Growth,inequality and poverty in Vietnam: How did trade liberalisation help the poor, 2002–2008

Using the Vietnamese Living Standards Surveys for 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, we explore how provinces with differential access to trade liberalisation reforms differ in their pro-poor growth performance in Vietnam. Using both non-parametric and parametric estimation, we find strong, robust evidence of pro-poor growth in provinces with greater exposure to trade liberalisation. Using censored and uncensored regressions, the study also shows that increased wages play a critical role in this outcome. Our analysis enables identification of the core mechanisms through which the poor materialise their gains from trade-driven growth in a transition economy.     

Measuring Attitudes About Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: The ATT-IPV Scale

In lower-income settings, women more often than men justify intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet, the role of measurement invariance across gender is unstudied. We developed the ATT-IPV scale to measure attitudes about physical violence against wives in 1,055 married men and women ages 18–50 in My Hao district, Vietnam. Across 10 items about transgressions of the wife, women more often than men agreed that a man had good reason to hit his wife (3 % to 92 %; 0 % to 67 %). In random split-half samples, one-factor exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (N ₁ = 527) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N ₂ = 528) models for nine items with sufficient variability had significant loadings (0.575–0.883; 0.502–0.897) and good fit (RMSEA = 0.068, 0.048; CFI = 0.951, 0.978, TLI = 0.935, 0.970). Three items had significant uniform differential item functioning (DIF) by gender, and adjustment for DIF revealed that measurement noninvariance was partially masking men’s lower propensity than women to justify IPV. A CFA model for the six items without DIF had excellent fit (RMSEA = 0.019, CFI = 0.994, TLI = 0.991) and an attitudinal gender gap similar to the DIF-adjusted nine-item model, suggesting that the six-item scale reliably measures attitudes about IPV across gender. Researchers should validate the scale in urban Vietnam and elsewhere and decompose DIF-adjusted gender attitudinal gaps.     

The commonalities and differences in health professionals’ views on home birth in Tasmania,Australia: A qualitative study

ObjectivesHome birth has attracted great controversy in the current context. There is a need for the public and health professionals to understand why maternity care providers have such different views on home birth, why they debate, what divides them into two opposite sides and if they have anything in common.MethodA qualitative study involving twenty maternity health providers in Tasmania was conducted. It used semi-structured interview which included closed and open-ended questions to provide opportunities for exploring emerging insights from the voices of the participants.FindingsHealth practitioners who support home birth do so for three reasons. Firstly, women have the right to choose the place of birth. Secondly, home birth may be more cost effective compared to hospital birth. Thirdly, if home birth is not supported, some women might choose to have a free birth. Those who opposed home birth argue that complications could occur at childbirth and the transfer time is critical for women's and babies’ safety. These differences in opinions can be due to the differences in the training and philosophy of the maternity care providers. Despite the differing views on home births, health professionals share a common goal to protect the women and the newborns from unexpected situations during childbirth.ConclusionThis article provides some significant insights derived from the study of home birth from the maternity health professionals’ perspectives and could contribute to the enhancement of mutual understanding and collaboration of health professionals in their services to expectant mothers.     

A systematic review of studies on ethnic minority youth development in Hong Kong: an application of the ecological framework

Abstract

Ethnic minority young people play a significant role in the socio-economic growth of an ageing society with a decreasing fertility rate. The successful social integration of individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds within a society is a core value of the social work profession. This study examines the understanding of ethnic minority youth development in Hong Kong using a systematic review methodology. Risk prevention and positive promotion factors were identified using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework. Articles were searched through multiple databases in English, and 36 academic articles were reviewed. These studies mainly examined the risks of academic failure of these students in Hong Kong while few focused on the positive directions of multidimensional youth development. Future social work research and practice should examine positive youth development for ethnic minorities which can inform social work practice in Hong Kong and within other East Asian traditionally ethnically homogeneous societies undergoing significant changes in ethnic diversity.     

Winners and losers in Vietnam equitisation programs

This article develops a computable general equilibrium model of Vietnam to assess the long-run likely effects of the country's equitisation programs on its national economic outcomes and industries. Equitisation is found to be pro-growth as reflected in its contribution to increasing real GDP growth rate in the long run. In terms of industrial output growth rates, the winners include electrical, steel and other manufacturing, while the losers include rice and paddy, and oil, gas and petroleum. To achieve better economic outcomes, the coverage of equitisation should be extended to include medium to large state-owned enterprises across all industries.     

More than just trees: Assessing reforestation success in tropical developing countries

Rural communities in many parts of the tropics are dependent of forests for their livelihoods and for environmental services. Forest resources in the tropics have declined rapidly over the past century and therefore many developing countries in the tropics have reforestation programs. Although reforestation is a long-term process with long-term benefits, existing evaluations of the success of these programs tends to focus on short-term establishment success indicators. This paper presents a review of reforestation assessment that highlights the need to not only consider short-term establishment success, but also longer-term growth and maturation success, environmental success and socio-economic success. In addition, we argue that reforestation assessment should not be based on success indicators alone, but should incorporate the drivers of success, which encompasses an array of biophysical, socio-economic, institutional and project characteristics. This is needed in order to understand the reasons why reforestation projects succeed or fail and therefore to design more successful projects in future. The paper presents a conceptual model for reforestation success assessment that links key groups of success indicators and drivers. This conceptual model provides the basis for a more comprehensive evaluation of reforestation success and the basis for the development of predictive systems-based assessment models. These models will be needed to better guide reforestation project planning and policy design and therefore assist rural communities in tropical developing countries to alleviate poverty and achieve a better quality of life.     

Community satisfaction,expectations of moving,and migration

A previous residential mobility model (Speare, 1974) assumes an additive relationship between residential satisfaction, desire to move, and mobility. This paper elaborates the model and applies it to intercounty migration. An interaction between community satisfaction and expectations to migrate is hypothesized which distinguishes four groups of decision makers. A survey in Durham, North Carolina and a unique mobility followup over eight years provide the data to test the model and the interaction. Furthermore, using various time periods for identifying migrants offers some methodological insights. Results support Speare’s general formulation but only after the interaction is taken into account. A three-year migration interval is found to be appropriate.     

Inheritances and Bequest Planning: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances

Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, this paper documented the positive correlation between the receipt of an inheritance and the expectation of leaving a bequest. Inheritance recipients were found to have a higher probability of planning to leave a bequest relative to households that had not received an inheritance. Conditional on having already received an inheritance, the likelihood of expecting to leave a bequest was even larger for households that anticipated to receive an inheritance in the future. The findings in this paper suggest that inheritances already received or expected to be received may be an important transmission mechanism underlying the bequest motive.