666 research outputs found

    The Out-of-School Youth and HIV/AIDS in Rural Botswana

    Get PDF

    Analyzing the health implications of rising income inequality: What does the data say?

    Get PDF
    Does income inequality worsen a country's health outcomes? In this study, we examine the effect of income inequality and redistribution on health outcomes using a panel dataset for a global sample of 154 countries from 1990 to 2020, and the instrumental variable method. The evidence from the empirical analyses revealed that, on average, higher income inequality is associated with poor health outcomes. On the other hand, this study documented that, on average, countries with higher income redistribution have better health outcomes. From regional analyses, we documented that income inequality strongly worsens health outcomes in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean and Latin America. We found that education, environmental pollution, health expenditure and GDP per capita are the potential channels through which income inequality affects health outcomes. The findings established in this study suggest that a political environment that supports better income distribution would lead to better health outcomes

    Effect of Cu Additions on Scale Structure and Descaling Efficiency of Low C Steel Reheated in a Combustion Gas Atmosphere

    Get PDF
    Modern EAF steelmaking employs scrap as its primary source of raw material. Different sources of scrap have varying levels of residuals, which can negatively influence product properties, performance, and surface quality. The presence of some residuals, such as Cu and Ni in controlled quantities, can also positively impact steel performance for some applications. It is also well known that interactions between residuals and alloying elements in steel can modify the structure of scale formed during slab reheating prior to hot rolling. These changes in the scale structure can influence scale removability. In this study, the effect of varying Cu concentrations in a low alloyed Mn and Si containing steel was examined to investigate its impact on scale removability. Laboratory studies were performed with simulated reheating and descaling conditions that mimic the conditions used in industrial practices. The scale structure that formed during reheating in the combustion atmosphere was investigated using SEM/EDX analysis. A special laboratory water jet descaling device was used to evaluate scale removability at three different hydraulic impact factors. The results showed that Cu at different levels significantly modified scale structure that formed, particularly the internal scale layers, which affected scale removability at different applied descaling impact factors. The effects of Cu level and descaling impact factor on scale removability is discussed

    Effect of Cu Additions on Scale Structure and Descaling Efficiency of Low C Steel Reheated in a Combustion Gas Atmosphere

    Get PDF
    Modern EAF steelmaking employs scrap as its primary source of raw material. Different sources of scrap have varying levels of residuals, which can negatively influence product properties, performance, and surface quality. The presence of some residuals, such as Cu and Ni in controlled quantities, can also positively impact steel performance for some applications. It is also well known that interactions between residuals and alloying elements in steel can modify the structure of scale formed during slab reheating prior to hot rolling. These changes in the scale structure can influence scale removability. In this study, the effect of varying Cu concentrations in a low alloyed Mn and Si containing steel was examined to investigate its impact on scale removability. Laboratory studies were performed with simulated reheating and descaling conditions that mimic the conditions used in industrial practices. The scale structure that formed during reheating in the combustion atmosphere was investigated using SEM/EDX analysis. A special laboratory water jet descaling device was used to evaluate scale removability at three different hydraulic impact factors. The results showed that Cu at different levels significantly modified scale structure that formed, particularly the internal scale layers, which affected scale removability at different applied descaling impact factors. The effects of Cu level and descaling impact factor on scale removability is discussed

    Gender quota, women in politics, and gender parity in education

    Get PDF
    Do women in politics contribute to gender parity in education? This study seeks to provide an empirical answer to this question by examining whether women in politics (women parliamentarians) contribute to closing the gender inequality in education using a global sample of 191 countries from 1990 to 2020. We deployed the two‐stage least square (IV‐TSLS) technique and gender quota as an instrument to isolate the exogenous effect of women in politics on gender parity in primary, secondary and tertiary education. The findings from the IV‐TSLS estimators show that an increase in the number of female parliamentarians is associated with a significant increase in gender parity at all levels of education. These results survived several robustness checks, including using different estimators such as the Lewbel two‐stage least squares and the Kinky least‐squares estimators. Based on the quota type, we documented that women in politics significantly spur gender parity in education in countries with reserved seat quotas and not in countries with candidate quotas. We also found that the results differ across different geographical regions and income groups. The findings call on policy‐makers to address societal, legal and structural barriers limiting women's political participation to achieve gender parity at all levels of education

    Unveiling the effect of income inequality on safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH): Does financial inclusion matter?

