Marriage as women's old age insurance : evidence from migration and land inheritance practices in rural Tanzania

In a traditional system of exogamous and patrilocal marriage prevalent in much of Sub-Saharan Africa, when she marries, a rural woman typically leaves her kin to reside with her husband living outside her natal village. Since a village that allows a widow to inherit her late husband's land can provide her with old age security, single females living outside the village are more likely to marry into the village. Using a natural experimental setting, provided by the longitudinal household panel data drawn from rural Tanzania for the period from 1991 to 2004, during which several villages that initially banned a widow's land inheritance removed this discrimination, this study provides evidence in support of this view, whereby altering a customary land inheritance rules in a village in favor of widows increased the probability of males marrying in that village. This finding suggests that providing rural women with old age protection (e.g., insurance, livelihood protection) has remarkable spatial and temporal welfare effects by influencing their decision to marry.

Product-related environmental regulation and voluntary environmental actions : impacts of RoHS and REACH in Malaysia

Voluntary environmental actions, such as the adoption of ISO 14001, are gaining increasing attention in developing countries. This study examines the mechanism of ISO 14001 diffusion in a developing economy on the basis of a unique corporate survey of manufacturing sectors in Malaysia. Product-related environmental regulations, such as REACH, are contributing to this diffusion indirectly by promoting quality control standards such as ISO 9001. The importance of foreign direct investment and global value chains for ISO 14001 diffusion is also confirmed.

Stigma, social relationship and HIV testing in the workplace : evidence from South Africa

This paper explores whether a worker's unwillingness to make his/her HIV-positive status or test-taking experience known by colleagues impedes his/her decision to test for HIV. After analyzing the new survey data provided by employees working for a large multinational enterprise in South Africa (2009-2010), this study finds that this unwillingness is negatively associated with test-taking (at the enterprise's on-site clinic) of workers who are extensively networked with close colleagues (i.e., know their phone numbers). It appears that the expected disutility associated with HIV/AIDS-related stigma prohibits test uptake. When introducing HIV counseling and testing programs into a corporate sector, providing all workers with an excuse to test in the workplace and/or inducing them to privately test outside the workplace may be effective in encouraging the uptake.

Adoption of ISO9001 through supply chain in Vietnam : impacts of FDI and product-related environmental regulation

The objective of the present study is to examine the determinants of ISO 9001 certification, focusing on the effect of Product-related Environmental Regulations on Chemicals (PRERCs) and FDI using the answers to several questions in our Vietnam survey conducted from December 2011 to January 2012. Our findings suggest that PRERCs may help with the improvement in quality control of Vietnamese firms. If Vietnamese manufacturing firms with ISO 9001 certification are more likely to adopt ISO 14001, as well as firms in developed countries, our results indicate that the European chemical regulations may assist in the reduction of various environmental impacts in Vietnam. In addition, we found that FDI promotes the adoption of ISO 9001. If FDI firms in Vietnam certify ISO 14001 after the adoption of ISO 9001, as in the case of Malaysia and the developed economies, FDI firms may also be able to improve environmental performance as a result of ISO 14001.