• Why are Population and Development Issues not Given Priority? (pdf format, 42 KB)
  By Gavin W. Jones

• Assessment of Fertility Behaviour Change in the Sociocultural Context of Pakistan: Implications for the Population Programme (PDF, 111 KB)
  By Naushin Mahmood
  

This article examines changes in fertility behaviour in the sociocultural context of Pakistan’s population. The analysis reveals that the fertility transition has been slow-paced and resistant to change, reflecting a large unmet need for family planning in all population strata. The serious constraints to effecting changes in reproductive behaviour appear to be gender inequities in the social system, reflected by women’s low autonomy, lack of educational attainment, limited participation in family decision-making, a preference for male children and fatalistic attitudes towards the use of family planning. The answer to these constraints lies in policy actions and social development programmes as well as information, education and communication campaigns that could be effective in bringing about ideational and attitudinal changes and in reaching out to families and couples in need of family planning services.

• Does Economic Inequality Matter in Cases of Infectious Childhood Diseases?
  An Analysis for India (PDF, 125 KB)
  By Saswata Ghosh

Infectious diseases are widely recognized as the major cause of child morbidity and mortality in many developing countries in Asia, particularly in India. It is well established that exposure to pathogens such as bacteria and viruses are largely determined by ecological settings, including the climatic conditions of a particular region. However, although necessary, ecological or climatic factors alone are not sufficient to cause infectious diseases. The availability and accessibility of a good environment are not only ecological or climatic factors but they are also conditioned by the socio-economic well-being of the population. This paper examines how the economic condition of households determines the prevalence of infectious childhood diseases in India by using data from India’s National Family and Health Survey, 1998-1999. The results of logistic regressions show that the economic condition of households is a very significant predictor in determining the prevalence of infectious childhood diseases, especially after early infancy. In addition, region of residence, maternal anaemia during pregnancy, education and the work status of the mother and child immunization also have very significant effects on the prevalence of infectious childhood diseases in India.

• Bangladeshi Migrant Workers in Singapore: The View from Inside (PDF, 116 KB)
  By Md. Mizanur Rahman and Lian Kwen Fee

This study focuses on the circumstances in which foreign workers work and live, by investigating the socio-economic experiences of Bangladeshi migrant workers in Singapore. Findings suggest that migration is a precarious and costly venture, but it is seen as one route to life improvement: strategies such as marriage, education and house-building and renovation are part of a wider undertaking in which individuals and families strive to improve their social and economic status. The primary data come from interviews with Bangladeshi migrants in Singapore. The study concludes with a set of recommendations for policy.
Does Retirement Affect Healthy Ageing?

• A Study of Two Groups of Pensioners in Mumbai, India (PDF, 434 KB)
  By Aparajita Chattopadhyay and T.K. Roy
  

This article is an attempt to observe the health condition of two groups of pensioners, namely, schoolteachers and civil servants, who belonged to two different socio-economic strata with different exposures to stress and responsibility in their pre-retirement occupation. While explaining the occupational differential in hazard rates of dying, Saxena and Kumar (1997) conducted the only study of occupational differentials in mortality of retired persons in India and found that those who had been engaged in the civil service, died faster than others. The self-regulating feedback mechanism of every human being decreases with age at a constant rate. However, this mechanism is interrupted easily by stress resulting from changes in the physical and social-economic environment. Based on the above results, we assumed that the deterioration of health would be faster among retired civil servants than retired schoolteachers. To check this hypothesis we applied life-table techniques initially to see how the health expectancies varied with age and pre-retirement occupation and then we carried out trend analysis to verify whether the rate of disease prevalence markedly differed in the pre- and post-retirement period, assuming that age (biological factors) is having the same effect on both occupational subgroups of the study population prior to and after retirement. If the impact of age on the progression of disease prevalence rate is assumed to be constant, then our result proves that it is the advent of retirement that significantly increases the rate of suffering from chronic ailments among schoolteachers.