    Get PDF
    Access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is crucial for disease prevention and improving general health outcomes. However, a significant number of people across the globe still lack access to safe drinking water and practice open defecation. Therefore, evidence-based research is needed to guide policymakers in improving WASH adoption and practice across the globe. In this study, we add to knowledge and policy by probing the role of income inequality and financial inclusion on access to improved WASH facilities using a comprehensive panel dataset from 119 countries between 2004 and 2020. We used the heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable regression and the Driscoll-Kraay estimator to account for endogeneity and cross-sectional dependency inherent in panel data, respectively. Our preferred endogeneity and cross-sectional dependency-corrected results show that income inequality reduces access to safe WASH facilities. Our study demonstrates that financial inclusion significantly increases access to safe WASH facilities. Income inequality and financial inclusion have heterogeneous effects on access to safe WASH facilities across rural and urban settings, income groups, and geographical regions. Through our interaction and marginal effect analysis, we document that improvement in financial inclusion reduces the adverse effect of income inequality on safe WASH adoption and practices. These findings highlight that policies that strengthen financial inclusion services and further address income inequality would improve WASH adoption and practices. Considering the inhibiting and enhancing effects of income inequality and financial inclusion, respectively, governments could adopt social welfare policies to tackle the former and also put in measures to enhance financial development and inclusion to enhance the latter

    Impact of Rural-urban Energy Equality on Environmental Sustainability and the Role of Governance

    Get PDF
    Globally, rural areas suffer from less infrastructure relative to urban areas. Political and development economists have mainly attributed this disparity in infrastructure distribution to governance. The literature has sufficiently discussed the role that rural-urban infrastructure inequality plays in development outcomes such as poverty. However, not much is known about the effect of the rural-urban infrastructure gap on the environment. To contribute to knowledge and policy discussions, we investigate the impact of rural-urban energy access (in)equality on environmental degradation and the role governance plays using data from 47 sub-Saharan African countries from 2000–2020. Evidence from the heteroskedasticity-based instrumental variable regression consistent with Driscoll and Kraay's estimation revealed that bridging rural-urban energy access inequality is associated with reduction in environmental degradation. We also documented that the direct effect of the governance-related variables used is mixed. The moderation and marginal effect estimates showed that improving governance quality conditions equality in rural-urban energy access to reduce environmental degradation. From a policy perspective, these findings suggest that the implementation of rural electrification policies supported by a good governance system would play a crucial role in mitigating environmental degradation in developing countries

    Energy poverty and gender equality in education: Unpacking the transmission channels

    Get PDF
    Access to energy is widely known to promote socio-economic development; however, the linkage between access to energy and gender equality in education and the channels through which energy poverty affects gender equality in education is not explored much in the empirical literature. We, therefore, examine whether access to electricity and clean cooking fuels and technologies contribute to gender equality in education for a panel of 98 countries between 2000 and 2021. Using the two-step generalized method of moments technique, we found that access to clean cooking fuels and technologies is associated with improvement in the gender parity index for secondary and tertiary education enrolment. Electrification was found to relate to improvement in the gender parity index for primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Further evidence showed that rural and urban access to clean cooking fuels and technologies and rural and urban electrification enhance gender equality in education. We identified that female literacy, female health, female employment, information, and communication technologies are the potential transmission channels through which access to electricity and clean cooking fuels and technologies could contribute to gender equality at all levels of education. Our findings are robust across alternative econometric estimators

    Safety of overlapping inpatient orthopaedic surgery: A multicenter study

    Get PDF
    BackgroundAlthough overlapping surgery is used to maximize efficiency, more empirical data are needed to guide patient safety. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to evaluate the safety of overlapping inpatient orthopaedic surgery, as judged by the occurrence of perioperative complications.MethodsAll inpatient orthopaedic surgical procedures performed at 5 academic institutions from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, were included. Overlapping surgery was defined as 2 skin incisions open simultaneously for 1 surgeon. In comparing patients who underwent overlapping surgery with those who underwent non-overlapping surgery, the primary outcome was the occurrence of a perioperative complication within 30 days of the surgical procedure, and secondary outcomes included all-cause 30-day readmission, length of stay, and mortality. To determine if there was an association between overlapping surgery and a perioperative complication, we tested for non-inferiority of overlapping surgery, assuming a null hypothesis of an increased risk of 50%. We used an inverse probability of treatment weighted regression model adjusted for institution, procedure type, demographic characteristics (age, sex, race, comorbidities), admission type, admission severity of illness, and clustering by surgeon.ResultsAmong 14,135 cases, the frequency of overlapping surgery was 40%. The frequencies of perioperative complications were 1% in the overlapping surgery group and 2% in the non-overlapping surgery group. The overlapping surgery group was non-inferior to the non-overlapping surgery group (odds ratio [OR], 0.61 [90% confidence interval (CI), 0.45 to 0.83]; p < 0.001), with reduced odds of perioperative complications (OR, 0.61 [95% CI, 0.43 to 0.88]; p = 0.009). For secondary outcomes, there was a significantly lower chance of all-cause 30-day readmission in the overlapping surgery group (OR, 0.67 [95% CI, 0.52 to 0.87]; p = 0.003) and shorter length of stay (e, 0.94 [95% CI, 0.89 to 0.99]; p = 0.012). There was no difference in mortality.ConclusionsOur results suggest that overlapping inpatient orthopaedic surgery does not introduce additional perioperative risk for the complications that we evaluated. The suitability of this practice should be determined by individual surgeons on a case-by-case basis with appropriate informed consent.Level of evidenceTherapeutic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence
    • 

    corecore