Why are fewer married women joining the work force in rural India? A decomposition analysis over two decades

In contrast with global trends, India has witnessed a secular decline in women’s employment rates over the past few decades. We investigate this decline in rural areas, where the majority of Indian women reside. Using parametric and semi-parametric decomposition techniques, we show that changes in individual and household attributes fully account for the fall in women’s labor force participation in 1987–1999 and account for more than half of the decline in 1999–2011. Our findings underscore increasing education levels among rural married women and the men in their households as the most prominent attributes contributing to this decline. We provide suggestive evidence that changes in more educated women’s relative returns to home production compared with market production may have adversely affected female labor force participation in rural India.     

Why do women continue to smoke in pregnancy?

Smoking during pregnancy not only impacts on the woman's health but that of her unborn child. Women most likely to continue smoking throughout pregnancy are generally of lower age, socio-economic status, level of education and occupational status. Women who continue to smoke during pregnancy often feel criticized by society. They feel guilt and personal conflict at not quitting. Lack of long-term positive outcomes from anti-smoking campaigns may result form ignorance surrounding socio-economically disadvantaged women's life circumstances. Current interventions often ignore the emotional and psychological stressors associated with pregnancy; they do not address the altered physiological processes that occur during pregnancy. A review of the literature pertaining to women who smoke throughout pregnancy is presented. Women want an individualised approach to smoking cessation advice, with health care workers having knowledge of the woman's social situation and viewpoints. This paper reveals that the woman's perspective has largely been ignored. Indeed health care professionals have attempted to manipulate women to stop smoking rather than engage in mutually respectful dialogue.     

How are women with a disability identified in maternity services in Australia? A cross-sectional survey of maternity managers

BackgroundWomen with a disability have poorer perinatal outcomes, but little is known about the prevalence of women with a disability accessing maternity services, how they are identified and what care and services are available. Estimates suggest that nine percent of women of childbearing age have a disability.AimTo explore how public maternity services in Australia identify pregnant women with a disability, what (if any) routine disability identification questions are used, and to examine availability and adequacy of services for women.MethodsCross-sectional online survey of maternity managers in Australian public hospitals.FindingsThirty-six percent (70/193) of eligible hospitals responded including all states and territories. Overall, 71 % routinely asked women about disability status (usually as part of routine history taking), however there was wide variation in how this was asked. Most (63 %) did not have standardised documentation processes and two thirds (65 %) were unable to estimate the number of women with a disability seen at their hospital. Most (68 %) did not offer specialised services, with only 13 % having specialised training for staff in disability identification, documentation and referral pathways. Only a quarter of respondents felt that there were adequate services for women with a disability related to maternity care.ConclusionThis is the first study to explore disability identification in maternity services in Australia. How women were asked was highly varied and documentation not standardised. National guidelines on disability identification for women accessing maternity services should be developed and collection of disability identification data should be routine.     

Are women over-represented in dead-end jobs? A Swedish study using empirically derived measures of dead-end jobs

It has been claimed that women experience fewer career opportunities than men do mainly because they are over-represented in ‘Dead-end Jobs’ (DEJs). Using Swedish panel data covering 1.1 million employees with the same employer in 1999 and 2003, measures of DEJ are empirically derived from analyses of wage mobility. The results indicate that women are over-represented in DEJs, especially in the public sector. The findings are interesting from (a) a methodological viewpoint, as it is indicated that the career opportunities associated with occupations can be indicated using one measure for both men and women, (b) the glass ceiling perspective, which arguably under-emphasizes gender inequality in relation to low positions, and (c) a class perspective, which basically ignores gender and sector in explaining career chances.

Why do some women participate in the labor force while others stay at home?

