Poster session on Population and development

The paper analyses the macro-dynamic interaction between demographic trends and capital accumulation in Brazil, for the period 1995-2012, to detect its short term impacts on Macroeconomic performance and its long-run effects on social and economic development. The effects of this interaction are crucial because they affect business decisions and investment, then the pace of growth and generation of employment and income. However, the financialization of the Brazilian economy imposes structural and endogenous limits to the opportunities generated by the demographic transition. However, the analysis found empirical evidences that do not support the conventional argument, derived from neoclassical economics, that Brazil would have insufficiency of domestic savings. The main problem concerns the dominance of unproductive allocation of corporate and household savings, stimulated by a financialization process based on high interest income. As a result, the rates of productive investment are very low and thus, the rates of aggregate savings also remain very low. On the other hand, in this macroeconomic environment, characterized by high interest rates and predominance of rentier income accumulation, the life cycle theory of consumption is unable to explain the main stylized facts of the development experience of Brazil.

Background: Allocations of the scarce resources at the district level in Ghana are not according to priority needs or the burden of disease. The Ghana Essential Health Intervention Project (GEHIP) seeks to introduce a qualitative and quantitative district health planning tool – District Health Planning Analysis and Reporting Tool (DiHPART) - to address gaps in service delivery and reduce maternal and under five mortality as the country strives to achieve the Millennium Goals. The planning tool was adapted and developed from a similar tool used in Tanzania as well as data from Navrongo Health Research Center and the Ministry of Health.
Objective: The objective for developing DiHPART is to give districts a planning tool for allocating healthcare resources according to burden of disease to facilitate rationale healthcare planning and decision making at the district level
Methodology: As an example of South-South collaboration, Ghana in 2003 started collaborative work with Tanzania to adopt the PlanRep, an integrated planning; budgeting and reporting software used by districts in Tanzania.Through the GEHIP project, GHS has adopted and customized the software for use in Ghana.
Results: The Ghana Health Service now has a tool that helps districts to develop plans and budget consistent with the national planning and budgeting.

Diabetes is public a health problem in Mexico. A demographic and epidemiological profile of diabetes in adults as the basis evaluate the economic expenses of diabetes and their financial implications, as well as exploring projections of expenses of medical attention to this disease in Mexican adult population.Using National Health and Nutrition surveys, expenditure was estimated on hospital discharges and budgeting in health institutions. We estimated expenses in one medical office consultation were: 503.34 pesos in IMSS (approximately 39 USD), 372 pesos en ISSSTE (approximately 29 USD), 91 pesos in SSA (approximately 7 USD).

Arabian region comprises of 22 countries located between Iraq in the Middle East Asia and Mauritania in the West Africa. This population – region – is divisible into two – Asia and Africa, each division carrying equal share of the geographical area and population. Yet, the population is heterogeneous and unbalanced with lifestyles and demographics. Asian Arabs are again divisible into more fortunate Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries and less fortunate West Asian countries. African Arabs are divisible into more progressed Maghreb countries and less progressed East African countries.
With an analysis of international data base (US Census Bureau), this paper looks into (i) growth of Arabian population over the last three decades, (ii) explore size, composition and density and (iii) analyze components of population change (iv) impact of population components in vital statistics and (v) examine progress of achievements towards Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
There are differences among Arab countries on population pressure, resource burden and equilibrium. They share a common language but differ in terms of religion, food habits and demographic practices. Thus, efforts are needed to improve poorly performing Arabian population.
 

In order to fill the research gaps in rural wealth data, researchers are increasingly measuring assets as a substitute for monetary data. Most of this research utilizes assets data as an explanatory variable that proxies for socioeconomic status. This paper uses asset data from rural Malawi as an outcome variable. The analysis compares the two most cited methods for calculating the wealth index, 1- the principal component analysis and 2- the unweighted fraction of total assets owned. The paper measures changes to wealth index levels and poverty transitions of 996 households from the 2004, 2006, and 2008 waves of the Malawi Longitudinal Study on Families and Health. A fixed effects model is used to control for unobserved heterogeneity while investigating the impact of household characteristics, including the timing of welfare program participation, on the levels of household wealth. The findings reveal a few substantive differences between wealth index methods. Consistent with the literature, being married, having a larger household and parental schooling are positively associated with the wealth index score. Among welfare programs, participation in an agricultural input subsidy is positively associated with the wealth index score and this association is stronger when using lagged year measures for program participation.

