Dynamics of child labor : labor force entry and exit in urban Brazil

The authors discover from an analysis of monthly employment surveys in Brazil's six largest cities over the last twenty years that employed children frequently stop work then start working again, a phenomenon dubbed"intermittent employment."This is not surprising, because the previous chapter on parental shocks indicated that children often enter the labor market to meet short-term income needs for the household, then exit when the need subsides. The implication for measures of child labor force participation rates are striking. Measurements of child labor that are based on point-in-time surveys can be one-half or one-third the number of children who are actually working at least part of the year. Furthermore, there is little difference between households whose children are working and households with children who are in school; children observed in school one period could easily be in the labor market the next. These patterns of children's work and schooling have important implications for understanding child labor in the first instance, and also for the design of programs intended to encourage families to keep children in school and out of the labor force. Income transfer policies should target households broadly rather than on current child labor market status. It may be as important to shore up income in poor households whose children are currently enrolled as to direct income transfers to households in which children currently are out of school. The high levels of intermittency also suggest that the cash transfers intended to replace the income earned in the labor market may be set too high, since many children do not receive a consistent stream of income. This would imply that the extra cost associated with the underestimate of child workers might be offset by a lower subsidy per child.

Kids at risk: children’s employment in Hazardous occupations in Brazil

A literatura a respeito do trabalho infantil no Brasil é vasta, porém mantém umalacuna no que se refere ao trabalho considerado perigoso e como se dá a entradadas crianças nesse tipo de ocupação. O objetivo deste trabalho é investigar o trabalhoinfantil perigoso utilizando os dados da PNAD, complementando os estudosqualitativos já existentes, por meio de análises descritivas e um modelo multivariado. Os resultados mostram que, ao menos no Brasil, as crianças em ocupações de risco têmmenores chances de estudar e tendem a ter jornadas mais longas, inclusive quandocomparadas a outras crianças trabalhadoras. Além disso, existem diferenças importantesentre meninas e meninos, e elas estão super-representadas nas ocupações de risco.While the literature on child labor in Brazil is large, it is not comprehensive:  in particular, there are few studies on children’s work in risky occupations, and those that exist tend to be qualitative and based on limited samples.  In this paper, we aim to paint a broader picture of children’s engagement in risky labor force work, based on quantitative evidence from PNAD data. We document associations between parental characteristics and children’s work, using both descriptive statistics and multivariate modeling to understand the determinants of child participation in risky labor force work. Brazilian children engaged in risky occupations are less likely than even other employed children to be enrolled in school, and more likely to work long hours and experience a variety of working conditions that may be unsafe.  We also see that there are likely to be vast differences between girls and boys in their experience working in hazardous occupations, and that girls are over-represented in risky jobs in Brazil

Brain injury expands the numbers of neural stem cells and progenitors in the SVZ by enhancing their responsiveness to EGF

There is an increase in the numbers of neural precursors in the SVZ (subventricular zone) after moderate ischaemic injuries, but the extent of stem cell expansion and the resultant cell regeneration is modest. Therefore our studies have focused on understanding the signals that regulate these processes towards achieving a more robust amplification of the stem/progenitor cell pool. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the role of the EGFR [EGF (epidermal growth factor) receptor] in the regenerative response of the neonatal SVZ to hypoxic/ischaemic injury. We show that injury recruits quiescent cells in the SVZ to proliferate, that they divide more rapidly and that there is increased EGFR expression on both putative stem cells and progenitors. With the amplification of the precursors in the SVZ after injury there is enhanced sensitivity to EGF, but not to FGF (fibroblast growth factor)-2. EGF-dependent SVZ precursor expansion, as measured using the neurosphere assay, is lost when the EGFR is pharmacologically inhibited, and forced expression of a constitutively active EGFR is sufficient to recapitulate the exaggerated proliferation of the neural stem/progenitors that is induced by hypoxic/ischaemic brain injury. Cumulatively, our results reveal that increased EGFR signalling precedes that increase in the abundance of the putative neural stem cells and our studies implicate the EGFR as a key regulator of the expansion of SVZ precursors in response to brain injury. Thus modulating EGFR signalling represents a potential target for therapies to enhance brain repair from endogenous neural precursors following hypoxic/ischaemic and other brain injuries

Managing better: Children, parents, and asthma

To evaluate a health education program to improve family management of asthma, 310 children with asthma and their 290 parents were randomly assigned to a program or control group. Program families participated in health education designed to resolve specific management problems and build self-confidence in the ability to manage asthma. Following education, program parents scored better on an asthma self-management index than parents in the control group (+1.57 versus -0.83, P P P P P P < 0.05). Program children reported significantly less worry than control children about the limitations asthma imposes and about making mistakes at school.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26238/1/0000318.pd

Insulin-like Growth Factor II: An Essential Adult Stem Cell Niche Constituent in Brain and Intestine.

Tissue-specific stem cells have unique properties and growth requirements, but a small set of juxtacrine and paracrine signals have been identified that are required across multiple niches. Whereas insulin-like growth factor II (IGF-II) is necessary for prenatal growth, its role in adult stem cell physiology is largely unknown. We show that loss of Igf2 in adult mice resulted in a ∼50% reduction in slowly dividing, label-retaining cells in the two regions of the brain that harbor neural stem cells. Concordantly, induced Igf2 deletion increased newly generated neurons in the olfactory bulb accompanied by hyposmia, and caused impairments in learning and memory and increased anxiety. Induced Igf2 deletion also resulted in rapid loss of stem and progenitor cells in the crypts of Lieberkühn, leading to body-weight loss and lethality and the inability to produce organoids in vitro. These data demonstrate that IGF-II is critical for multiple adult stem cell niches

Pregnancy Intentions Among Women Living With HIV in the United States

The number of HIV-infected women giving birth in the U.S. is increasing. Research on pregnancy planning in HIV-infected women is limited