The Impact of Gender Inequality in Education and Employment on Economic Growth in Developing Countries: Updates and Extensions

Using cross-country and panel regressions, we investigate to what extent gender gaps in education and employment (proxied using gender gaps in labor force participation) reduce economic growth. Using most recent data and investigating a long time period (1960-2000), we update the results of previous studies on education gaps on growth and extend the analysis to employment gaps using panel data. We find that gender gaps in education and employment significantly reduce economic growth. The combined ‘costs’ of education and employment gaps in Middle East and North Africa and South Asia amount respectively to 0.9-1.7 and 0.1- 1.6 percentage point differences in growth compared to East Asia. Gender gaps in employment appear to have an increasing effect on economic growth differences between regions, with the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia suffering from slower growth in female employment.gender inequality, growth, education, employment, discrimination

Who fears competition from informal firms ? evidence from Latin America

This paper investigates who is most affected by informal competition and how regulation and enforcement affect the extent and nature of this competition. Using newly-collected enterprise data for 6,466 manufacturing formal firms across 14 countries in Latin America, the authors show that formal firms affected by head-to-head competition with informal firms largely resemble them. They are small credit constrained, underutilize their productive capacity, serve smaller customers, and are in markets with low entry costs. In countries where the government is effective and business regulations onerous, formal firms in industries characterized by low costs to entry feel the sting of informal competition more than in other business environments. Finally, the analysis finds that in an economy with relatively onerous tax regulations and a government that poorly enforces its tax code, the percentage of firms adversely affected by informal competition will be reduced from 38.8 to 37.7 percent when the government increases enforcement to cover all firms.Microfinance,Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,E-Business,Banks&Banking Reform

Intra-household Gender Disparities in Childrens Medical Care before Death in India

The excess female mortality in India and other South Asian countries is no longer contentious. Less known are the reasons for such excess female mortality in the country. In this study, we argue that intra-household gender-discrimination in receipt of medical attention can be one of the most important factors for the unbalanced sex ratio in the country. The 52nd Indian National Sample Survey, which collected for the first time detailed verbal autopsies of deceased persons, is used in the analysis. Place of death, which indicates whether a person get medical help immediately before her/his death, is used as a health indicator variable. The multinomial logit results show that keeping all other factors constant, girls are 1.7 percent less likely to die in hospital than their brothers. The coefficients of different interaction variables also reveal that the probability of infant and very young girls with live female siblings to die in hospital is extremely low. The robustness of the results is also checked using different indicators. The results confirm that girls are highly discriminated in access to hospital treatment and in the number of times being hospitalized before their death compared to boys. Therefore, in addition to the current effort of the government to control sex-selective abortions, efforts should be made to reduce the current intra-household gender-disparities in getting medical care at least for life threatening illnesses. --gender discrimination,access to health care,place of death,India

Intrahousehold Health Care Financing Strategy and the Gender Gap: Empirical Evidence from India

The “missing women” dilemma in India has sparked interest in investigating gender discrimination in the provision of health care in the country. No studies, however, have directly examined this discrimination in relation to household behavior in health care financing. We hypothesize that households who face tight budget constraints are more likely to spend their meager resources on hospitalization of boys rather than girls. We use the 60th Indian National Sample Survey and a multinomial logit model to test this hypothesis and to shed some light on this important but overlooked issue. The results reveal that while the gap in the probability of boys’ and girls’ hospitalization and usage of household income and savings is relatively small, the gender gap in the probability of hospitalization and usage of scarce resources is very high. Ceteris paribus, the probability of boys to be hospitalized by financing from relatively scarce sources such as borrowing, sale of assets, help from friends, etc., is much higher than that of girls. Moreover, the results indicate that the gender gap deepens as we move from the richest to poorest households.gender discrimination, health care finance, hospitalization, India

Who Benefit from Cash and Food-for-Work Programs in Post-Earthquake Haiti?

In this paper, a unique post-earthquake survey designed to provide a rapid assessment of food insecurity in Haiti is used in order to address the question of whether cash and food-for-work (C/FfW) programs are allocated adequately in Haiti. We consider that the allocation principle should meet two main criteria. First, C/FfW programs should be targeted towards people who are in the most necessitous circumstances (i.e., poor and food insecure people). Second, these programs should be targeted at the most vulnerable people on the labor market. Modelling the impact of various covariates on C/FfW programs participation, we find that these programs are not specifically targeted at people who are most in need, be it because of their low level of subsistence or because of earthquakerelated losses. Pre-earthquake participation to programs appears to be an important determinant of post-earthquake participation. What is more, cash-forwork is very rarely declared as the main source of household income. So, a more efficient targeting of these programs should focus on reaching the poorest and most vulnerable households in the directly affected areas. Crowding out effect of temporary jobs should also be assessed on the labor market.Cash and Food for Work; Targeting; Livelihood; Earthquake; Natural Disaster; Haiti

