Family average income and body mass index above the healthy weight range among urban and rural residents in regional Mainland China

Objective: To explore the relationship between family average income (FAI; an index of socio-economic status) and body mass index (BMI; a widely used, inexpensive indicator of weight status) above the healthy weight range in a region of Mainland China. Design: Population-based cross-sectional study, conducted between October 1999 and March 2000 on a sample of regular local residents aged 35 years or older who were selected by random cluster sampling. Setting: Forty-five administrative villages selected from three urban districts and two rural counties of Nanjing municipality, Mainland China, with a regional population of 5.6 million. Subjects: In total, 29 340 subjects participated; 67.7% from urban and 32.3% from rural areas; 49.8% male and 50.2% female. The response rate among eligible participants was 90.1%. Results: The proportion of participants classified as overweight was 30.5%, while 7.8% were identified as obese. After adjusting for possible confounding variables (age, gender, area of residence, educational level, occupational and leisure-time physical activity, daily vegetable consumption and frequency of red meat intake), urban participants were more likely to be overweight or obese relative to their rural counterparts, more women than men were obese, and participants in the lowest FAI tertile were the least likely to be above the healthy weight range. Conclusions: The proportion of adults with BMI above the healthy weight range was positively related to having a higher socio-economic status (indexed by FAI) in a regional Chinese population.

Children and economic development: Family size, gender preferences and human capital formation - theory and Indian cases

In the light of Gary Becker's economic theory of the family, considers how economic cost and benefit factors can influence the size of families that parents decide to have. Some support for the importance of such factors is found from results of structured interviews with wives in Kondh-dominated villages in western Orissa. These results are at variance with the hypothesis of Malthus about population growth. Factors that may alter the optimal family size as development proceeds are discussed. It is found in our sampling that, on the whole, there is a preference for daughters rather than sons although this is not as strong in the Kondh-dominated villages as in poor villages in the Santal tribal belt of West Bengal. While in the Kondh-dominated villages some discrimination in access to education in favour of boys compared to girls is present, little such or no such discrimination occurs in relation to access to food and medical attention. In the villages surveyed in the West Bengal Santal tribal belt, discrimination in favour of boys is more pronounced than in the Kondh-dominated area in Orissa. While economic considerations help to explain gender discrimination between boys and girls, we find that social and cultural factors also play a major role. Parents in a similar economic situation seem to display substantially different patterns of gender discrimination between children depending on their social and cultural content. It seems that the extent to which economic theories of the family explain family preferences and behaviour depend significantly on the social and cultural context in which they are to be applied.

Gender inequality, poverty and human development in Kenya: Main indicators, trends and limitations

Indicators of gender inequality, poverty and human development in Kenya are examined. Significant and rising incidence of absolute poverty occurs in Kenya and women are more likely to be in poverty than men. Female/male ratios in Kenyan decision-making institutions are highly skewed against women and they experience unfavourable enrolment ratios in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions. The share of income earned by women is much lower than men's share. General Kenyan indicators highlight declining GDP per capita, increased poverty rates especially for women, reduced life expectancy, a narrowing of the difference in female/male life expectancy rates, increased child mortality rates and an increase in the female child mortality rates. This deterioration results in an increased socio-economic burden on women, not adequately captured in the HPI, HDI, GDI and GEM. This paper advocates the use of household level gender disaggregated data because much gender inequality occurs in and emanates from the household level where culture plays a very important role in allocation of resources and decision-making. Because most human development indicators are aggregates or averages, they can be misleading. They need to be supplemented by distributional and disaggregated data as demonstrated in the Kenyan case. The importance is emphasised of studying coping mechanisms of household/families for dealing with economic hardship and other misfortunes, such AIDS.

Population health, environment and economic development

This paper studies the role of income distribution and technology transfer in the process of economic development. A novel aspect of the model is that the composition of human capital as well as the level affect economic growth. Utilizing an overlapping-generations model in which income distribution changes endogenously, we present an economic explanation for why some countries could not start modern economic growth; why some countries took off but have apparently stopped growing after some time; and why some countries have successfully developed and continue to grow

Environmentalizing economic development: a South Asian perspective

South Asia's pursuit of economic development has entailed considerable damage to and exposed the fragility of the physical environment of the region. This paper provides an analytical overview of the of the environmental problem that manifest themselves in South Asia in a comparative perspective with East and Southeast Asian countries as well as selected developed market economics. To date, South Asian development process has been environment-intensive and environment-depleting. It is argued that environmental problems are likely to set serious constraints to sustain growth in production to support a growing population. By exploring the relationship between indices of human welfare and bio-diversity conservation. the paper exposes the dichotomy of the development process. Finally, the study underscores the need for a range of policy options that rely both based and non-market based instruments in an integrated setting to enviromnentalize South Asian economic development. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.