Suchergebnisse

SummaryDemographic and socioeconomic data were collected from the Hindu, Mahishya caste community of Chakpota village, Amta Police Station area, Howrah district, West Bengal, to examine the possible effects of economic differences on fertility and mortality, and their potential genetic consequences. The age structure of the low, medium and high economic groups suggests decreasing growth potentials from the former to the latter, with a recent decline of fertility in all the three groups. Analogously, a trend of fertility and mortality decline from the low to high economic groups seems to exist, although with some exceptions. The index of total selection intensity (I) is the highest in the low economic group. Genetic selection seems to be sensitive even to very small differences in economic condition, among related subpopulations of the same population, sharing very similar physical environmental stresses.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Regression Analysis and an overview of the techniques used in the book -- Chapter 2: Regression Decomposition Technique towards Finding Intra-Household Gender Bias of Calorie Consumption -- Chapter 3: Estimation of Poverty Rates by Calorie Decomposition Method -- Chapter 4: Estimating Calorie-Poverty Rates through Regression -- Chapter 5: Contribution of Regressors: A Set Theoretic Approach -- Chapter 6: Estimation of Hidden Markov Chain through Regression -- Chapter 7: Finding Geometric Mean and Aggregate Growth Rate through regression -- Chapter 8: Summary and Discussions

AbstractIndia is the highest contributor to child anaemia among developing countries. To see the latest picture of child anaemia in India, data for 6- to 59-month-old children were taken from the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2015–16 (NFHS-4). The study sample consisted of 1,37,347 children. The dependent variable was the anaemia status of the child. The objectives of the study were to assess (i) the distribution of anaemia prevalence by child age group, (ii) the prevalence of child anaemia by zone and state and (iii) the relation of child anaemia prevalence with social, demographic and economic variables, including maternal nutritional status and low birth weight. The study found that in India in 2015–16, 56% of 6- to 59-month-old children were anaemic – a decrease of only 13.5 percentage points since the NFHS-3 study conducted in 2005–06. It is well known that iron supplementation is necessary for child growth and brain development. This study suggests that, in addition, the socioeconomic conditions of households in India need to be improved to prevent child anaemia. Low birth weight and low maternal nutritional status are also responsible for the high prevalence of anaemia among children in India.

Socio-economic development in a country is very much linked with the improvement of overall status of health of the people in the country. The causality works both ways. However, the degree of relations between the two varies over region and time. This article is an attempt to show how health status is linked with the socio-economic status in different states of India. The health status is seen only for children and women and the data are taken from National Family Health Surveys (NFHS-2 and NFHS-3). For other development parameters National Sample Survey (NSS) data are used. The socio-economic variables taken for this purpose are head count ratio, real mean consumption, sex ratio, literacy level and infant mortality rate whereas the health variables are mainly the morbidity parameters like acute respiratory infection, diarrhoea, anaemia and low nutritional status. The results show that a decrease in the incidence of disease is directly associated with an increase in the socio-economic development, at least in the southern states. In addition to calculating the correlations between pairwise variables, we have found the rank correlation between the average of ranks of socio-economic variables and of health variables. We have also found the canonical correlations between the two sets of variables. The two correlations agreed very well. This was done separately for rural and urban sectors.

SummaryThe aim of this paper is to assess the spatial distribution of nutritional status of children of less than three years through Z-scores of weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight-for-height using data collected by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2, 1998–99), India. The nutritional status of pre-school children was regressed on different socio-demographic factors after eliminating the effect of age. The data show that there are gender differences and spatial variations in the nutritional status of children in India. Gender difference is not very pronounced and almost disappears when the effects of age and socio-demographic variables are removed. The spatial difference, especially the rural–urban difference, was found to be very large and decreased substantially when the effects of age and socioeconomic variables were removed. However, the differences were not close to zero. All the variables were found to affect significantly the nutritional status of children. However, the literacy of mothers did not affect height-for-age significantly. The weight-for-age and height-for-age scores showed a dismal picture of the health condition of children in almost all states in India. The worst affected states are Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh. Assam and Rajasthans are also lagging behind. Weight-for-height scores do not give a clear picture of state-wise variation. Goa, Kerala and Punjab are the three most developed states in India and also have the lowest percentages of underweight children according to the Z-scores. Along with these three states come the north-eastern states where women are well educated. Thus overall development, enhancement of level of education and low gender inequality are the key factors for improvement in the health status of Indian children.

