Family planning success stories in Bangladesh and India

The Matlab Project in Bangladesh and the Kundam Project in India have demonstrated that a significant rise in contraceptive prevalence can occur in socioeconomic environments that are generally conducive to high fertility and mortality. The author describes the inputs and outputs of these two projects and tries to identify the factors underlying their success. Both projects are experimental in the sense that in each anintervention area is provided with special inputs that are not provided to a contiguous control area. The special inputs were different for the two projects. In the intervention area in Matlab, the project took responsibility for providing family planning and some rudimentary maternal and child health services that were considerably different from those provided in the national program. In Kundam, the project did not take responsibility for providing services in the intervention area, but rather tried to mobilize the community through various clubs and committees to take the most advantage of the government's family planning and other development programs. The success of the Matlab Project can be attributed to various aspects of the organizational system developed for delivering consumer-friendly services. The success of the Kundam Project can be attributed to various aspects of the system developed for community members'active participation in the program. The projects are not fully replicable because of inadequate human and financial resources, but the lessons learned from them should be useful in improving national programs. The Kundam Project is more realistic in the sense that it focuses on activities that supplement local activities of the national program rather than substitute for them (as in the Matlab Project). Thus the Kundam Project is more likely to be replicable than the Matlab Project.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Reproductive Health,Early Child and Children's Health,ICT Policy and Strategies

Sexual behaviour in India with risk of HIV/AIDS transmission

The estimate of cumulative HIV-positive persons in India by the end of 1994 ranges from 900,000 to 1.9 million. The corresponding figures projected for 2000 are 2.1 million to 6.7 million. The estimate of cumulative AIDS cases in India by 2000 ranges from 500,000 to 1.2 million. These figures indicate the magnitude of the problems India is going to face in the near future because of the AIDS pandemic. Although at the initial stage of the spread of HIV/AIDS in the USA and a few other Western countries, male homosexual relations and sharing of equipment by intravenous drug users were the principal modes of HIV transmission, by now the predominant mode of transmission in all countries is heterosexual relations. In India this has always been the case. It is estimated that in India about three-fourths of HIV transmission occurs through heterosexual relations and the rest occurs mainly through transfusion of infected blood and sharing of infected equipment. The role of male heterosexual relations in HIV transmission in India cannot, however, be ruled out, although evidence of such transmission so far is rare. The risk of transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is higher in sexual relationships with multiple partners and without the use of condoms. Premarital sex often involves multiple partners, and extramarital sex, by definition, implies multi-partner relationships. The following categories of people are likely participants, voluntary or nonvoluntary, in multi-partner sexual relationships: female prostitutes and their customers, male homosexuals, hijras and male prostitutes. Avoidance of multi-partner sexual relationships, use of condoms and sexual abstinence are usually advocated for prevention of spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. This paper provides salient findings from the empirical studies made so far in India along with the historical contexts of the topics mentioned above

The impact of women's social position on fertility in developing countries

This paper examines ideas about possible ways in which the extent of women's autonomy, women's economic dependency, and other aspects of their position vis-à-vis men influence fertility in Third World populations. Women's position or “status” seems likely to be related to the supply of children because of its links with age at marriage. Women's position may also affect the demand for children and the costs of fertility regulation, though some connections suggested in the literature are implausible. The paper ends with suggestions for future research.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45660/1/11206_2005_Article_BF01124382.pd

Social change and the family: Comparative perspectives from the west, China, and South Asia

This paper examines the influence of social and economic change on family structure and relationships: How do such economic and social transformations as industrialization, urbanization, demographic change, the expansion of education, and the long-term growth of income influence the family? We take a comparative and historical approach, reviewing the experiences of three major sociocultural regions: the West, China, and South Asia. Many of the changes that have occurred in family life have been remarkably similar in the three settings—the separation of the workplace from the home, increased training of children in nonfamilial institutions, the development of living arrangements outside the family household, increased access of children to financial and other productive resources, and increased participation by children in the selection of a mate. While the similarities of family change in diverse cultural settings are striking, specific aspects of change have varied across settings because of significant pre-existing differences in family structure, residential patterns of marriage, autonomy of children, and the role of marriage within kinship systems.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45661/1/11206_2005_Article_BF01124383.pd