In the context of development, considerable attention is paid to population health, usually interpreted according to mortality rates or burden of disease estimates. However, health is more complex than such physical indices can convey. This is particularly evident among many contemporary...

Examining the influence of women's suffrage and democracy on gender equality in education in a sample of 80 countries, covering Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and Eastern Europe, this study shows that countries with a longer duration of suffrage tend on average to perform better in...

This paper examines and decomposes the gap in per capita expenditures between majority and minority ethnic groups in rural Vietnam between 1993 and 2004. Over this period, the real expenditure gap between rural Kinh and Chinese-headed households and those headed by ethnic minorities increased by...

This paper adopts a simple empirical approach to estimate vulnerability to food inadequacy using cross-section data from the 2001 Timor-Leste Living Standard Measurement Survey. This measurement is based on the assumption that households are exposed to the same kind of shock. It is found that...

The primary objective of this paper is to identify factors that affect maternal health in rural India. This is important given the high maternal and infant mortality rates in India, particularly rural India. The paper will focus particularly on whether and how the culture and practice of son...

Anthropologists have argued that patrilocal exogamy and patrilineal descent systems are associated with poor education and health outcomes for women. In this paper, we use the nationally representative Indonesian Family Life Survey to examine the links between female educational outcomes and...

The ratio of trade (exports plus imports) to GDP is often used to gauge the orientation of a country's economic activity to the world market; but GDP measures value added, whereas trade is measured as gross value and double-counts imported inputs embodied in exports. High trade/GDP ratios can...

Poor understanding of financial products and an inability to process financial information prevent millions of rural households in the developing world from making informed financial decisions. This article assesses the financial literacy and cognitive ability of farmers using data from a unique...

This paper evaluates the impact of globalization on two sorts of child work: child labour and household chores. Using newly available survey data on gender-specific participation rates in child labour and household chores, results are estimated separately for boys and girls to determine whether...

This article explores the conceptualization of sustainable human development within the Capability Approach. It goes beyond replacing “human needs” with “human capabilities” to extend the sustainable development premise into a sustainable human development discourse. In so doing, the...