Education, Equity and Social Cohesion : A Distributional Model [Wider Benefits of Learning Research Report No. 7]

This report - the first from the Centre’s comparative strand of research - focuses on the effects of education on social cohesion at the societal level. The research involved two elements. The first was a theoretical analysis and critique of models in the existing international and comparative literature on education, social capital and social cohesion. This led to the development of a new hypothetical model relating skills distribution to social cohesion. The second part of the research used cross-national, quantitative techniques to test the model on aggregated data for 15 countries. The analysis suggests that educational distribution may be a very significant influence on societal cohesion in certain contexts. Improving levels of education alone may not foster social solidarity if inequalities of skill and income persist. The findings here have important policy implications. Existing policies focus on developing the individual resources and competences which will help to build social capital and community cohesion. However, these will not necessarily impact on cohesion at the societal level. Creating a more cohesive society is likely to require policies that are also designed to increase equality through narrowing educational outcomes

THE STRUCTURE OF FOOD DEMAND IN URBAN CHINA: A DEMAND SYSTEM APPROACH

The structure of Chinese food demand is examined using a non-homothetic translog indirect utility function. This analysis uses household level survey data for 3 urban Chinese provinces over the 1995-1997 period. We improve upon previous studies by incorporating theoretically consistent equivalence scales to account for differences in household size and composition. These scales allow us to quantify the impact of alternative types of household members on food expenditures. Similar to previous research we find little evidence of purchase economies with the addition of members although, depending on age, we find statistically significant differences in equivalence values across household member age grouping.Demand and Price Analysis,

Characteristics of Food Expenditures in Argentina: Implications for the U.S. Dairy Industry

This Discussion Paper provides an analysis of the structure of Argentine dairy and non-dairy food expenditures using a series of econometric models.Argentine Dairy Industry, Econometric Models, Demand and Price Analysis, International Development, Production Economics,

With the help of one's neighbors - externalities in the production of nutrition in Peru

Both public, and private resources contribute to children's nutritional status. And investments by one household may improve health in other neighborhood households, by improving the sanitation environment, and increasing shared knowledge. The authors measure the externalities of investments in nutrition, by indicatingthe impact of women's education in Peruvian neighborhoods, on children's nutrition in other households, after controlling for those households'education, and income. They find that in rural areas this shared knowledge has a significant impact on nutrition. The coefficient of an increase in the average education in the neighborhood is appreciably larger than the coefficient of education in isolation. That is, educating women in rural areas, improves all children's nutritional status, even for those whose caregivers are themselves not educated. In both urban, and rural areas, they observe externalities from investments in sanitation made by neighboring households. They do not find the same externalities in the case of investments, only in the household water supply. There is a direct link between the caregivers'education, and their children's health status. Education transmits information about health, and nutrition. It teaches numeracy, and literacy, which help caregivers read labels, and instructions. Bu exposing caregivers to new environments, it makes them receptive to modern medical treatment. It gives women the confidence to participate in decision-making within a household, and it gives men, and women the confidence to interact with health care professionals.Health Economics&Finance,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Health Economics&Finance,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Town Water Supply and Sanitation

Definitions, good practices, and global estimates on the status of social protection for international migrants

This paper analyzes the issue of social protection for migrants by looking at formal and informal social protection provisions. In particular, it presents the latest global data on the social protection status on migrants, including undocumented migrants. The paper gives special attention to lower-income countries drawing upon recent studies from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It finds that migrants in poorer countries have very limited access to formal social protection such as social security systems, and that the legal social protection frameworks are far from making benefits portable. Rather, migrants have to rely on informal social protection, and it is often migration itself that constitutes a form of social protection for migrants and their families. This means that making migration safer for low-income migrants is vital to allow migrants to fully benefit from their migration experience and to ultimately enhance their social protection.Population Policies,,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Emerging Markets,International Migration

Bullying and school attendance: a case study of senior high school students in Ghana

This paper focuses on senior high school students and the ways that bullying affects their school attendance. Selected items from the 2008 Ghana Global School-based Student Health Survey are analysed first to explore the relationships between the duration and type of bullying and school attendance. Second, we investigate whether having emotional problems, in addition to being bullied, incrementally affects the relationship between bullying and school attendance. Third, we explore the mitigating influence of peer friendships on these relationships. In all cases we provide a gender analysis. The results show that bullying is associated with increased absenteeism for both boys and girls. The analysis of reported emotional problems, however, shows distinct gender differences. For boys, increases in emotional problems are not associated with increased absenteeism for those who are bullied. On the other hand, for girls emotional problems were strongly associated with absenteeism and more so for girls who had not reported being bullied. The third strand of our analysis also showed gender differences in which absenteeism associated with bullying was mitigated by the support of friends for boys but not to the same degree for girls, especially those girls who had reported being psychologically bullied. In addition to the threat to school access caused by bullying, the gender dimensions of the latter two sets of findings suggest a school environment in which peer friendship and emotional well-being are intertwined in complex ways. While there is little or no research within the Ghanaian context, supported by research from elsewhere, we suggest that peer friendships for girls may be comprised of more non-physical, social and verbal interaction within which it might be more difficult to pinpoint bullying. That peer interactions might include a mixture of support and bullying could explain why there is a strong influence on girls’ emotional well-being and hence their school attendance

Poverty, Livelihoods and War Legacies: the Case of Post-War Rural Kosovo

This paper examines the effects of war on livelihood portfolios and welfare outcomes of rural households in Kosovo using the 2000 Kosovo Living Standards Measurement Survey. We question to what extent the legacy of war was experienced through selection into low return livelihood activities or through decreases in welfare generally. We first identify portfolios using a clustering algorithm which groups households pursuing similar combinations of activities. The emerging clusters are comparable to those described in more qualitative studies for Kosovo in the immediate post-conflict period. We then examine the determinants of livelihood portfolio choice and the consequences of these for welfare outcomes, controlling for war legacies and selection into specific portfolios. We find evidence of a relationship between a household’s war experience and their livelihood choices and that war exposure has different impacts on household welfare depending on the livelihood portfolio adopted. We also identify significant selection effects on welfare for three out of four of our livelihood clusters, highlighting the fact that selecting into a specific portfolio raised or lowered welfare above expected levels.