Intro -- Foreword -- Preface -- Contents -- Editors and Contributors -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Inequality, Growth and Development -- 1 Does Economic Growth Increase Inequality?: An Empirical Analysis for ASEAN Countries, China and India -- Abstract -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 Modelling Growth and Inequality: Related Literature -- 1.2.1 Growth, Inequality and Their Interrelationships -- 1.2.2 The 95% Theory of Kuznets' Inverted U Hypothesis: Just a Glorified Speculation? -- 1.2.3 The Exalted Status of the Interrelationships Between Growth and Inequality: The Immortal Triangle of Growth-Inequality-Poverty -- 1.3 Our Modelling Framework -- 1.3.1 Discussion of the Theoretical Findings -- 1.3.2 Empirical Foundation to the Nonlinear Relationship Between Growth and Inequality -- 1.3.3 Inequality and Growth Data: A Small Note -- 1.4 Empirical Results: Panel Analysis of Determinants of Inequality -- 1.4.1 The Panel Estimation Equation -- 1.4.2 GMM Estimation Results -- 1.4.3 Panel Estimation Results and Findings -- 1.5 Sources of Nonlinear Relationship Between Growth and Equity: Methodology and Findings -- 1.5.1 Methodology: Reversal of Roles and Threshold Model in Terms of FDI -- 1.5.2 Findings -- 1.5.3 Discussion of Findings -- 1.5.4 Growth and Inequality: A Simplistic Exposition -- 1.5.5 Growth and Inequality: An Alternative Specification -- 1.5.6 Discussion -- 1.6 Conclusion -- References -- 2 Does Institutional Quality Affect Foreign Direct Investment? A Panel Data Analysis -- Abstract -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.2 Literature Review -- 2.3 Theory and Hypothesis -- 2.4 Specification and Data -- 2.5 Estimation -- 2.6 Results and Discussion -- 2.7 Conclusion -- References -- 3 An Empirical Verification of Kuznets Hypothesis in India -- Abstract -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Why Care About Inequality? -- 3.3 Kuznets Hypothesis

This book reviews the fulfillment of two Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), namely poverty and inequality, in the Indian subcontinent. It examines the complex interplay among development, inequality and poverty in relation to corruption, environmental resource management, agricultural adjustment to climate change and institutional arrangements, with a special focus on the Northeastern region of the country. The topics covered offer a blend of theoretical arguments and empirical data with regard to the three main themes of the book, while also providing agricultural and environmental perspectives. The book also provides guidelines for policy initiatives for harnessing the region's potential in the areas of industry, trade, sustainable use of mineral, forest and other natural resources, nature-based tourism through proper infrastructure development, and resolving land issues to achieve inclusive development. In addition to introducing some new questions on the development-ethnic conflict interface, it uses sophisticated tools such as the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method in consumption expenditure to show the endowment, and return to endowment effects; and techniques like spatial correlation-regression to analyze regional variation, co-integration, vector autoregression, the panel data technique and the adaptation index to climate change, to understand socio-economic complexities and the effect of the concerned variables on entrepreneurship and human development. The book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of major MDGs and highlights their successes and failures. It also includes analytical frameworks that are key to future policy initiatives. Further, it disseminates approaches and methods that improve livelihoods and standards of living through poverty reduction and promoting inclusive development along with sustainable utilization of available natural resources. Putting forward various ideas for creating a more sustainable future, it inspires and encourages readers to pursue further studies to address the gaps that still remain.--

Violence against women (VAW) is a common phenomenon in orthodox Indian society. Women are here trained to tolerate violence since their childhood. Although it is an age-old problem, it has come into the spotlight after the Beijing world conference. Since then, the Indian government and NGOs have started to take numerous steps to eradicate this crime, but it not only continues to persist in the society but is also increasing over time.
Based on the project data of West Bengal State in India, chi square test and logistic regression are carried out to locate the factors associated with VAW in West Bengal. In addition, women are asked to specify the reasons of violence against them to unveil the important factors. Addressing the factors detected from the study and the factors from the perception of women may help the policymakers to take right and effective measures to tackle this social crime. This study confirms that most of the Bengali women face some sort of violence in their married life; sometimes, they experience multiple types of violence. They also experience neglect, isolation or restriction in their married life and among several factors; dowry is emerging as an important factor in West Bengal.

