The impact of economic downturns on health and mortality

This research aims to assess the importance of wealth and women empowerment perpectives which may determine maternal mortality in two provinces, West Sumatera and West Java. The data input comes from 2010 Population Census. Economic groups will be indicated from housing condition. Based on several variables of housing condition a wealth index will be built. Then every household will be grouped into five group based on the wealth index. Maternal death and live birth which is recorded during 2010 Population Census will be used as input data for pregnancy related mortality in every economic group. This calculation is done separately for West Sumatera and West Java.

The further analysis is aimed to find out the underlying factors of maternal mortality deferential between economic groups. Some variables which are available in Population Census are used as potential determinant of maternal mortality differential. The variables will cover several aspects such as population structure, fertility and women empowerment. The descriptive analysis will be done in each province. Therefore, the result can reveal the similarity or differences of determinants in West Java and West Sumatera. This study is also aimed to assess whether economic status is more powerful than the other factors to determine maternal mortality.

One the very first concerns social scientist had about population and development is perhaps the conditions workers had to endure in order to make the economic system develop. In that regard, the work of Engels “the condition of the working class in England in 1844” focused on arguing that deprived labour implied poor health. In addition, the works of Charles Booth and Sebohm Rowntree also showed that labour and access to health are important factors of poverty. This research aims at contributing to the general hypothesis that conditions of labour determine health status and that in turn these two factors shape poverty in urban areas. In order to achieve this goal, we make use of fifty two quarters of the Urban Employment National Survey, each containing about 300 thousand observations. In addition, information of causes of death from administrative records is added. With these two main sources of data we construct a panel for econometric testing. Making use of a number of definitions that capture a broader range of working conditions, where formal-informal job is the main axis of analysis we expect to find correlation between more informal precarious activities and more stress related illnesses or causes of death.

Objectives: This study creates a new model to predict the changing tendency of ageing population with disability, and gave some evidences on prevention and reduction of disability risk. Data & Methods: A cross-sectional data of Second China Sample Survey on Disability (2006) is used in this study. This study combines PDE model with the methods of static covariate-direct prediction, static covariate by type prediction and dynamic covariate effect prediction respectively. Results: The future total number and growth rate of older adults with disabilities in China are very striking. Under scenario II, about 1.5 million of older adults increase annually from 2006 to 2040, and more than 2.5 million increase annually from 2040 to 2050. Total number in 2050 is 3.05 times of 2006. And population ageing, sex, place of residence, marital status, education, income, provincial GDP per capita are significantly affect the prevalence of disability among the older adults. Conclusion： Social and economic factors affect the development process of future changes in size of population with disability, but the most far-reaching impact factor is population aging, so the health expectancy of the elderly population is most worthy of attention.