Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa: How big will the economic dividend be?

In mid-demographic-transition, many Asian countries enjoyed a large demographic ‘dividend’: extra economic growth owing to falling dependant/workforce ratios, or slower natural increase, or both. We estimate the dividend, 1985–2025, in sub-Saharan Africa and its populous countries. Dependency and natural increase peaked around 1985, 20 years after Asia. The UN projects an acceleration of the subsequent slow falls but disregards slowish declines in young-age mortality and thus, we argue, overestimates future fertility decline. Even if one accepts their projection, arithmetical and econometric evidence suggests an annual, if not total, dividend well below Asia's. The dividend arises more from falling dependency than reduced natural increase, and could be increased by accelerating the fertility decline (e.g., by reducing young-age mortality) or by employing a larger workforce productively. Any dividend from transition apart, low saving in much of Africa (unlike Asia) means that, given likely natural increase, current consumption per person is unsustainable because it depletes capital per person.     

Health conditions in rural and urban areas of developing countries

The poor quality and meagre supply of data prohibit conclusions as to the relationship of health status to rural-urban residence in underdeveloped countries. Demographic indicators of health, specifically infant mortality and average life expectancy, do not seem to vary systematically according to rural-urban residence in the less developed countries ofAsia, Africa and Latin America. Further differences between rural and urban areas in availability of health services and facilities do not always conform with apparent differences between the areas in health status. However, nutritional standards, housing conditions, and sanitation, water supply and other pertinent environmental circumstances account to some extent for differences observed in health status between rural and urban inhabitants of these countries.     

Commoditization of Lifestyle Migration: Japanese Retirees in Malaysia

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the relationship between mobilities created from individual choices and the market factors driving lifestyle migration. The transnational mobility of elderly Japanese throughout Asia is considered one of the emerging cases of international retirement migration in Asia, an overall relatively new phenomenon. Through examining the sociocultural aspects of lifestyle migration in the case of Japanese international retirement migration to Malaysia, this paper argues that lifestyle migration, as a form of consumption, results in self-realization that has a culturally specific meaning for Japanese retirees. By linking tourism and migration, this paper proposes that the mobilities market serves as a mediator of transnational human mobilities and argues that the commoditization of Japanese international retirement migration reflects on both the socioeconomic and sociocultural aspects of Japan as an aging society. Ethnographic data, alongside media discourse analysis, demonstrates how the expectation of self-realization is mediated through the promotion of Malaysia as a destination country of Japanese international retirement migration and their culturally specific understandings of retirement lifestyle.     

International Airports: Passengers in an Environment of ‘Authorities’

This article looks at airports from the passengers' perspectives. It shows that international airports are, above all, spaces of highly explicit expressions of several authorities. The article first distinguishes between airline and airport geographies, followed by a conceptual analysis of authority, power and airports. Then, the article describes the several airport authorities and their responsibilities, spelling out their control of the physical elements of airport terminals, with special attention to signage. This is followed by discussions of airport terminal operations and resulting passenger flows, once again focusing on the role of multiple authorities. These discussions lead, finally, to expositions of travelers' socialities while at international airport terminals and under an authoritarian regime, focusing on passengers' disembodying and dialectics.     

Editors' Introduction

For the professional middle class in information industries, “working from home” is an increasingly common feature of the employment landscape, resulting from the affordability and portability of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The phrase invokes a sense of freedom from the banality of the traditional office, offering flexibility in both working hours and location when other commitments prevail. In recent debates in Australian politics, working from home is also offered as an empowered choice for women who seek to combine paid work and childcare duties, thereby consecrating a preferable version of (post)feminist subjectivity suited to neoliberal economics and ideologies. This paper shows how these subjectivities have been represented in recent ICT advertising for two purposes: firstly, to highlight the role of mainstream media in normalising preferred uses of new media technology for work purposes; and secondly, to note how this process contributes to wider discourses limiting the aspirations of middle-class feminist politics to an individual level. In doing so, the paper seeks to question the ethical horizon of new media advertising as well as the feminist and labour politics upon which its appeal relies.     

Who decides the position for birth? A follow-up study of a randomised controlled trial

BackgroundPhysical benefits are suggested for women and their babies when women adopt an upright position of their choice at birth. Available care options during labour influence women's impressions of what intrapartum care is. This indicates that choice of birth positions may be determined more by midwives than by women's preferences.QuestionThe aims of this study were to investigate factors associated with adherence to allocated birth position and also to investigate factors associated with decision-making for birth position.MethodAn invitation to answer an on-line questionnaire was mailed.FindingsDespite being randomised, women who gave birth on the seat were statistically significantly more likely to report that they participated in decision-making and that they took the opportunity to choose their preferred birth position. They also reported statistically significantly more often than non-adherers that they felt powerful, protected and self-confident.ConclusionsMidwives should be conscious of the potential impact that birth positions have on women's birth experiences and on maternal outcomes. Midwives should encourage women's autonomy by giving unbiased information about the birth seat. An upright birth position may lead to greater childbirth satisfaction. Women's experience of and preferences for birth positions are consistent with current evidence for best practice.     

国际大都市与北京市人口疏解政策评述及借鉴

随着城市化进程的加快,北京进入了城市人口快速膨胀的时期,带来了道路交通拥堵、环境污染加重、资源过度消耗等一系列城市问题。本文总结了东京、首尔、香港、纽约和巴黎等国际大都市人口疏导政策,这些政策包括：产业转移带动人口转移;快速交通建设扩大人口分布和职业通勤范围;卫星城、次中心城区的住宅规划吸纳人口;公共资源分配向郊区倾斜,完善配套基础设施;防止低效益的传统第三产业过度膨胀。北京市现有的人口疏解政策可以分为产业调控类、资源调节类、驱出限入类和行政协商类,各有优势和劣势。在经济结构转型的战略背景下,北京市人口调控需要一个包括产业规划、建设规划、人口管理和政府推动的综合人口调控体系。     

之于学校的国际理解教育研究

“国际理解”即生活在同一个地球上的各国人民,要超越国界互相理解,在互相尊重与信任的前提下共同努力实现和维护世界和平.基于此理念的教育即为“国际理解教育”.“国际理解教育”具体的实施方案通常是根据不同年龄、不同成长经历来拟定的,而之于学校的“国际理解教育”的形式又是大同小异的.     

Youth Participation and Community Change

The Bedouin community in the southern Negev desert in Israel is a population in transition. The article describes how deliberate intergroup dialogue enhanced the ability of a group of teachers from the community to discuss the complexities of the transition within a supportive group setting as a starting point to facilitate social change.     

Preface:

No abstract available for this article.