AbstractThe latest National Family Health Survey conducted in 2015–16 (NFHS-4) showed that malnutrition and anaemia still pose huge health challenges in India. Data on 651,642 adult non-pregnant women aged 15–49 years were taken from the survey to study the nutritional and anaemia statuses of adult women by Indian zone and state. The relationships of these two variables with the women's urban/rural place of residence, education level, religion and eating habits, and wealth index of the family, were assessed. Body Mass Index (BMI) and haemoglobin level were used to assess nutritional status and level of anaemia, respectively. The results show that in 2015–16 in India the percentages of underweight and obese/overweight people were 22.4% and 18.4%, respectively. The percentages of undernutrition and overnutrition were more or less same. The percentage of underweight people was higher in the middle belt region of India. Zones with high levels of overweight or obesity were concentrated in the West, North and South zones. A comparison of the two national-level data sets, i.e. NFHS-4 and NFHS-3, showed that the prevalences of undernutrition and anaemia reduced by 13 and 5 percentage points, respectively, from NFHS-3 to NFHS 4, i.e. over the 10-year period from 2004–05 to 2015–16, whereas overnutrition increased by 4 percentage points during this period. Analysis of possible socio-demographic factors and eating habits thought to influence underweight, obesity and anaemia revealed substantive causal relations. More specifically, education and eating habit were found to influence underweight, overweight or obesity and anaemia significantly. The nutritional status of a woman was also found to depend on household income.

Abstract Background Early childbearing influences women's health. This study aims to examine the effects of socio-demographic factors on nutritional status of early childbearing mothers in Bangladesh based on Body Mass Index (BMI) as the indicator. Methods Data was extracted from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS)-2011. The survey was performed on 17,842 married women aged 15–49. We focused on early childbearing mothers (age ≤ 24, and who had delivered their first child ≤ 20). Mothers who were underweight (BMI ≤ 18.5 kg/m 2 ) would be further classified into various grades of chronic energy deficiency (CED): mild (17.0 ≤ BMI < 18.5 kg/m 2 ), moderate (16.0 ≤ BMI <17.0 kg/m 2 ), and severe (BMI < 16.0 kg/m 2 ). Multiple logistic regression model was used to examine the effect of socio-demographic factors on nutritional status. Results Mean age of the mothers was 20.49 ± 2.37 years (ranged 15–24 years). The prevalence of underweight among early childbearing mothers was 32.1 % (urban 25 % and rural 35.1 %). Most of the underweight mothers had mild (62.2 %) CED, while the remaining had either moderate (25.9 %) or severe (11.9 %) CED. Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that young mothers from rural areas, poor families, and those who were illiterate or with low level of education, working, and married to unemployed husband were at higher risk for being underweight. Young mothers who had non-caesarean delivered, delivered at home, or married at early age and had more than two children were also at higher risk for being underweight. Conclusions The prevalence of underweight among early childbearing mothers in Bangladesh is very high (32.1 %), associated with the still common practice of teenage marriage. Education level, wealth index, occupation, place of residence, age at first marriage and parity were important predictors for their nutritional status. The government and non-government organizations should take initiatives to reduce the prevalence of underweight mothers in Bangladesh.

SummaryIt is well known that height and weight are interrelated, and that both are related to socioeconomic variables. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of socioeconomic variables on the heights and weights of different groups of people, formed according to different levels of heights and weights, and to see whether there are sex differences in the variations in heights and weights. Data for adults aged 15–49 years were taken from the India National Family Health Survey-3 and descriptive studies and multiple linear regression analyses carried out. A clear positive association was found for height and BMI with economic level (except for overweight females in the case of BMI). In the case of BMI, it is age that seems to be the most influential factor. Surprisingly, the observed changes in height and BMI are not as expected for short and tall or underweight and overweight people; these sometimes behave in the opposite directions to that of normal height and weight people. The basic assumption of multivariate normality is not valid due to changing relations at different height and BMI levels.