This study analyzed data from the 1970 Korean Census to uncover the determinants of women's labor force participation (LFP) in Korea, in 1970, when industrialization was beginning and the traditional sex-roles of Confucianism prevailed. The population surveyed included urban women aged 14-65 (19,277 married, 4373 single and living with parents, and 3222 single living independently). The study began by reviewing supply side explanations for LFP by women that predict women with high earning potential are likely to participate in the labor force, and noting that this economic explanation fails to consider the effects of cultural mechanisms that emphasize female domesticity. The study then comments on the labor market structure in Korea, in 1970, that led to limited employment opportunities for women, the domestic ideology that was prevalent during the early industrial stage, and the impact of this domestic ideology on Korean women. The logistic regressions used in the analytical methodology are then described, and it is hypothesized that women will be less likely to seek employment if they have adequate family resources, they are married and have children, and they are part of an extended family. It is further hypothesized that women's education will have no significant impact on employment and that university education is important as a marriage asset. The study results support this hypothesis in regard to single women living with parents, but reveal a slight effect of education on LFP among married women.     

Fetal movements: What are we telling women?

Problem

Information that women receive about the importance of monitoring fetal movements and what to do if there are changes is inconsistent and may not be evidence based.

Why are cohabiting relationships more violent than marriages?

In response to increases in cohabitation in the United States, researchers have recently focused on differences between cohabiting and marital unions. One consistent finding is a higher rate of domestic violence among cohabiting couples as compared with married couples. A prominent explanation for this finding is that cohabitation is governed by a different set of institutionalized controls than marriage. This article explores an alternative explanation, namely, that differences in selection out of cohabitation and marriage, including selection of the least-violent cohabiting couples into marriage and the most-violent married couples into divorce, lead to higher observed rates of violence among cohabiting couples in cross-sectional samples. Our results suggest that researchers should be cautious when making comparisons between married and cohabiting couples in which the dependent variable of interest is related to selection into and out of relationship status.     

Is breast-feeding a substitute for contraception in family planning?

Using data from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey, I disentangle the complex interrelationship between breast-feeding, postpartum amenorrhea, and choice of contraceptive method. I find evidence that women substitute breast-feeding for contraception. Further, endogeneity bias, if not controlled, would cause the relationship to be slightly overstated. In addition, the results suggest that although increased education and income result in decreased breast-feeding, any effect on fertility will be offset by changes in contraceptive use.     

A narrowing gap? Trends in the childlessness of professional women in Australia 1986–2006

This paper examines whether the gap in fertility between women with higher education and in professional occupations and other women has narrowed or widened over time in Australia. Using data from the Australian Census of Population and Housing 1986, 1996 and 2006, the paper focuses on levels of childlessness. Both working women (using occupational categories) and all women (using educational attainment) aged between 20 and 44 were examined. Focusing particularly on women working in, or qualified for, some selected high-prestige professions (doctors, lawyers, dentists and vets), as well as on women with other tertiary qualifications and working in other professional or managerial occupations, the findings suggest that, between 1986 and 2006, childlessness has grown at a slower rate for women with tertiary education than for all women, although women with tertiary education continue to have the highest proportion of childlessness. Our findings for working women were similar, with women working in selected prestigious occupations having the highest rates of childlessness of all working women, but with this growing at a slower rate than was the case overall.     

Why are residential and school moves associated with poor school performance?

Most research on residential mobility has documented a clear pattern: Residential and school moves are associated with poor academic performance. Explanations for this relationship, however, remain speculative. Some researchers argue that moving affects social relationships that are important to academic achievement. But the association between moving and school performance may be spurious; the negative correlation may be a function of other characteristics of people who move often. We offer several conceptual and analytical refinements to these ideas, allowing us to produce more precise tests than past researchers. Using longitudinal data, we find that differences in achievement between movers and nonmovers are partially a result of declines in social relationships experienced by students who move. Most of the negative effect of moving, however, is due to preexisting differences between the two groups.     

