Patterns and severity of menopausal symptoms among Jordanian women

We examined 359 women aged 45–65 years who visited Jordan University Hospital between February and November 2014. The menopausal symptoms were assessed using a validated Arabic version of the menopause rating scale. The mean age at menopause was 49.4 years. Women aged 50–55 years more frequently exhibited hot flushes and vaginal dryness. Although premenopausal women were 1.5 times more likely to experience irritability, perimenopausal women were more likely to experience hot flushes, physical and mental irritability, sexual problems, vaginal dryness, and joint and muscular discomfort. Hence, health care providers should focus on women at all stages of life.     

Fertility and Financial Development in South Asia

The paper empirically examines old-age security hypothesis to explain fertility rates in South Asia. Panel data is used for the period 1972–2013 for seven South Asian countries which include Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The estimated results reveal that in South Asia fertility rate decreases with the increase in financial development. Thus, the findings support old-age security hypothesis that parents use children as financial instruments to secure their old age. This paper validates the theory that the availability of alternative financial tools reduces the incentives of households to have large offspring. Infant mortality is also shown an important factor for high fertility rate in South Asia. This implies that households cover their risk from losing children by producing more children. The results also reveal that fertility rate decreases with the increase in per capita income, which implies that households treat children as inferior good in this region. In other words, households prefer quality of children over quantity of children when their income level increases. The results have also shown that fertility decreases with the increase in education, urbanization, agriculture productivity and industrialization. The study has some important policy implications.