Do shocks affect men's and women's assets differently?: A review of literature and new evidence from Bangladesh and Uganda

This background paper attempts to expand our understanding of the gender-differentiated impact of shocks on assets through a literature review on shocks and gendered asset dynamics and an analysis of new panel data (2007 and 2009) from Uganda and Bangladesh looking at the impact of negative shocks and positive events on men's and women's assets. We take advantage of detailed assets and shocks modules to disaggregate the type of shock between covariate and idiosyncratic shocks and types of assets according to ownership (joint, husband's, and wife's assets). We also consider the impact of life-cycle events such as dowry payments and receipts, and inheritance. Estimation of an asset accumulation regression as a function of covariate and idiosyncratic shocks, with controls for baseline characteristics and asset stocks, finds that although many shocks are similar in both countries, commonly experienced shocks do not necessarily have the same effects across countries and on men's, women's, and jointly owned assets within countries. Land and assets in general were relatively well insured against food price increases in Bangladesh, but jointly held assets and wives' assets in Uganda were negatively affected. Weather shocks negatively impact husbands' assets and wives' assets in Bangladesh and Uganda, respectively. Reflecting differences in country and context, dowry and wedding expenses took their toll on wives' land in Bangladesh, and illness shocks also had a large detrimental impact on wives' assets in Bangladesh, while death negatively affected wives' assets in Uganda. Within households, however, it appears that in Bangladesh, husbands' land and assets were more negatively affected by covariate shocks relative to wives' assets, whereas in Uganda, husbands' assets were relatively protected against covariate shocks relative to wives' assets.Shocks, Gender, assets,

Out of Sync? Demographic and Other Social Science Research on Health Conditions in Developing Countries

A framework is presented for considering for what health conditions in developing countries the marginal social benefits of demographic and social science research are likely to be relatively high. Based on this framework, it is argued that the relative current and future predicted prevalence of burdens of different health/disease conditions as measured by Disability-Adjusted-Life-Years (DALYs) represent fairly well some important factors related to the relative marginal social benefits of demographic and social science research on different health conditions. World Health Organization (WHO) DALYs projections for 2005-30 are compared with (a) demographic and other social science studies on health in developing countries during 1990-2005 and (b) presentations at the Population Association of America annual meetings during the same time period. These comparisons suggest that, recent demographic and social science research on health in developing countries has overfocused substantially relatively on HIV/AIDS and underfocused substantially relatively on non-communicable diseases

Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development

This paper provides a broad empirical overview of the relationship between family change and socio-economic development drawing on 30+ years of Demographic and Health Survey data from 3.5 million respondents across 84 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conduct two sets of analyses. First, we document global and regional-level associations between the Human Development Index (HDI) and novel indicators reflecting multidimensional family change. Second, we use methods from the growth convergence literature to examine whether – and in which domains – there is evidence of cross-country convergence in family indicators over levels of development. We show that families in LMICs have transformed in multiple ways, changing differently across domains, world regions, and genders. Fertility, intra-couple decision-making, and women’s life-course timing indicators are strongly associated with HDI, yet cross-country convergence is limited to the latter domain. Marriage, cohabitation, household structure, and men’s life-course timing indicators are more weakly associated with HDI, and span a broad spectrum of convergence dynamics ranging from divergence to modest convergence. We describe this scenario as “persistent diversity with development,” and shed light on the underlying regional heterogeneity – driven primarily by sub-Saharan Africa

The history of AIDS exceptionalism

In the history of public health, HIV/AIDS is unique; it has widespread and long-lasting demographic, social, economic and political impacts. The global response has been unprecedented. AIDS exceptionalism - the idea that the disease requires a response above and beyond "normal" health interventions - began as a Western response to the originally terrifying and lethal nature of the virus. More recently, AIDS exceptionalism came to refer to the disease-specific global response and the resources dedicated to addressing the epidemic. There has been a backlash against this exceptionalism, with critics claiming that HIV/AIDS receives a disproportionate amount of international aid and health funding

‘‘The Soldiers Came to the House’’: Young Children’s Responses to The Colour of Home