Why Do They Roam the Streets?A view of school-age migrant girls in Shanghai

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Male backlash, bargaining, or exposure reduction?: women’s working status and physical spousal violence in India

Labor force participation of women is expected to decrease the risk of spousal violence by enhancing their bargaining power or diminishing their contacts with abusive partners. The opposite effect is predicted when female employment induces male backlash. I identify the effect of female employment on spousal violence by exploiting the exogenous variations in rural women’s working status driven by rainfall shocks and the rice–wheat dichotomy. The instrumental variable regression result indicates that female employment significantly reduces the incidence of spousal violence. This result is mainly driven by the exposure reduction effect that dominates male backlash. There is, however, no evidence on the bargaining effect.     

What do highly qualified professionally achieving women do after retirement in India? Exploring time use,leisure, and volunteering

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the time use of highly qualified professionally achieving (HQPA) women after retirement. Data were collected from a random sample of 1,023 HQPA women in the city of Mumbai, India. HQPA women spent their postretirement time in caregiving and family responsibilities, leisure activities, and volunteer work. Several HQPA women volunteered at social service organizations as the main postretirement activity. In a developing country like India, which is still growing in terms of skilled human resources, this voluntary engagement of experienced and skilled older women is crucial. Policy makers in India and developing nations can promote this.     

Male backlash, bargaining, or exposure reduction?: women’s working status and physical spousal violence in India

Labor force participation of women is expected to decrease the risk of spousal violence by enhancing their bargaining power or diminishing their contacts with abusive partners. The opposite effect is predicted when female employment induces male backlash. I identify the effect of female employment on spousal violence by exploiting the exogenous variations in rural women??s working status driven by rainfall shocks and the rice?Cwheat dichotomy. The instrumental variable regression result indicates that female employment significantly reduces the incidence of spousal violence. This result is mainly driven by the exposure reduction effect that dominates male backlash. There is, however, no evidence on the bargaining effect.     

Why are Children with Married Parents Healthier? The Case of Pediatric Asthma

Among a recent birth cohort in U.S. cities, young children were far more likely to be diagnosed with asthma and to experience an asthma-related emergency if their parents were unmarried. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, I find that the child health benefits of marriage seem to stem from the benefits of parental coresidence and the demographic and socioeconomic correlates of marriage. Children whose parents live apart appear to be at heightened risk of asthma even after taking into account demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The child health benefits of marriage are only weakly related to mothers’ health behaviors and are not related to father involvement. An analysis of relationship transitions suggests that marital disruption may be more harmful for children than the disruption of cohabiting unions. The results provide some cautions and considerations for the U.S. government’s Healthy Marriage Initiative.

Are young cohorts of women delaying first birth in Mexico?

In the last decades, female permanent sterilisation became the most used method of contraception in Mexico. During this time, the demand for pills, condoms and other short-term contraceptives fell consistently. The shift in the demand for contraceptives raises concerns among demographers that the timing of children may remain unchanged regardless of observed reductions in period fertility rates. This paper assesses such ideas in the context of the timing of a first child using duration models as the main analysis tool. Findings suggest that young cohorts of women are effectively delaying first birth relative to the experience of older generations.

Spatial Income Inequality in India, 1993–2011: A Decomposition Analysis

This paper builds upon the renowned media reports-based “Economic policy uncertainty” (EPU) index and analyzes its Granger-causal interrelationships with consumer confidence and aggregate economic activity. Employing a heterogeneous panel Granger causality test on data from 13 world countries, the authors find that: (1) the analyzed countries are quite heterogeneous in terms of the found causality patterns; (2) the EPU index does not Granger-cause the overall economic activity in the vast majority of the analyzed economies; (3) consumer confidence is confirmed as a significant predictor of aggregate output in all countries; (4) news media uncertainty and consumer confidence largely represent two distinct psychological transmission channels. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that consumer confidence (i.e. first moment, expectation) is considerably more important for the aggregate economic activity than economic uncertainty (i.e. second moment, variance). Two robustness checks are provided (an alternative lag structure of the Granger causality test, and the usage of monthly (industrial production) instead of quarterly (GDP) economic activity data). The obtained inferences are quite robust to both model alternations. Additionally, the leading characteristics of EPU index are found to be less pronounced than those of GARCH uncertainty and forecast disagreement.