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Role of debt in overseas labour migration in India
Get PDFThe Population Council, in partnership with the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, undertook a multicomponent study to better understand the relationship between debt and overseas labor migration from India. The study shed light on: levels and patterns of household indebtedness among migrant households, with a special focus on households with overseas migrants; cost of overseas labor migration from India and the role of debt in financing overseas migration; role of debt in migration-related decisions; differences in work-related choices and experiences and financial vulnerabilities migrant workers experienced by household indebtedness; and migrant workers’ perceptions about financial products that can potentially reduce their financial vulnerabilities. This report describes the levels and patterns of household indebtedness and socio-demographic differentials in indebted international migrant households. It sheds light on costs incurred for overseas labor migration and the role of debt in financing migration, migration-related decisions, work-related choices and experiences, and financial vulnerabilities faced in India and overseas. A description of financial products that can potentially reduce the financial vulnerabilities of overseas labor migrants is included, as are recommendations for programs and research
Promoting safe overseas labour migration: Lessons from ASK’s safe migration project in India
Get PDFMore than a quarter of all overseas Indians resided in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in 2020. Migration to Gulf countries is dominated by unskilled and semi-skilled workers who work on a contract basis and who must return home once their contract expires. The Indian government has introduced measures to promote safe overseas migration for work, but labor exploitations in the India-GCC migration corridors are widely documented. The Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS) in partnership with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) supported the Association for Stimulating Know-how (ASK) in pilot-testing a project to build a safe labor migration ecosystem in source communities in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India. The project established Migrant Resource Centres (MRCs), integrated six intervention activities, and worked with Civil Society Organizations to build their internal systems and resilience to establish, sustain, and effectively run MRCs and provide services. The Population Council in partnership with GFEMS and Norad undertook a community-based quantitative study to assess male migrants’ awareness of and engagement with ASK’s project. The success in improving male migrants’ knowledge about safe migration pathways was also examined
Invisible threads: Addressing the root causes of migration from Guatemala by investing in women and girls
Get PDFIn recent years, a growing proportion of migrants at the US southern border have come from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. This surge of migrants has prompted the US government to seek to address the root causes of migration from the region. As this strategy is further elaborated, a deeper look at human lives in the context of the forces shaping migration is warranted.
This report from the Population Institute focuses on factors that are driving migration from Guatemala—and in particular, the lives of women and girls in the context of these factors. The status, health, and well-being of women and girls are intertwined with many of the challenges driving migration from Guatemala, yet they face persistent inequality in education, the labor force, health care, and family life. Limited investment in sexual and reproductive health, in particular, has stalled meaningful progress in the realization of rights and opportunities for women and girls. Data and stories in this report demonstrate how a deeper understanding of the intersecting challenges and opportunities facing women and girls will strengthen policies and programs designed to address the root causes migration
Pakistan Climate Crises Charter 2022
Get PDFPopulation Council researchers in Pakistan contributed to this charter, which was developed in the aftermath of the floods of 2022
Survey implementation process and interviewer effects on skipping sequence of maternal and child health indicators from National Family Health Survey: An application of cross-classified multilevel model
No full textImplementing a large-scale survey involves a string of intricate procedures exposed to numerous types of survey errors. Uniform and systematic training protocols, comprehensive survey manuals, and multilayer supervision during survey implementation help reduce survey errors, providing a consistent fieldwork environment that should not result in any variation in the quality of data collected across interviewers and teams. With this background, the present study attempts to delineate the effect of field investigator (FI) teams and survey implementation design on the selected outcomes. Data on four of the bigger Empowered Action Group (EAG) states of India, namely Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan, were obtained from the fourth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) for analysis. A fixed-effect binary logistic regression model was used to assess the effect of FI teams and survey implementation design on the selected outcomes. To study the variation in the outcome variables at the interviewer level, a cross-classified multilevel model was used. Since one interviewer had worked in more than one primary sampling unit (PSU) & district and did not follow a perfect hierarchical structure, the cross-classified multilevel model was deemed suitable. In addition, since NFHS-4 used a two-stage stratified sampling design, two-level weights were adjusted for the models to compute unbiased estimates. This study demonstrated the presence of interviewer-level variation in the selected outcomes at both inter- and intra-field agencies across the selected states. The interviewer-level intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for women who had not availed antenatal care (ANC) was the highest for eastern Madhya Pradesh (0.23) and central Uttar Pradesh (0.20). For ‘immunisation card not seen’, Rajasthan (0.16) and western Uttar Pradesh (0.13) had higher interviewer-level ICC. Interviewer-level variations were insignificant for women who gave birth at home across all regions of Uttar Pradesh. Eastern Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Bihar showed higher interviewer-level variation across the selected outcomes, underlining the critical role of agencies and skilled interviewers in different survey implementation designs. The analysis highlights non-uniform adherence to survey protocols, which implies that not all interviewers and agencies performed in a similar manner in the field. This study recommends a refined mechanism for field implementation and supervision, including focused training on the challenges faced by FIs, random vigilance, and morale building. In addition, examining interviewer-level characteristics, field challenges, and field agency effects may also highlight the roots of interviewer-level variation in the data. However, based on the interviewer\u27s performance in the field, the present study offers an intriguing insight into interviewer-level variations in the quality of data
