Women's assets and intrahousehold allocation in rural Bangladesh

This paper examines how differences in the bargaining power of husband and wife affect the distribution of consumption expenditures in rural Bangladeshi households. Two alternative measures of assets are used: current assets and the value of assets brought to marriage. Results show that both assets at marriage and current assets are strongly determined by the human capital of husband and wife and the characteristics of their origin families. For both husband and wife, parents' landholdings are a consistent determinant of both assets at marriage and current assets. Contrary to the unitary model, husband's and wife's assets have different effects on the allocation of expenditures within the household. Wife's assets have a positive and significant effect on the share of expenditures on children's clothing and education. This result is robust to the choice of asset measure and estimation procedure. After endogeneity of assets is accounted for, husband's current assets have a positive and significant effect on the food expenditure share. Neglecting the endogeneity of asset measures to individual and parental characteristics may lead to biased estimates of the impact of men's and women's assets on expenditure shares.Family Economic aspects. ,Gender issues. ,Assets. ,Bangladesh Social conditions. ,Households Bangladesh. ,

Women's assets and intrahousehold allocation in rural Bangladesh

This paper examines how differences in the bargaining power of husband and wife affect the distribution of consumption expenditures in rural Bangladeshi households. Two alternative measures of assets are used: current assets and the value of assets brought to marriage. Results show that both assets at marriage and current assets are strongly determined by the human capital of husband and wife and the characteristics of their origin families. For both husband and wife, parents' landholdings are a consistent determinant of both assets at marriage and current assets. Contrary to the unitary model, husband's and wife's assets have different effects on the allocation of expenditures within the household. Wife's assets have a positive and significant effect on the share of expenditures on children's clothing and education. This result is robust to the choice of asset measure and estimation procedure. After endogeneity of assets is accounted for, husband's current assets have a positive and significant effect on the food expenditure share. Neglecting the endogeneity of asset measures to individual and parental characteristics may lead to biased estimates of the impact of men's and women's assets on expenditure shares.Family Economic aspects. ,Gender issues. ,Assets. ,Bangladesh Social conditions. ,Households Bangladesh. ,

Childcare and work

"This study investigates the effects of childcare on work and earnings of mothers in poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City. Recognizing that mothe'rs work status may depend on the availability of childcare, decisions to participate in the labor force and to use formal day care are modeled to allow for the possibility that they may be jointly determined. We then explore the impact of childcare prices on mothers' earnings, conditional on her decision to work. Also explored is whether a mother's "status" within her household (as measured by the value of the assets she brought to her marriage) influences her entry into the labor force.....Our results indicate that participation in the labor market and use of formal day care are, in fact, joint decisions for mothers. Life cycle and household demographic factors have important effects on both decisions. Maternal education is an important determinant of utilization of formal day care, but does not have large effects on whether she works for pay or not. Higher household wealth reduces her chances of working, presumably via an income effect. However, the value of assets she brought to her marriage increases the likelihood of her working....." from Authors' Abstract

Does subsidized childcare help poor working women in urban areas?

High urbanization rates in Latin America are accompanied by an increase in women's participation in the labor force and the number of households headed by single mothers. Reliable and affordable childcare alternatives are thus becoming increasingly important in urban areas. The Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP), established in Guatemala City in 1991, was a direct response to the increasing need of poor urban dwellers for substitute childcare. This government-sponsored pilot program was designed as a strategy to alleviate poverty by providing working parents with low-cost, quality childcare within their community. This paper presents preliminary findings from an evaluation of the HCP carried out in 1998 in urban slums of Guatemala City. The evaluation included both an operations (or process) evaluation and an impact evaluation. Key findings of the operations evaluation are summarized, and preliminary findings of the impact evaluation on children's dietary intakes are presented. Aspects related to the targeting, coverage, and cost of the program are also discussed, and the patterns of childcare use by nonbeneficiary households and their costs are described.Urbanization Latin America. ,Women Employment Guatemala. ,Child care Developing countries Evaluation. ,Urban poor Services for. ,Evaluation. ,Children Nutrition. ,Poverty alleviation. ,

Does subsidized childcare help poor working women in urban areas?

High urbanization rates in Latin America are accompanied by an increase in women's participation in the labor force and the number of households headed by single mothers. Reliable and affordable childcare alternatives are thus becoming increasingly important in urban areas. The Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP), established in Guatemala City in 1991, was a direct response to the increasing need of poor urban dwellers for substitute childcare. This government-sponsored pilot program was designed as a strategy to alleviate poverty by providing working parents with low-cost, quality childcare within their community. This paper presents preliminary findings from an evaluation of the HCP carried out in 1998 in urban slums of Guatemala City. The evaluation included both an operations (or process) evaluation and an impact evaluation. Key findings of the operations evaluation are summarized, and preliminary findings of the impact evaluation on children's dietary intakes are presented. Aspects related to the targeting, coverage, and cost of the program are also discussed, and the patterns of childcare use by nonbeneficiary households and their costs are described.Urbanization Latin America. ,Women Employment Guatemala. ,Child care Developing countries Evaluation. ,Urban poor Services for. ,Evaluation. ,Children Nutrition. ,Poverty alleviation. ,

Exclusive Lambda_b -> Lambda l^+ l^- decay in two Higgs doublet model

Rare Lambda_b -> Lambda l^+ l^- decay is investigated in framework of general two Higgs doublet model, in which a new source of CP violation exists (model III). The polarization parameter, CP asymmetry and decay width are calculated. It is shown that CP asymmetry is a very sensitive tool for establishing model III.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX formatte

Modelling and control of a high redundancy actuator

The high redundancy actuation concept is a completely new approach to fault tolerance, and it is important to appreciate that it provides a transformation of the characteristics of actuators so that the actuation performance (capability) degrades slowly rather than suddenly failing, even though individual elements themselves fail. This paper aims to demonstrate the viability of the concept by showing that a highly redundant actuator, comprising a relatively large number of actuation elements, can be controlled in such a way that faults in individual elements are inherently accommodated, although some degradation in overall performance will inevitably be found. The paper introduces the notion of fault-tolerant systems and the highly redundant actuator concept. Then a model for a two by two configuration with electro-mechanical actuation elements is derived. Two classical control approaches are then considered based on frequency domain techniques. Finally simulation results under a number of faults show the viability of the approach for fault accommodation without re-configuratio