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Why Are Adult Women Missing? Son Preference and Maternal Survival in India
No full textThis paper is the first to show that excess mortality among adult women can be partly explained by strong preference for male children, the same cultural norm widely known to cause excess mortality before birth or at young ages. Using pooled individual-level data for India, the paper compares the age structure and anemia status of women by the sex of their first-born and uncovers several new findings. First, the share of living women with a first-born girl is a decreasing function of the women's age at the time of the survey. Second, while there are no systematic differences at the time of birth, women with a first-born girl are significantly more likely to develop anemia when young (under the age of 30) and these differences disappear for older women. Moreover, among those in the older age group, they appear to be significantly better off in terms of various predetermined characteristics. These findings are consistent with a selection effect in which maternal and adult mortality is higher for women with first-born girls, especially the poor and uneducated with limited access to health care and prenatal sex diagnostic technologies. To ensure the desired sex composition of children, these women resort to a fertility behavior medically known to increase their risk of death. The observed sex ratios for first births imply that 2.2-8.4 percent of women with first-born girls are 'missing' because of son preference between the ages of 30 and 49
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Poorer: Adult Wages and the Early-Life Disease Environment in India
No full textA growing literature documents links between early-life health and human capital, and between human capital and adult wages. Although most of this literature has focused on developed countries, economists have hypothesized that effects of early-life health on adult economic outcomes could be even greater in developing countries. This paper asks whether the early-life disease environment in India influences adult economic wages. The paper uses two measures of early-life disease environment to investigate this question: infant mortality rates and open defecation. A district-level differences-in-differences strategy is used to show that men born in district-years with lower infant mortality and better sanitation earned plausibly higher wages in their 20s and 30s. The effect estimates are applied to calculate the fiscal and welfare consequences of the disease environment, which are considerable. In particular, eliminating open defecation would increase tax revenue by enough to offset completely a cost to the government of over \$400 per household that stops defecating in the open. A fiscally neutral elimination of open defecation in India would increase the net present value of lifetime wages by more than \$1,800 for an average male worker born today. These large economic benefits ignore any other benefits of improved health or reduced mortality. The result suggests that the disease environment could have important effects on developing-country economic outcomes
School Health and Nutrition in Sri Lanka
No full textSchool health and nutrition (SHN) programs are critical for achieving education for all (EFA) as research has shown that improvements in health status contribute to improvements in learning and academic outcomes. Through programs targeted to address major health conditions that are highly prevalent among poor schoolchildren, (for example, iron deficiency anemia, hunger, worm infections, diarrheal disease, and malaria) SHN programs can have a large impact on children’s education, increasing the time that they spend at school and their ability to learn while at school. SHN programs are recognized as important educational policy initiatives to improve education outcomes. Furthermore, schools provide an excellent platform for the delivery of child health and nutrition services, where they can strengthen the cost-effectiveness of health interventions and deliver gains in participation and learning. In this paper, the policy platform is documented as well as the type, coverage, and the effect of the SHN interventions, followed by the key areas identified for development and learning of the school health promotion program (SHPP)
From Tapering to Tightening: The Impact of the Fed's Exit on India
No full textThe "tapering talk" starting on May 22, 2013, when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke first spoke of the possibility of the U.S. central bank reducing its security purchases, had a sharp negative impact on emerging markets. India was among those hardest hit. The rupee depreciated by 18 percent at one point, causing concerns that the country was heading toward a financial crisis. This paper contends that India was adversely impacted because it had received large capital flows in prior years and had large and liquid financial markets that were a convenient target for investors seeking to rebalance away from emerging markets. In addition, India's macroeconomic conditions had weakened in prior years, which rendered the economy vulnerable to capital outflows and limited the policy room for maneuver. The paper finds that the measures adopted to handle the impact of the tapering talk were not effective in stabilizing the financial markets and restoring confidence, implying that there may not be any easy choices when a country is caught in the midst of rebalancing of global portfolios. The authors suggest putting in place a medium-term policy framework that limits vulnerabilities in advance, while maximizing the policy space for responding to shocks. Elements of such a framework include a sound fiscal balance, sustainable current account deficit, and environment conducive to investment. In addition, India should continue to encourage relatively stable longer-term flows and discourage volatile short-term flows, hold a larger stock of reserves, avoid excessive appreciation of the exchange rate through interventions with the use of reserves and macroprudential policy, and prepare the banks and firms to handle greater exchange rate volatility
Pakistan: Country Development Landscape
No full textThis Country Development Landscape (CDL) is an analytical input for the preparation of the World Bank Group (WBG) Country Partnership Strategy (CPS). It assesses the country’s most recent performance, and benchmarks it to regional peers and global comparators; identifies the most critical development constraints and challenges; summarizes the Government’s vision for the future and its FY 2014-18 development program; identifies some of the most promising opportunities; and weighs their scenarios and trade-offs for eliminating poverty and increasing shared prosperity in Pakistan
Comprehensive Review of the Land Act of Bhutan, 2007 for Revision
