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Who gets counted? Understanding low female death registration in India
Get PDFBackground: Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems are essential for governance, public health, and achieving SDGs however, gender gaps limit women’s access to rights and services, with under-registration of female vital events reinforcing their invisibility and distorting gender-responsive policies. Objectives: This study examines the drivers of low female death registration across India’s States and Union Territories, focusing on the roles of age, gender and wealth, with an aim to inform policies to strengthen CRVS systems and reduce gender disparities in vital statistics. Methods: The study utilizes data from NFHS-5 (2019–2021 for examining the factors associated with female death registration. Multivariable logistic regression models have been used to examine the impact of socio-economic and demographic factors on female death registration in India. Findings: The results highlight a significant gender gap in death registration (73% male vs. 64% female). The gap is widest in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, while states like Kerala and Goa report near universal registration for both sexes. Gender gaps in housing and land ownership align with gaps in death registration, suggesting a strong association between asset ownership and registration. The results highlight association between wealth and death registration, with rates rising across quintiles for both sexes; however males consistently have higher registration rates. Among the poorest, the gap is widest which narrows down in the richest group. A gender gap in death registration persists across all age groups in India, beginning early, widening during working ages, and continuing into old age; while registration rates improve with age and wealth, women especially among the poorest remain under-registered, particularly in early and later life stages. Conclusions: Women in India encounter barriers to civil registration, and improving death registration demands systemic reforms, digital advancements, and community engagement Strengthening political commitment, collaboration, and public awareness will ensure inclusive, accurate records, enhancing CRVS for governance and policy
Democratic quality and population health
No full textThis chapter explores the relationship between democracy and population health outcomes. Democracies are associated with better health outcomes due to more inclusive governance, better resource distribution, and increased accountability. However, this is not always straightforward, as weak and captured democracies may struggle to provide effective healthcare. The document also explores the mechanisms through which democratization affects health, including improved public health infrastructure, and examines the challenges of establishing causality between democratic governance and health improvements. The chapter proposes future avenues for research on the topic
Integrating macroeconomic and public health impacts in social planning policies for pandemic response
Get PDFInfectious disease outbreaks with pandemic potential present challenges for mitigation and control. Policymakers must reduce disease-associated morbidity and mortality while also minimizing socioeconomic costs of interventions. At present, robust decision frameworks that integrate epidemic and macroeconomic dynamics to inform policy choices, given uncertainty in the current and future state of the outbreak and economic activity, are not widely available. In this study, we propose and analyze an economic-epidemic model to identify robust planning policies that limit epidemic impacts while maintaining economic activity. We compare alternative fixed, dynamic open-loop optimal control, and feedback control policies via a welfare loss framework. We find that open-loop policies that adjust employment dynamically while maintaining a flat epidemic curve outperform fixed employment reduction policies. However, open-loop policies are highly sensitive to misestimation of parameters associated with intrinsic disease strength and feedback between economic activity and transmission, leading to potentially significant increases in welfare loss. In contrast, feedback control policies guided by open-loop dynamical targets of the time-varying reproduction number perform near-optimally when parameters are well-estimated, while significantly outperforming open-loop policies whenever disease transmission and population-scale behavioral response parameters are misestimated – as they inevitably are. Our study provides a template for integrating principled economic models with epidemic scenarios to identify policy vulnerabilities and expand policy options in preparation for future pandemics. Across disease scenarios, we show that policies that temporarily limit economic activity and disease transmission reduce both disease-driven mortality and cumulative loss of economic activity. Our study suggests that future preparedness depends on feasible, robust, and adaptive policies and can help avoid false dichotomies in choosing between public health and economic outcomes
Organizational field interventions in well-being: challenges and impact
No full textEmployee well-being is essential not only for individual health and satisfaction but also for organizational effectiveness and sustainability. Employees with higher levels of well-being are more engaged, productive, and committed, while those with poor well-being often experience burnout, reduced performance, and increased absenteeism, negatively affecting organizational outcomes (Schabram & Heng, 2022; Spreitzer et al., 2005). Managerial strategies play a pivotal role in shaping the workplace environment and improving well-being (Grant et al., 2007; Guest, 2017). This symposium features four field experiments conducted in real-world settings—such as warehouses, veterinary clinics, banks, and private companies across several countries—offer valuable insights into how managerial interventions can address workplace challenges. By testing strategies like participatory voice mechanisms, corporate social responsibility program, work-life balance support, and four-day work week, these studies provide robust, causal evidence of what works and why. Specifically, Kowalski et al. demonstrate the value of worker voice in reducing turnover in e-commerce fulfillment centers. Portocarrero and Rodell highlight the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) interventions in enhancing employee engagement, showing that workplace empathy, cultivated through CSR activities, motivates employees to volunteer