143 research outputs found
Lives not worth saving
No full textIn this op-ed in Dawn, Country Director Zeba Sathar comments on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan
Gender Differences in Child Health-care Practices: Evidence from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, 1990-91
No full textAmong other factors, health care utilisation is important in determining the health status and survival chances of children. The patterns of childhood mortality, in general, indicate that deaths of male children have consistently exceeded those of females, with a much greater difference in the first month of birth (NNR). This has largely been attributed to differences in the genetic and biological factors between the sexes [Lopez and Ruzika (1983)]. The mortality level, thereafter, is influenced more by the socio-economic, environmental, and health care factors, indicating a mortality disadvantage for females in some populations. It has therefore been postulated that gender-based differences in health care practices partly explain the sex differentials in child mortality in some countries of South Asia, where healthseeking behaviour of parents discriminates against female children [Chen, et al. (1981); Das Gupta (1987); Sathar (1987); Ahmed (1990)]. Using data from Bangladesh, Chen, Haq, and D’Souza (1981) found that girls’ mortality risk was nearly 60 percent higher than that for boys after the neonatal period, and that girl children suffered more malnutrition and received lesser treatment for various infections. Das Gupta (1987) and Muhuri and Preston (1991) also explained the excess mortality of girls with a surviving elder sister in terms of conscious, selective neglect of the second daughter. Waldron (1983) in her extensive review of child mortality patterns in developing countries concluded that besides relative contributions of specific causes of death with different impact by sex, the variability in discrimination by gender, primarily in nutrition and health care utilisation, also contributes to excess female child mortality.
The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in a Comparative Perspective: the Case of Pakistan
No full textThe paper compares and contrasts the situation of young people in Pakistan with broader global trends drawing on data from both the recent US National Research Council report, Growing up Global: the Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries, and from the national survey of adolescents and youth in Pakistan AYP) 18 months earlier [Sathar, et al. (2003)]. The paper begins with some demographic background, and a discussion of how recent trends in schooling in Pakistan compare with broader trends in all developing countries as a group as well as in South Asia. It then follows the broad outlines of the National Research Council’s report in exploring transitions to adult work and family roles in a comparative perspective. The concluding section of the paper draws on the NRC panel’s programme and policy recommendations which were developed after a careful review of lessons learned from recent policy research and programme intervention research from around the world, all of which are relevant in some form in the Pakistani context.Adulthood, Youth, Pakistan
Coming of Age in Contemporary Pakistan: Influences of Gender and Poverty
No full textEconomic development is strongly connected to the longevity, growth and structure of country’s population [Bloom and Canning (2003)]. Pakistan currently has the largest cohort of young people in its history (25 million aged 15–24, Census 1998) that has serious implications for the provision of schooling, health services and adequate jobs. Therefore the well being of these valuable young cohorts is profoundly important for the social and economic development and prosperity of Pakistan [Population Council (2003)]. This demographic lift can promote economic lift-off [Bloom and Canning (2003)]. In fact, Pakistan will face dire consequences if this resource is not capitalised and young people remain uneducated and unskilled [Faizunnisa and Ikram (2003)]. Work is one of the key transitions in the lives of young people. It is an important marker of adulthood, with strong implications for a country’s social and economic development. Work depending on its nature and remuneration can be the most important factor shaping adult lives. Youth employment has many implications for the labour market, poorer households and for the youth themselves. There has been relatively little or no opportunity to study the transition to adulthood in developing countries due to the lack of longitudinal data on youth. Most development research and programmes on adolescents and youth have focused on sexual and reproductive behaviour [Mensch and Greene (1998)]. However the participation of young people aged 15–24 in the labour force is emerging as an important development issue. Most of the studies, carried out on economic activities are primarily restricted to the empirical efforts to estimate the level of labour force participation. This is the area least explored in Pakistan and little is known regarding various dimensions of youth’s involvement in labour force including the determinants pushing them towards work. Increased attention has been directed at understanding the factors that encourage and/or discourage their involvement in work. Durrant (2000), analysed the Pakistan Integrated Household Surveys 1991 and PIHS 1995-96, that highlighted various opportunities and constraints towards
Women’s Autonomy in the Context of Rural Pakistan
No full textThe 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.
Are Status of Women and Contraceptive Prevalence Correlated in Pakistan?
No full textPakistan with an estimated population of around 142.5 million in mid 2001 is the seventh most populous country in the world and fourth in Asia and Pacific countries. The historical trends indicate a continuously increasing growth in population (Table 1). The population of the area now constituting Pakistan was 16.6 million in 1901. Since then the population has increased over eight-fold. Annual growth rates have risen from 1 percent in the first three decades of the century to around 2 percent in the next three decades and after peaking at little over 3 percent in the 1960s, has started showing a declining trend. Currently it is estimated that Pakistan’s population is growing at around 2.1 percent, still a very high rate of annual growth in population. Major contributing factor to the fast growth in population of Pakistan has been high fertility which has remained high for a very long period. It is evident that nearly 100 million population has been added to the population of Pakistan since 1961, that is, during the last four decades. Such rapid growth in population has several adverse implications for the socio-economic development of the country which has been offsetting the gains in social and economic development.
Pakistani Couples: Different Productive and Reproductive Realities?
No full textGender 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.
Covid-19 and the Opportunity for a Demographic Research Reset
No full textThe author sees the current moment as an opportunity to collaborate with other disciplines to tackle social policy, climate change, and political economy discourses
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