Among the millennium development goals (MDG) is the one concerning the reduction of maternal mortality by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. Probably the most outstanding failure in the attainment of MDG is the reduction of maternal mortality. Both international agencies as well as national governments recognize that it is very unlikely for most developing countries that this goal will be achieved. There has been a sort of stalling in the reduction of maternal mortality, perhaps because the capacity and infrastructure of some countries does not increase in line with the requirements for such ambitious reductions.

This paper investigates whether the Matthew Effect occurs or not for maternal mortality decline, with the implication of widening the existing gap between developed and developing countries.

The Matthew Effect is a phenomenon in which inequalities increase. It was initially labeled by Merton (1968) making reference to a biblical phrase: “Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Matthew 25:29).
To evaluate this hypothesis we take the experience of around 180 countries from all over the world, applying one statistical test to verify empirically.

Uttar Pradesh state with a population of about 200 millions is the India’s most populous state and accounts for 16% of the country’s population and about 9% of geographical area. The state is divided into four distinct regions and 71 districts.
The study examine the variation in the utilization of RCH services viz. antenatal care, safe deliveries, child immunization, and reproductive & child health status in the districts of Uttar Pradesh. The district level analysis is carried out for all districts as recorded in DLSH-3 (2007-08). Different composite indices are computed to study the pattern of socio-economic development, availability of health facilities, utilization of RCH services and reproductive and child health status in the districts of Uttar Pradesh state. All districts are ranked according to the values of these indices and GIS maps are also prepared.
The study reveals that utilization of health services and social development depicts strong negative relation with reproductive morbidities. Overall, reproductive and child health are highly and positively associated with utilization of RCH services, and quality of services. It clearly demonstrates that districts having higher utilization of RCH services, better quality of services also have relatively better reproductive and child health.

Bangladesh has been approaching to reach the targets for Millennium Development Goals by 2015, in particular, the indicators under education and health related goals. The indicators relating to family planning and fertility show on track in the recent past. The adolescent fertility rate has been reduced significantly, which leads annual population growth down to 1.3 percent with TFR 2.3. It is expected that the country will incessantly continue to improve the status of social indicators including population dynamics and health conditions, which will create congenial environment to meet the MDG targets.

Although the country will achieve the goals as a whole but the challenges hindered at the sub-national level where some pockets are there, in particular the riverine southern and northern areas, with low family planning use, high fertility, high MMR. It needs to pay attention in order to transmit the benefit of millennium goals uniformly in the country such as reduction of child mortality, reduction of adolescent fertility, maternal mortality etc. . Embedding holistic and compatible action plans in the population and health areas in the concerned regions would foster accelerated social development that might be narrowed down the regional disparities in reaching the sub-national level MDG targets to be achieved by 2015.

The assessment of how different countries moving and converging in terms of average health and health inequalities is crucial for understanding the challenges of future health policy. As progress in average health in necessary but could not be the sufficient condition of progress in health inequality. The principal objective of this study is to assess the trend in absolute and relative inequality against the progress in reduction of average maternal mortality ratio in 179 countries. The result of study foster some important insights about progress in maternal mortality: First, the progress or decline in average maternal mortality ratio not necessarily will lead to decline in inequalities in maternal mortality ratio. Second, the decline in absolute dispersion in maternal mortality ratio will ratio not necessarily will lead to decline in relative inequalities in maternal mortality ratio. Therefore, policies aiming to reduce maternal mortality should aim at reducing both absolute and relative inequalities. Therefore, efficacy with equity should be a principle for convergence in progress in maternal health in world countries.

India’s health sector witnessed some major policy changes in 1990s that aimed at making health services more accessible to the population. In this paper, I tried to present some preliminary results of the significant changes that occurred between 1995/6 and 2004, especially in relation to the question of access to health care for the poor and rural population using data from 52nd (1995-96) and 60th round (2004) of National Sample Survey Organization on ‘morbidity and health care’. The analysis suggests that overall utilization of health care services have declined and the odds of not seeking care due to financial inability has further increased among the poor and rural population during the period of reforms. Results of the multivariate logit regression model indicate that the non-poor, middle and above educated people were having greater likelihood of using services from private health care provider. Interestingly, poor and rural residents were more likely to have used health care from public facilities in 2004 than in 1995-96, suggesting that reforms may have benefitted the intended population and the shift from private to public sector is encouraging, provided they receive good quality health care services at public facilities and do not face catastrophic health expenditures.