This article begins by reflecting on the present refugee crisis and its relevance to children in the UK. It identifies the need for teaching about the refugee experience to young children and argues that literature can provide a conduit for this. Sincethemillenniumtherehasbeenarapidincreaseinthenumberofbookspublished forchildren whichtake thisastheir theme, aimed atever-youngerreaders.Takingasa case study The Colour of Home by Mary Hoffman, a picturebook commonly used in lower primary classrooms, the article considers how this text promotes understanding and validates the circumstances of refugees. It closely examines the motivations and aims of the writer, how the book was mediated by teachers in the primary classroom, and how refugee and non-refugee children read and responded to it. Findings are presented from an interview with Mary Hoffman herself, juxtaposed with data from threeclassroomssuggestingthatpupilsgainedvaluableinsightintoacomplicatedand controversial issue. However the research concludes that viewing children through a refugee/non-refugee binary was reductive in not recognising the multi-layered nuances of meaning which were constructed by young readers who brought to bear a wide variety of individual life and family experiences. Furthermore, teachers in the study played a powerful role in mediating the texts when sharing them in the classroom, and devised a selection of stimulating resources to provoke reader response in terms of empathy, ‘‘social action’’, and some critical literacy

Replication Materials for COVID 19 and ideal family size

This brief report explores whether the COVID-19 Pandemic impacted ideal family size in the United States. Although COVID-19 negatively impacted short-term fertility expectations, preferences, and behaviors in the United States, it remains unknown whether the pandemic contributed to changes in family size ideals more broadly. The sample consists of 1,823 respondents from the General Social Survey (GSS) who were originally interviewed before the COVID-19 pandemic (in 2016 and 2018) and were re-interviewed in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic (in August/September 2020), a period when pandemic-related stress and uncertainty was particularly pronounced. A within-person fixed effects approach is utilized.Findings from within-person fixed effects analyses suggested that the pandemic had no impact on the quantum of ideal family size responses. These findings were robust to alternative specifications and were similar to what was observed in a parallel analysis of how the Great Recession impacted ideal family size. Findings pointed to stability in ideal family size in the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US

Replication Materials for: Multi-Sited Analysis of Migration, Fertility, and Contraception in France

Drawing on research that takes a transnational perspective, we standardize and integrate data collected in France (the destination country in our study) and data collected in six high-fertility African countries (the senders). Descriptively we show that African migrants in our sample have higher children ever born (CEB) than native-French women, but lower CEB than women in corresponding origin countries, thus suggesting that socialization into pronatalist norms is an incomplete explanation for migrant fertility in the first generation. We go on to test alternative explanations for migrant fertility by conducting multivariate analyses with entropy balancing that weight migrants’ background characteristics to resemble women in both origin and destination countries. Results are supportive of both selection and adaptation perspectives, although we find little evidence of migration-related disruption of childbearing. In a secondary analysis, we conduct a multi-sited analysis of migration and contraceptive use by standardizing and integrating a sample of African migrants in France from six West and Central African countries in the Trajectoires et Origines survey with a sample of women living in the same six African countries in the Demographic and Health Surveys. Descriptive analyses indicate that the contraceptive use of migrants in the sample more closely aligns with native-French women than women from origin countries. In particular, migrants report dramatically higher use of long-acting reversible contraception and short acting hormonal methods of contraception and lower use of traditional methods of contraception compared to women in countries of origin. Though migrants differ from women in countries of origin on observed characteristics including education and family background, re-weighting women in origin countries to resemble migrants on these observed characteristics does little to explain differences in contraceptive use between the two groups. A third paper focuses on Turkish migrants to France. Descriptive analyses indicate that contraceptive use of migrant women from Turkey in France is more comparable to that of non-migrant women in France compared to non-migrant women in Turkey. To address migrant selectivity on observed characteristics in multivariate analyses, non-migrant groups in France and Turkey are re-weighted with entropy balancing to resemble migrants on observed characteristics. Multivariate results indicate that there are sizeable differences in contraceptive usage between Turkish migrants and non-migrant Turkish women, which undermines the hypothesis of selection on observables. Yet, there are no significant differences between migrants and non-migrant French women in contraceptive methods, thus supporting an adaptation perspective. Supplementary analyses highlight several pathways that could help explain these findings

Replication Materials for: Women's employment and fertility in a global perspective (1960–2015)

This project compiles a unique dataset that combines nationally representative country-level data on women's wage employment from the International Labor Organization with fertility and reproductive health measures from the United Nations and additional information from UNESCO, OECD, and the World Bank. This dataset is used to explore the linear association between women's employment and fertility/reproductive health around the world between 1960 and 2015