Suchergebnisse

Debate over the measurement of global poverty in low- and middle-income countries continues unabated. There is considerable controversy surrounding the 'dollar a day' measure used to monitor progress against the Millennium Development Goals. This article shines fresh light on the debate with new empirical analyses of poverty (including child poverty), inequality and deprivation levels in the Pacific island state of Vanuatu. The study focuses not only on economic and monetary metrics and measures, but also the measures of deprivation derived from sociology in relation to shelter, sanitation, water, information, nutrition, health and education. Until recently, there had been few, if any, attempts to study poverty and deprivation disparities among children in this part of the world. Different measures yield strikingly different estimates of poverty. The article, therefore, attempts to situate the study findings in the broader international context of poverty measurement and discusses their implications for future research and the post-2015 development agenda.

AbstractThis research tests the thesis that the neoclassical microeconomic and the new household economic theoretical assumptions on migration decision‐making rules are segmented by gender, marital status, and time frame of intention to migrate. Comparative tests of both theories within the same study design are relatively rare. Utilizing data from the Causes of Migration in South Africa national migration survey, we analyse how individually held "own‐future" versus alternative "household well‐being" migration decision rules effect the intentions to migrate of male and female adults in South Africa. Results from the gender and marital status specific logistic regressions models show consistent support for the different gender‐marital status decision rule thesis. Specifically, the "maximizing one's own future" neoclassical microeconomic theory proposition is more applicable for never married men and women, the "maximizing household income" proposition for married men with short‐term migration intentions, and the "reduce household risk" proposition for longer time horizon migration intentions of married men and women. Results provide new evidence on the way household strategies and individual goals jointly affect intentions to move or stay.

This paper examines how the relationship between parents' educational achievement (a marker of their socio‐economic status) and children's early developmental outcomes has evolved in Australia since the early 1980s. The specific focus of this paper is whether the gradient in children's early developmental outcomes by parents' education has changed since the 1980s. A comparative analysis of two surveys is undertaken that follows Australian cohorts of children through their early years – the Australian Temperament Project (following children born in Victoria in the early 1980s) and the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (following a representative sample of children born in Australia in 1999). The analysis shows that the relationship between parental education and children's early developmental outcomes does not in general appear to have changed greatly over the years. The gradient associated with behaviour difficulties, persistence in behaviour difficulties over time, and in reading skills has either remained the same or strengthened somewhat, while the gradient associated with social skills has weakened. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues that might explain these trends.