Population and development

India’s demographic dividend has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Although there has been general consensus on the demographic opportunity, the ability of the country to take advantages of demographic opportunity are often debated. The suspicion was mainly on account of the ability of the economy to absorb productively the unskilled and semi educated labourforce. At the same time, the available empirical evidences present positive effect of demographic changes on the economy. Thus there appears to be a contradiction on the estimates and general writings on the demographic-economic interaction in the country. One of the important pathways through which demographic dividend occurs is through increasing female labourforce participation. But female labourforce participation of those states with rapid demographic changes are relatively low in the country. Therefore, there are large concerns on the contribution of female labourforce participation for the economic growth in the country. But most of these are narratives and are not based on scientific estimation. This study makes an attempt to quantify the effect of female labourforce participation on economic changes using both panel data (using 2SLS estimates) as well as micro data (considering number of children and its impact on labourforce participation).

We examine how land use and livelihoods over time in the Brazilian Amazon is explained by households´ demographic composition and sources of income and welfare, and stages of frontier development. We build on the "household and land use life cycle" and the "household livelihoods" theories to relate land use and land cover change to the many components of colonists´ decision-making, individual aspirations of income and welfare and collective needs of familiar group(s) in rural settings, and how they are mediated by the context in which these decisions are made. We use a unique panel of plots and households based on field surveys carried out in the municipality of Machadinho in 1985 (288 farm households), 1986 (552 farm households), 1987 (808 farm households), 1995 (1,079 farm households), and 2010 (a sample of 259 farm households). In order to understand livelihoods dynamics we estimate cross-section and panel latent class models (Grade of Membership), this last to estimate conditional transitional probabilities from one livelihoods to others over time. We finally discuss how changing livelihood options are impacted and have consequences depending on the scale of analysis and their challenges for public policies regarding sustainable livelihoods, development and land use in the Amazon.

Recent literature on maternal and child mortality foster that world is observing a spectacular progress towards achieving MDGs 4 and 5; however, such progress is resulting into convergence/divergence across the worldwide countries is yet to answer? This study re-assessed the progress of 187 countries worldwide in terms of MDGs 4 and 5 by nuanced econometric models to identify discrepancies in such progress. The results of both parametric and non parametric convergence measures suggest that the absolute convergence in progress of MMR across the world countries is evident only in the recent period, 2000-2008. Progress in all child mortality indicators are divergent and such divergence is increasing for the recent periods. This study suggest that there is no doubt in the fact that there is a considerable progress in both maternal and child mortality indicators. However, a mere progress does not warranty the convergence in progress across 187 countries.

This paper aims to demonstrate the dynamics and causal relationship of migration and development and to assess the empirical validity of existing migration theoretical frameworks, using Taiwan as an example. The paper uses the method of historical structural analysis to integrate existing findings and findings compiled by the author from various data sources and time periods. In the light of particular political situation of Taiwan in the world, the paper stresses the role of endogenous changes and exogenous impacts, with a stress on the importance of contending political economy between Taiwan and other countries, particularly China, Japan, and the United States. According to major external and internal socioeconomic and political changes, the paper addresses migration of Taiwan with respect to crucial historical periods. The overall conclusion is that migration in Taiwan, both internal and international, has been highly responsive to the changing endogenous and exogenous circumstances. The existing well-known schools of migration theory, including neoclassical, new economics, dual labor market, world systems, network, institutional, cumulative causation, and migration system, could explain Taiwan migration very well in longer temporal period, but may not suitable for some specific periods.

Access to basic amenities like drinking water, sanitation, electricity, housing, drainage and others are crucial to the well-being as they contribute to physical and material comfort and quality of life. In the recent years, many international agencies like UNDP, UNESCAP, UN-HABITAT, ADB, World Bank and others have advocated and highlighted the importance of basic amenities for well-being and raising the standards of living. Indian government have also launched several plans and policies for the same in urban and rural areas. The emphasis on the disparities in the access to basic amenities across the economic groups, caste, ethnic and religious groups brings out the issues of exclusion, discrimination and deprivation persisting in the society. This paper has examine the disparities in the access to basic amenities across caste, ethnic, religious and economic groups and also their cross classifications to bring out insightful details for rural and urban India during 1993, 2002 and 2008-09 using NSSO, Household Amenities Surveys unit record data. Findings of this study implies that various policies on basic amenities such drinking water, sanitation, electricity, housing qualities and drainage arrangement needs to be supplemented with pro poor and group specific policies for raising the overall standard of life and well-being.

