of respondents were sorted as Workaholics (long work, less pressed), and 18% of workers were included in Time Complainer (short work, high pressure) Type. Most workaholic types were mechanics or small shop keepers, whose work requires more time consumption. The profiles of Time Complainers showed that they are likely to be in their 30’s-early 40’s with young children. Male time complainers were more educated, likely to have two jobs. Female time complainers were likely to be in service sectors, and were more likely to enjoy other leisure activities.

While value chain is increasingly adopted as a pro-poor approach to empower women, its impact on women participating in agricultural value chains can’t be generalized. Mixed method approach using sequential exploratory design was used to explore women perception and participation in onion value chain on their empowerment. Index scales were constructed to measure women empowerment and ordinal logistic regression was used to measure determinant of women empowerment. Women related empowerment to achievement in their lives in social and economic contexts and majority were categorized into medium empowerment. The determinants of their empowerment were marital status, income, education, land ownership, credit and participation in onion value chain development activities. Women participating in value chain development activities were more likely to be empowered than their counterparts. Men’s attitude and reluctantancy to accept changes suggested by women and control over income accrued from their activities are among the barrier for women empowerment. The study recommends for use of gender sensitive approaches in designing and implementing development programmes on women empowerment. Men and informal/tribal leaders should be involved in women empowerment initiatives in order to change their mindset towards women empowerment.