more. Bond, Yang, and Sah investigate whether combining organizational culture interventions with personalized well-being and job crafting strategies for managers more effectively reduces burnout among veterinary staff compared to organizational culture interventions alone. Lastly, Fan et al. assess the transformative impact of a four-day workweek on employee well-being, linking reduced hours to enhanced mental and physical health through better work-life balance and reduced fatigue. Together, these studies underscore the importance of innovative, evidence-based interventions in fostering healthier, more sustainable workplaces. Can Involving Employees Reduce Turnover? A Field Experiment on Employee Voice and Exit Author: Alex Kowalski; Cornell University Author: Erin Kelly; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Hazhir Rahmandad; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Author: Kirsten Siebach; Johns Hopkins University The Effects of Employee Exposure to Community Impact Activities on Emotions and Engagement Author: Florencio F. Portocarrero; London School of Economics and Political Science Author: Jessica Beth Rodell; University of Georgia Organizational Interventions to Alleviate Burnout and Promote Well-Being Author: Brittany Bond; Cornell University Author: Duanyi Yang; Cornell University Author: Sunita Sah; Cornell University Does Work Time Reduction Improve Worker Well-being? Evidence from Global Four-Day Workweek Trial Author: Wen Fan; Boston College Author: Juliet Schor; Boston College Author: Orla Kelly; University College Dublin Author: Guolin Gu; Boston Colleg
Strategic leadership in the face of sociopolitical and sociocultural challenges
No full textFirms are living through a period of unprecedented sociopolitical and sociocultural changes. The shifts in external and internal environments increasingly require firms to strategically navigate social challenges not only in their wider societal context, such as cultural conflicts, climate change, and polarization but also within the organizations, including increasing representation diversity within their own boundaries. However, we still lack an integrated understanding of the roles of corporate executives as strategic leaders in navigating such complexity in the environment. In this symposium, we bring together four papers focusing on the different roles of corporate executives (CEOs, CHROs, and TMTs as a whole) in addressing external sociopolitical challenges (e.g., controversial societal issues and activist campaigns) and internal sociocultural complexity (e.g., human resources and national diversity). Do Authentic Activist CEOs Gain Favor from Shareholder Activists? Author: Yuting Yang; Iowa State University CEO Exposure to Diverse Demands from Shareholder Activists and Firm Responses to Subsequent Activism Author: Canquan (Charles) Li; The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Author: Shuping Li; The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Understanding Chief Human Resource Officer Tenures and Activities on Top Management Teams Author: Andrew Millin; Florida International University Author: Donald Joseph Schepker; University of South Carolina The Contrasting Implications of TMT Surface- and Deep-Level National Diversity for Firm Performance Author: Aaron Aujla; London School of Economics and Political Scienc
The weaponization of football dreams in human trafficking scheme
Get PDFThis Brief Report highlights how football (i.e. soccer) dreams are weaponized to traffic youth within West Africa. Framed as an athletic opportunity, the operation exploited the Economic Community of West African States’ visa-free protocols, digital platforms, and the powerful appeal of sport-based mobility. Victims were confined, stripped of documentation, and coerced into soliciting funds from family members, with their phones repurposed to perpetrate further acts of fraud. While trafficking for forced criminality has gained visibility in Southeast Asia, this case marks a critical yet underexplored intra-African iteration, shaped by the symbolic economy of football. It challenges siloed policy frameworks that treat sport aspiration and cybercrime in West Africa as separate domains
A decade of institutional development, public leadership, and governance in Kenya: from a promising past into an uncertain future!
No full textUnderstanding institutional development, public leadership, and governance aspects is crucial for evaluating a country like Kenya’s progress over the past decade. Doing so through a longitudinal analysis is more likely to generate a fairer evaluation of whether African states, which are still grappling with historical legacies, balancing conflicting donor interests and democratisation as part of state-building efforts, as well as developing challenges, are journeying into the future. This discussion delves into citizens’ perceptions of these three aspects, as captured by the Afrobarometer (AB) survey from 2011 to 2021. It examines the performance of the presidency, parliament, local governments, the judiciary, and corruption. The analysis of AB data is supplemented by insights from other secondary sources to put the discussion in more context. It is shown that Kenya remains a state that despises its own citizens, overseen by a rogue executive at the top and captured by opposition politics. This chapter highlights the significance of expanding social accountability in governance processes and emphasises the need for youth activism going into the future
Cost of living and crime in London: lessons from an empirical and collaborative study
No full textWe observe a significant increase in the interest for evidence-based policy-making across the public sector. The use and thorough analysis of large datasets from the police and other data sources is crucial to this. This chapter illustrates how evidence can play a more integral and broader role in crime prevention policy and how effective collaboration between academia and policymakers can facilitate this goal. To do this, it presents a case study in which the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime in London (MOPAC) commissioned analysis from the Policing and Crime Group at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science (CEP-LSE). This was driven by the need to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on crime (a key issue in London and the UK), coupled with the recognition that there was insufficient in-house capacity to undertake such research. The key outputs of the study were geographically detailed and interactive maps of which areas will be most affected by the cost-of-living crisis in 2023 and predictions of which areas will be most affected in 2024