No full textSince land is the main source of social and economic security to majority population in the country, but with land resource being finite, effort to ensure equitable distribution through various policy and legal measures may be in the long-term interest of the nation. The Constitution of Bhutan has adequate provisions to address this issue. In this context, Dr. Dasho Kinzang Wangdi, former minister of Works of Human Settlement analyses and reviews the Land Act of Bhutan, 2007 and offers recommendations
The Educational Resilience of Children in Urban Squatter Settlements of Kathmandu
No full textNepal is a partner to the international commitment to achieve the goals of Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Efforts have been made through the EFA National Plan of Action 2003-2015 and School Sector Reform Program (SSRP) to achieve the EFA goals and the MDGs. Over the last few years, Nepal has demonstrated progress in some of the indicators related to children s participation in school. The Department of Education (2012) has reported that the primary education Net Enrolment Rate (NER), Grade 1 Net Intake Rate (NIR), Grade 5 Survival Rate (SR), and Dropout Rate (DR), are 95.3, 91.2, 84.1, and 5.2 percent respectively. However, it will be difficult to close the bigger gaps of 4.7, 8.8, 15.9, and 5.2 percent of the NER, NIR, SR, and DR respectively by 2015. The challenge lies in the large number of school-aged children who do not attend formal primary schooling. Likewise, a significant number of students repeat grades and those promoted may have low achievement. Realizing this bleak educational scenario, Nepal has been focusing more on access to quality education for the children of economically marginalized people through equity measures (scholarships and incentives). These children belong to the poorest groups (Wagley, September 2013, The Himalayan Times), such as the disadvantaged and the deprived communities of urban squatter settlements. Many reasons have been identified for the phenomenon of out-of-school children, including poor family economic conditions, an unfavorable school environment, socio-cultural beliefs and traditions, parents not recognizing the importance of education, inaccessible schools for children with disabilities, parents unwillingness, corporal punishment and children s domestic responsibilities (Scheuermann 2013). Other factors listed as contributing to primary level dropout are violence in school such as corporal punishment by teachers (Nepal, DoE 2010), children s domestic responsibilities, and an unfavorable school environment (Nepal, DoE 2012). In this context, in particular, children in urban squatter settlements face more severe adversities and risks as most are deprived of government services because of a lack of official national identification
The Resilience of LGBTQIA Students on Delhi Campuses
No full textThis study finds that college-going Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex Asexual (LGBTQIA) persons on Delhi campuses face a highly discriminatory context of adversity, which makes their desired outcome for acceptance virtually impossible to achieve. Using the mixed-methods resilience research approach, this project examines how they negotiate through these challenges to reach some approximation of acceptance in their lives. The study aims to gain a better understanding of the issues that persons who identify as LGBTQIA face, the resilience strategies that enable respondents, and how the costs of these resilience strategies are negotiated. It covers the following five thematic areas: (1) understanding what acceptance means for respondents, and how they try to navigate towards it; (2) charting the types of discrimination and stigma that respondents face in their educational environment; (3) identifying the resources and support networks respondents use to cope with discrimination and what, if any, consequences accompany their use; (4) determining the impact of protective and promotive resilience strategies on the context of adversity and the gaining of acceptance; and (5) exploring how respondentss fears and hopes for their futures evolve during higher education. The study finds that while respondents use multiple resilience strategies to carve out a space where they belong and find acceptance, these strategies are costly. The costs are born out of and reinforce the stigma and discrimination against LGBTQIA prevalent in Indian society. Individuals and the LGBTQIA community on Delhi campuses have thus had to strategically navigate their environment to modulate these costs. Our research indicates that these strategies can in turn be used to alter the context of adversity for LGBTQIA students on Delhi campuses
Maldives: The World Bank Group Country Opinion Survey FY 2014
No full textThe Country Opinion Survey in Maldives assists the World Bank Group (WBG) in gaining a better understanding of how stakeholders in Maldives perceive the WBG. It provides the WBG with systematic feedback from national and local governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies, media, academia, the private sector, and civil society in Maldives on: 1) their views regarding the general environment in Maldives; 2) their overall attitudes toward the WBG in Maldives; 3) overall impressions of the WBGs effectiveness and results, knowledge work and activities, and communication and information sharing in Maldives; and 4) their perceptions of the WBGs future role in Maldives
Parallel Systems and Human Resource Management in India's Public Health Services: A View from the Front Lines
No full textThere is building evidence in India that the delivery of health services suffers from an actual shortfall in trained health professionals, but also from unsatisfactory results of existing service providers working in the public and private sectors. This study focusses on the public sector and examines de facto institutional and governance arrangements that may give rise to well-documented provider behaviors such as absenteeism, which can adversely affect service delivery processes and outcomes. The paper considers four human resource management subsystems: postings, transfers, promotions, and disciplinary practices. The four subsystems are analyzed from the perspective of front line workers, that is, physicians working in rural health care facilities operated by two state governments. Physicians were sampled in one post-reform state that has instituted human resource management reforms and one pre-reform state that has not. The findings are based on quantitative and qualitative measurement. The results show that formal rules are undermined by a parallel modus operandi in which desirable posts are often determined by political connections and side payments. The evidence suggests an institutional environment in which formal rules of accountability are trumped by a parallel set of accountabilities. These systems appear so entrenched that reforms have borne no significant effect