461 research outputs found
Health Inequality and Development: Achieving Better Health in Developing Countries
No full textThroughout most of the last century there has been steady improvement in health outcomes. Among them are improvements in life expectancy, which has increased significantly across countries. On average people now live longer and healthier than even 50 years ago. Life expectancy improved globally from a lowly 48 years in 1955 to 68 years by 2005, and for a number of countries it currently exceeds 80 years (WHO 1996; UNDP 2007). This substantial increase in longevity has been coupled by a dramatic control of infectious diseases that has further improved the average quality of life. Despite this massive improvement in health outcomes there is a growing concern that disparities in health achievements are increasing. Consider the life expectancy for African females, which was 49 years in 1978 compared to the world average of 63. By 1998, the average life expectancy for females improved by six years, whereas in African countries it only increased by two years, thus widening the life expectancy gap (WHO 1999)
Review of "South Asia in the Era of Gloablization: Trade Industrialization and Welfare" by M. Bhattacharya, R. Smyth, M. Vicziany
No full textHealth and Female Labour Market Participation: The Case of Uganda
No full textThere is growing evidence that reducing gender inequality in access to the job market and control of key productive resources necessary for growth are concrete means of accelerating and diversifying growth, making it more sustainable, and ensuring that the poor both contribute to, and benefit from, that growth (see, for example, World Bank 2001, Blackden et al. 2007). This has resulted in a common finding in many developing countries during the past decade that there has been a substantial growth in female employment (Standing 1999). Despite this, countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are still characterized by an underutilization of their female labour, of which human capital, and health in particular, plays a major role. In many sub-Saharan African countries, as in many other developing countries, women who participate in the labour market are more likely to be in self-employment or, more generally, informal sector employment (Glick and Sahn 1997)
The burden of government debt in the Indian states: Implications for the MDG poverty target
Full text linkIn this paper we explore what impact, if any, government debts have on achieving the Millennium Development Goals for the Indian states. To fulfill the goals, national governments, especially in the developing world, have to undertake major investments in the social sector; but how much they will really be able to do so will depend on the conditions of their finances. For the Indian states we find that government investment in the social sector is extremely important to reduce poverty, but the government's debt burden is actually stopping several states from attaining the MDG targets. Although, in the medium term the impact of the debt on poverty is not very harmful, in the longer run it has a significant negative impact. Therefore for policy purposes reduction in debt should be given a priority
Melting of the Vortex Lattice through Intermediate Hexatic Fluidin ana-MoGeThin Film
No full textThe hexatic fluid refers to a phase in between a solid and a liquid which has short range positional order but quasi-long range orientational order. In the celebrated theory of Berezinskii, Kosterlitz and Thouless and subsequently refined by Halperin, Nelson and Young, it was predicted that a 2-dimensional hexagonal solid can melt in two steps: first, through a transformation from a solid to a hexatic fluid which retains quasi long range orientational order and then from a hexatic fluid to an isotropic liquid. In this paper, using a combination of real space imaging and transport measurements we show that the 2-dimensional vortex lattice in a-MoGe thin film follows this sequence of melting as the magnetic field is increased. Identifying the signatures of various transitions on the bulk transport properties of the superconductor, we construct a vortex phase diagram for a two dimensional superconductor
Measuring Vulnerability to Poverty:A Unified Framework
Full text linkIn this paper, we provide a unified analytical framework to measure vulnerability to poverty. We conceptualise vulnerability as arising out of different shocks which makes it more intuitive and appealing. Our focus is on understanding impacts of shocks on income, both at the individual and societal level. We will mainly discuss conceptual issues around measuring vulnerability along with suggestions for empirical methods to estimate the level of vulnerability. We combine the literature on poverty measurement and decision making under uncertainty to provide a novel way of understanding and measuring vulnerability to poverty. Specifically, we employ a three step process where we first identify the vulnerable, second we calculate the vulnerability of each individual in the society and finally aggregate the vulnerability across all individuals to estimate the societal vulnerability. Our proposals also provide a broad theoretical framework to assess vulnerability under different information constraints
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