Development and Gender Inequality

Die vier Aufsätze in diesem Band haben als gemeinsames Ziel, Aspekte der Frauendiskriminuerung hinsichtlich Arbeit, Bildung und Zugang zu Gesundheitsdienstleistungen in Entwicklungsländern darzustellen. Zusätzlich untersuchen diese vier Aufsätze die Auswirkung der Ungleichbehandlung zwischen den Geschlechtern auf die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung. Das erste Kapitel behandelt die Auswirkungen von Geschlechterverzerrung (bias) in Bildung und Beschäftigung auf das Wirtschaftswachstum in Entwicklungsländern. Das zweite Kapitel untersucht die mikroökonomischen Determinanten der Kindersterblichkeit in Indien anhand eines großen und repräsentativen Datenbestandes. Kapitel drei erforscht die Wirkung der gestiegenen Investitionsrentabilität der Frauen in den letzten Jahrzehnten, welche zu einem Rückgang der ungleichen Inanspruchnahme von Gesundheitsleistungen zwischen Jungen und Mädchen in Indien geführt hat. Schließlich erforscht Kapitel vier inwieweit Geschlechterdiskriminierung innerhalb der Haushalte hinsichtlich dem Zugang zu medizinischer Versorgung ein wichtiger Faktor für die Erklärung des ungleichen Geschlechterverhältnises in Indien ist.The four essays collected in this volume aim is to shed some light on specific aspect in which women are discriminated against (employment, education and access to health care) in developing countries and on the impact that gender inequalities have on development. The first chapter investigates the impact of gender bias in education and employment on economic growth in developing countries. The second chapter investigates the microeconomic determinants of child mortality in India using a very large and representative dataset. Chapter three investigates how the increased return on investment on women in India in the past decades has reflected in a decline in health care utilization disparities between girls and boys. Finally the essay in chapter four investigates how intra-household gender-discrimination in receipt of medical attention can be one of the most important factors explaining the unbalanced sex ratio in the country

Who Benefit from Cash and Food-for-Work Programs in Post-Earthquake Haiti?

In this paper, a unique post-earthquake survey designed to provide a rapid assessment of food insecurity in Haiti is used in order to address the question of whether cash and food-for-work (C/FfW) programs are allocated adequately in Haiti. We consider that the allocation principle should meet two main criteria. First, C/FfW programs should be targeted towards people who are in the most necessitous circumstances (i.e., poor and food insecure people). Second, these programs should be targeted at the most vulnerable people on the labor market. Modelling the impact of various covariates on C/FfW programs participation, we find that these programs are not specifically targeted at people who are most in need, be it because of their low level of subsistence or because of earthquakerelated losses. Pre-earthquake participation to programs appears to be an important determinant of post-earthquake participation. What is more, cash-forwork is very rarely declared as the main source of household income. So, a more efficient targeting of these programs should focus on reaching the poorest and most vulnerable households in the directly affected areas. Crowding out effect of temporary jobs should also be assessed on the labor market

NaNet:a low-latency NIC enabling GPU-based, real-time low level trigger systems

We implemented the NaNet FPGA-based PCI2 Gen2 GbE/APElink NIC, featuring GPUDirect RDMA capabilities and UDP protocol management offloading. NaNet is able to receive a UDP input data stream from its GbE interface and redirect it, without any intermediate buffering or CPU intervention, to the memory of a Fermi/Kepler GPU hosted on the same PCIe bus, provided that the two devices share the same upstream root complex. Synthetic benchmarks for latency and bandwidth are presented. We describe how NaNet can be employed in the prototype of the GPU-based RICH low-level trigger processor of the NA62 CERN experiment, to implement the data link between the TEL62 readout boards and the low level trigger processor. Results for the throughput and latency of the integrated system are presented and discussed.Comment: Proceedings for the 20th International Conference on Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP

Spheroids from equine amnion mesenchymal stem cells: an in vitro study

Background: Equine amnion mesenchymal stem cells (EAMSCs) from amnion isolated after the foal birth represented an alternative source of easy collection of mesenchymal cells used in equine regenerative medicine. Methods: These cells grown as 2D culture in α-MEM medium supplemented with EGF were differentiated in adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic cells. Half a million cells as pellet were left in 15ml tubes with the same differentiation media for 20 days. After the pellets were collected, embedded in paraffin for morphological study. Results: 2D culture showed EAMSCs with an embryonic phenotype (C-kit+, CD105+, Oct-4+) and a differentiation potential in adipogenic, chondrogenic and osteogenic multipotent cells. By a reproducible method of 3D culture, at day 20 the Authors evidenced a formation of small aggregated spheroids gradually gathering. In cross sections the surface of spheroid evidenced flattened cells embedded in a red matrix by Alizarin staining and occasionally a core of calcium precipitation. A network of apoptotic or necrotic cells in a not mineralized matrix was present into the center of nodules. The 3D spheroids appeared larger (mean diameter of 605±53 µm for gathering spheroids and 1486±79 µm for spheroids already gathered) than those from standard monolayer cultures (mean diameter of 200 ± 73 µm). Conclusions: EAMSCs cultured in 3D method preserve their in vitro multipotent differentiation than adherent 2D culture method. These EAMSCs included in extracellular matrix not mineralized at day 20 seem to be a good source of MSCs for tissue repair and regeneration in equine medicine

Different media and supplements modulate the clonogenic and expansion properties of rabbit bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background -</p> <p>Rabbits provide an excellent model for many animal and human diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, for the development of new vaccines in wound healing management and in the field of tissue engineering of tendon, cartilage, bone and skin.</p> <p>The study presented herein aims to investigate the biological properties of bone marrow rabbit MSCs cultured in different conditions, in order to provide a basis for their clinical applications in veterinary medicine.</p> <p>Findings -</p> <p>MSCs were isolated from 5 New Zealand rabbits. Fold increase, CFU number, doubling time, differentiation ability and immunophenotype were analyzed.</p> <p>With the plating density of 10 cells/cm²the fold increase was significantly lower with DMEM-20%FCS and MSCs growth was significantly higher with αMEM-hEGF. The highest clonogenic ability was found at 100 cell/cm²with MSCBM and at 10 cell/cm²with M199. Both at 10 and 100 cells/cm², in αMEM medium, the highest CFU increase was obtained by adding bFGF. Supplementing culture media with 10%FCS-10%HS determined a significant increase of CFU.</p> <p>Conclusion -</p> <p>Our data suggest that different progenitor cells with differential sensitivity to media, sera and growth factors exist and the choice of culture conditions has to be carefully considered for MSC management.</p