Discovery of novel HIV protease inhibitors using modern computational techniques
No full textThe human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) has continued to be a global concern. With the new HIV incidence, the emergence of multi-drug resistance and the untoward side effects of currently used HIV protease inhibitors (PIs), there is an urgent need to discover more efficient HIV PIs. Modern computational tools have played vital roles in facilitating drug discovery process. This research focuses on pharmacophore-based similarity search to screen 111,566,735 unique compounds in the PubChem database to discover novel HIV-1 PIs. We used in-silico approach involving 3D-similarity search, physicochemical and ADMET evaluations, HIV protease-inhibitor prediction (IC50/percent inhibition), rigid receptor-molecular docking studies and free-binding energy calculations. The 10 FDA approved HIV PIs (saquinavir, lopinavir, ritonavir, amprenavir, fosamprenavir, atazanavir, nelfinavir, darunavir, tipranavir and indinavir) were used as reference. The in-silico analysis revealed that fourteen out of the twenty-eight selected optimized hit molecules were within the acceptable range of all the parameters investigated. The hit molecules demonstrated significant binding affinity to the HIV protease (PR) when compared to the reference drugs with the residues ASP25, GLY27, ASP29, ASP30, ILE50 involved in essential hydrogen bonding and п-п stacked interactions, which stabilize the optimized hit molecules in the active binding site of the HIV-1 PR (PDB:2Q5K). HPS/002 and HPS004 are most promising in terms of IC50/percent inhibition (90.15%) of HIV-1 PR, in addition to their drug metabolism and safety profile. These hit candidates should be investigated further as possible HIV-1 PIs with improved efficacy and low toxicity through in-vitro experiments and clinical trial investigation
New client-centered discontinuation measures using the Demographic and Health Survey calendar data
No full textThe main source of method discontinuation data comes from the calendar data of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). DHS considers each episode of use contributed by a woman in the calendar to calculate method discontinuation. This means that episodes from women who contribute only one episode of contraceptive use are combined with episodes from women who contribute multiple episodes of use. This paper explores the DHS calculation of episode-based discontinuation and proposes new indicators that focus specifically on the client and puts her as the unit of analysis. First, we attempt to replicate the DHS calculation by applying weighted averages to episodes from women who contributed only one episode and from women who contributed multiple episodes of use. We then calculate three client-centered discontinuation indicators, using the five-year calendar data of the DHS. The methodology is illustrated by using data collected in Bangladesh, Kenya, and Indonesia. Starting with the very first method used and reported in the calendar and following use over 12 months, we develop a client-centered discontinuation indicator. We build on the calculation of the client-centered discontinuation indicator by: (1) excluding switching to result in all contraceptive discontinuation (complete discontinuation); and (2) limiting discontinuation to women still in need of contraception applying the DHS definitions of in need
Social normative origins of the taboo gap and implications for adolescent risk for HIV infection in Zambia
No full textZambian Demographic and Health Survey data reveal that increased discordance between professed attitudes and measures of behaviour regarding premarital sex among adults is strongly associated with increased risk of HIV in adolescents, particularly girls. We hypothesised that this was due to the reluctance to talk about premarital sex, resulting in a situation we call the “taboo gap” where sexual behaviour is a forbidden topic and adolescents feel unable to seek advice or sexual and reproductive health services. Our analysis revealed that the taboo gap is rooted in harmful gender norms that are perpetuated by schools, churches, cultural influences, development programmes and health systems. Challenges like food insecurity and household poverty may place girls in positions where they are vulnerable to sexual exploitation, increasing their risk of exposure to HIV. Unmarried adolescents, particularly girls, report being ridiculed when they go to reproductive health clinics, which discourages them from seeking care in the future. Strengthening peer support and parent-child interactions are important programmatic elements. We conclude that discordance serves as a novel measure and harbinger for the presence of gender norms which generated a taboo gap that impeded carseeking and increased risk for HIV among adolescents, especially girls, in Zambia. We propose that successful interventions must involve a multifaceted, gender transformative approach which engages peers and stakeholders in schools, churches, clinics, and families, particularly parents, to reduce the gendered gap in HIV risk and transmission
Addressing communication taboos motivates social and behavioral changes in Niamey and Abidjan: Evaluation of the Merci Mons Héros media campaign
Get PDFMerci Mon Héros (MMH) is a mixed media campaign that catalyzes young people as co-leaders to improve intergenerational communication and young people’s family planning and reproductive health outcomes. The Breakthrough RESEARCH project―USAID’s flagship investment in social and behavior change research and evaluation―was tasked with evaluating the MMH campaign. This brief highlights important evaluation findings and recommendations for strengthening intergenerational communication in two priority locations—Niamey, Niger and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire