Women’s Autonomy in the Context of Rural Pakistan

The paper explores the elements that constitute women’s autonomy in rural Pakistan. Hitherto most research on women’s status in Pakistan has either been restricted to proxy measures of women’s status generally or to the urban areas. Community or region, each of which has distinctive features, have an overriding influence on this subject. Northern Punjabi women have lower economic autonomy but greater mobility and decision-making authority than women in Southern Punjab. Gender systems at the village level are also important predictors of women’s autonomy. Economic class has a weak and ambivalent influence on women’s autonomy in rural Punjab. Class influences both education and employment of women, these remains the routes to empowerment in rural settings. While most women in rural areas contribute economically, the majority works on the household farm or within the household economic unit. These women do not derive any additional autonomy as a result of this contribution. Paid employment, though offset by other restrictions on poor women, offers greater potential for women’s autonomy. Education, on the other hand, has a lesser influence on female autonomy in the rural Punjabi context.

Pakistani Couples: Different Productive and Reproductive Realities?

Gender systems depict several dimensions of the relations between men and women across different social settings. Mason (1995) has described the complexity of gender systems that encompass concepts such as women’s standing, empowerment, the sexual division of spheres and the rather widely used concept of women’s status. Gender systems in Pakistan are posited to be unequal in favour of men, because of strong patriarchal systems, which ordain that men and older persons make all major decisions. As a result, women’s status is argued to be low in most dimensions poor educational attainment, few economic opportunities apart from family based employment which is largely unpaid and the virtual seclusion of women from the public spheres of life especially those involving financial transactions. Spheres of life are quite separate with men having the primary responsibility of breadwinning and women to be primarily responsible for within household routine chores such as those involving cleaning, cooking, animal care and child care. Men control the major part of decision making and presumably act in their own interest which may not necessarily coincide with women [Folbre (1988)]. Especially in terms of productive decisions but also in reproductive decisions, women necessarily play a subsidiary role which relegates them to a lower position in terms of decision making and control of resources [Dwyer and Bruce (1988)]. This paper looks more closely at the two spheres of production and reproduction in rural Pakistan. It uses responses from matched husbands and wives to test whether in fact there is a difference between spouses in their perceptions, goals/orientation about production and reproduction.

Experiences of psychosis and hearing voices in the UK from an ethnic minority perspective

Section A: This review aimed to evaluate qualitative reports of BAME individuals’ and their families’ experience of psychosis in the UK. Six databases were searched, identifying eleven studies which were critically reviewed. A thematic synthesis of the findings highlighted six themes: experiences of psychosis that did not conform to the western medical model, the rigidity of the medical model used within MH services, medication vs. psychological therapy, lack of autonomy, choice and individuality,stigma within services and society, and support and resources required for recovery. The review also outlined various clinical and research implications. Section B: This study aimed to explore ethnic minority voice-hearers’ experiences of being immersed within and navigating Western society and explanations of hearing voices in the UK. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the data (four interview and eight published stories). Six themes were developed: navigating hearing voices explanations, navigating cultural identities is stressful, hearing voices within current society, labels – forceful and powerful, real choice vs. illusion of choice, and recovery is a continuous process. The findings are discussed in conjunction with existing literature. The limitations of the study, research recommendations, and clinical implications are also highlighted

Were ethical and legal issues violated, or was the book Mandela’s Last Days censored?

No Abstrac

Demographic determinants of chemical safety information recall in workers and consumers in South Africa

Includes bibliographical referencesChemical hazard communication is intended to alert users of the potential hazards of chemicals. Apart from the fact that hazard information should be understood, it is also important that it should be recalled. Recall of hazard communication is critical when the written form of the information is not available at the time it is required. A cross-sectional study investigating predictors of the recall of chemical safety information on labels and safety data sheets amongst 315 workers (industry, transport and agriculture sectors) and 87 consumers in two provinces of South Africa was conducted. The recall of participants was tested using two modules (module 2 which relates to the demographics, and module 3 which relates to the recall of the participants) from the Hazard Communication Comprehensibility Testing (CT) Tool developed by the Centre for Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of Cape Town. Respondents were predominantly male (67.7%), the median age was 37 years (IQR: 30-46 years) and less than half of the participants completed high school (47.5%). The majority of participants were blue collar workers outside of industry (55.5%). The skull and crossbones symbol was the label element most recalled, both unprompted (79.6%) and prompted (94.8%), and the first aid and treatment measures the least frequently recalled (6.0%-29.9%). Multivariate analysis showed the predictors that were found to increase the recall of all the label elements were, industrial sector, transport sector, agriculture sector, gender, home language English and Afrikaans, reading English and Afrikaans, completing high school and non-industry white collar occupations. The predictors that were found to decrease recall were further education, not wearing glasses and non-industry blue collar occupations. This study found demographic factors to influence the recall of hazard information. Policy should ensure the implementation of procedures that promote the recall of hazard information to protect workers from hazardous exposures

Does Female Education Affect Fertility Behaviour in Pakistan?

The study explores the relationship between female education and fertility in Pakistan and is based on data from the Pakistan Fertility Survey 1975. Only slight differentials were identified between women with no education and those who had primary or less schooling. However, women with more than primary education had notably lower fertility. Also the role of the intermediate variables such as proportions married, length of breast feeding and contraceptive use had significant associations with female education

Rural-Urban Fertility Differentials: 1975

This paper is concerned with identifying differentials in levels and patterns of urban and rural fertility in Pakistan, based on Pakistan Fertility Survey data. Findings show that there are marginal differences in the over-all levels of fertility in the two areas. However, younger urban women are reproducing at a higher rate than rural counterparts, whereas older urban women use relatively more contraception and have lower fertility than older rural women

Laws, regulations and guidelines of developed countries, developing countries in Africa, and BRICS regions pertaining to the use of human biological material (HBM) in research

Human biological material (HBM) is an invaluable resource in biomedical research. Although research ethics committees (RECs) are guided by international guidelines and frameworks, some RECs might not be fully informed about local ethical and regulatory requirements regarding the use, collection, storage, ownership, transfer and benefit-sharing of HBM in collaborative research

Informalisation of Women's Work: Consequence for Fertility and Child Schooling in Urban Pakistan

Female employment is considered an important means of lowering fertility through ways such as raising the age at marriage, through influencing desired family size and also through better knowledge and use of contraceptives. Increasing female labour force participation is frequently recommended as a critical policy measure for reducing the birth rate. However the significant inverse relationship between employment and fertility found for developed countries is weak or absent in the case of developing countries [Rodriguez and Cleland (1980)]. More recent evidence indicates that it is not so much employment per se but type of employment which is a critical determinant of reproductive behaviour [United Nations (1985)]. It has been shown that while high status professional jobs are associated with greater influence on women's domestic autonomy and fertility, low paying jobs lead to an increasing burden of work with entirely different implications for fertility and other household related behaviour. In the context of Pakistan, despite two decades of industrial growth and development, official data sources show stagnant and low levels of female labour force participation rates (LFPR) in urban Pakistan. The LFPR for urban women ranged between 3 and 5 percent for the period between 1971 and 1988. Data collection methods of government agencies are known to greatly underestimate female labour force participation (FLFP) particularly in rural areas and in the urban informal sector where the distinction between productive and domestic activities tends to be ambivalent. Evidence from micro surveys indicates, on the contrary, an increasing influx of women in the urban labour market, particularly in the informal sector [Sathar and Kazi (1988); Shaheed and Mumtaz (1981); Bilquees and Hamid (1989)]. A large number are shown to be working in home-based piece-rate employment while domestic service mainly as sweepers, washerwomen, maids, etc................................