Suchergebnisse

Over recent decades, a traditional characteristic of South-East and East Asia - the universality of marriage - has ended. The change has been dramatic and widespread, though variable across regions and socio-economic groups. The proportion of women remaining single in their 30s and 40s has climbed sharply, especially in the large cities and among the better educated. The proportion single among men has also risen, though the patterns have not paralleled those of women. A key consideration is whether the continuing rise in proportions remaining single is largely compositional -i.e. reflecting increasing proportions reaching higher levels of education and residing in urban areas - or whether the rise is continuing when such changes are controlled for. The paper assesses factors that may account for the change in marriage patterns, including reasons why it has proceeded much further in some countries than in others. Finally, some implications of the increase in non-marriage are discussed.

Recent responses to Asian immigration in Australia can be assessed in relation to Australia's search for a national identity. Australian nationalism has always had its racist elements, reflected in the maintenance of the White Australia Policy until it was abolished by the Whitlam government in 1973. Asian immigration has built up considerably since them, though no one source country has been dominant. Since the late 1970s, generally one third or more of settler arrivals have been from Asian countries. Migrants to Australia from Asian countries have been, on average, more highly educated and have achieved higher income levels than the rest of the population. However, some groups have had below average education levels, notably refugees from the Indo-chines region. The polls indicate majority opposition to Asian immigration, as to immigration in general, though multiple issue opinion polling does not show immigration to be an issue of major concern. Since the maiden speech in parliament by the independent member for Oxley, Pauline Hanson, in September 1996, a "race controversy" has erupted which has reflected not only the persistence of racist attitudes among a section of the Australian population, but also that there is a class and education element: anti-Asian sentiment is more prevalent among the Anglo-Australian working class than among the better educated and those of immigrant background. Avoidance of further widening of these fault lines in Australian society will require statesmanship of a high order from Australia's political leaders.

Although the Indonesian Marriage Law of 1974 set a minimum age of marriage for females of 16, among some groups – notably Sundanese in West Java and Madurese in East Java – early marriage remained common well after the Marriage Law was promulgated. Early marriage has since declined but certainly not disappeared among these groups. This paper analyses trends in early marriage and reports on a field study among the Madurese.

Human development has moved to centre stage in development
theory. Education makes an important contribution to economic growth,
but achievement of mass education is important for a number of other
reasons as well. Inequality of access to education is a serious issue
everywhere, and serves to reinforce the inequality of income. Inequality
is evident from the viewpoint of socio-economic background, of gender,
and of regional disparities. In a poverty alleviation programme,
tackling regional inequalities in education may be crucial, yet it
raises many issues. Will expanding educational opportunities only result
in frustration if appropriate jobs are not available? Is the key role of
education in poor regions to enable educated young people to migrate
elsewhere to find better jobs? In international comparisons, Pakistan
appears well behind comparable countries in educational development.
"Path dependency" means that the legacy of past deficiencies in
expanding education will adversely affect Pakistan's development for
decades to come, and what is done now in education will affect
development for half a century. A simple projection shows that even with
the highly optimistic assumption that by 2030, Pakistan will reach the
enrolment rates currently achieved in the United States, the proportion
of the working-age population in that year with no education or only
primary school education would still be as high as 35 percent. This
underlines the need for a strong drive to expand educational
opportunity.

The decade of the 1960s was one of growing concern among demographers with the acceleration of the world's population growth, resulting largely from the sharp decline in mortality rates in the early post-World War II period. The concern has become more selective in recent times, with the prospects for population stabilization becoming clearer in some countries and regions as a result of sharp declines in fertility, but with population growth rates continuing to cause great disquiet in others. Southeast Asia as a whole gives grounds for a somewhat sanguine assessment; its population growth rate is slowing as a result of quite spectacular declines in fertility in a number of major countries. But the situation is quite variable, and some countries maintain high rates of fertility and of population growth.