Climate change is one of the emerging challenges staring households in rural Nigeria at the face and this is attributable to the fact that many of these households rely on livelihood sources that are directly or indirectly climate-dependent and climate controlled. The study relied on data collected from a random sample of 350 households selected from four communities in rural southwest Nigeria. A descriptive analysis of socioeconomic characteristics of respondents revealed their average age to be 55 years with over one-quarter having average household size of seven. Distribution of respondents by educational status indicated that over one-third do not have formal education with only about 26.7 percent educated up to tertiary level.However, the result of tobit regression model employed to ascertain correlates of livelihood options harnessed by these households indicate age, household size, years of formal education, climate change, access to credit and social capital as important determinants. Meanwhile, on the adaptive mechanisms employed to cushion the impact of climate change, storing water in kegs and jerry cans for domestic use (especially during the raining season), compulsory savings

The sex ratio at birth in China has exceeded 107 for nearly 30 years. This paper reviews the policy responses to gender imbalance in China, which include China's strategic policies and actions on the governance of the male-skewed Sex Ratio at Birth (abbreviated as SRB). First, as its official position has evolved, the Chinese government has introduced a series of laws and regulations at both the national and provincial levels. Second, this paper analyzes a national government-oriented public policy system and strategic platform, the "Care for Girls" Campaign, including its history and latest progress. These policy responses and interventions have substantially enhanced women's social status and reduced the SRB. This paper highlights policy responses and their results using the latest Population Census data to assess changes in SRB during the decade from 2000 to 2010 in China.

This paper examines the community-level effect of the maternal health voucher program on out-of-pocket spending on delivery services at private health facilities in Uganda. Household-level data were collected before (in 2008) and two years after the program started (in 2010-2011) among women aged 15-49 years who had a birth in the 12 months preceding the survey. A total of 1,569 women were interviewed in 2008 with 327 most recent births occurring at a private health facility; the corresponding figures for 2010-2011 were 666 women with 196 most recent births occurring at a private health facility. The effect of the program is determined by difference-in-differences estimation through simple comparison of changes in proportions as well as the estimation of a multilevel random-intercept logit model. The results show that there was a significantly greater decline in the proportion of women that paid for delivery services and in the likelihood of paying for the services at private facilities in exposed than in non-exposed villages. The findings indicate that the maternal health voucher program significantly contributed to reductions in the likelihood of paying out-of-pocket for delivery services at private health facilities in the regions where it is implemented.

While there is a consistent body of literature on household demography, land use, and migration in agricultural frontiers, especially in the Amazon, few studies address changes in households’ poverty due to change in their portfolio of capitals. This paper provides insights on poverty experience among rural households as frontier evolves from settlement to expansion and market integration. Building on the livelihoods approach, we focus on the estimation of time spent in poverty according to key household capitals, which have been shown to affect household well-being. Empirical evidence on how these capitals affect rural household income and poverty experience are provided by novel longitudinal data for Machadinho d’Oeste, Rondônia, in the Brazilian Amazon. Different from other household level data in the Amazon, ours include interviews applied to settlers at the onset of the settlement project, back to 1985, with follow-ups up to 2010, covering a 25 years period. We concentrate in the panel 1987-1995 to simulate how improvement in key capitals would impact the average time each household spent as poor and non-poor. This evidence will contribute to similar simulations based upon other study areas in the Amazon and in Thailand, providing material for meta-analysis of poverty and capitals in agricultural frontiers worldwide.

Growing magnitude of population, urbanization, globalization, and technological changes currently present new problems all over the world with respect to employment. In India, the employment situation has changed considerably in the recent years. Many who were enjoying the assured long term jobs had to loose their job in the middle of their career years. This interrupted employment scenario and how these families are adapting in the new economic scenario is analysed in this paper. This situation is analysed in a human right angle.

This paper is based on a primary study conducted in the city of Mumbai (a fully urbanised city where a large number of industries are/were closing down) in India. Information was collected from 250 ex-workers whose employments were interrupted due to closure or huge retrenchment. Two stage sampling technique was used. First, the industries which were closed down or retrenched large number of workers, were selected. From these, a total of 250 ex-workers were selected using purposive sampling method using snowball technique (100 from non-textile industry and 150 from textile industry). The respondents for the semi structured questionnaire were the ex-worker or his/her spouse. Few case studies were also conducted.