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Do labor market opportunities for women affect marriage and fertility decisions? We provided three years of recruiting services to help young women in randomly selected rural Indian villages get jobs in the business process outsourcing industry. Because the industry was so new at the time of the study, there was almost no awareness of these jobs, allowing us in effect to exogenously increase women's labor force opportunities from the perspective of rural households. We find that young women in treatment villages were significantly less likely to get married or have children during this period, choosing instead to enter the labor market or obtain more schooling or postschool training. Women also report wanting to have fewer children and to work more steadily throughout their lifetime, consistent with increased aspirations for a career.

•It examines undernourishment in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste.•Stunting, wasting, and underweight among children aged 0 to 59 months in rural areas is high.•Considerable variation between countries and between primary sampling units is observed.•Maternal illiteracy, unsafe drinking water, and dirty fuel are positively associated with undernourishment.•Children from impoverished households in India, Pakistan, and Cambodia were disproportionately malnourished.•Temperature and rainfall also emerged as influential determinants of undernourishment in India, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste. Child malnutrition, comprising of undernutrition and obesity, is a global concern with severe implications for survival, leading to acute and chronic diseases that adversely affect the productivity of individuals and society. Asia shoulders the greatest burden, with 7 out of 10 undernourished children residing in the region. Despite the decline in global child stunting, particularly in Asia, its prevalence remains significant. In 2017, an estimated 151 million children under five experienced stunting, and an additional 38 million were overweight, with Africa and Asia accounting for 25% and 46% of the global figures, respectively. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the geospatial and environmental determinants of undernutrition in rural South and Southeast Asia. To explore the geospatial and environmental determinants of undernutrition (stunting, wasting, and underweight), we use Poisson regression and the data from recent rounds of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste. This study found a high prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight among children aged 0 to 59 months in rural areas of South and Southeast Asia, with considerable variation between countries and clusters/primary sampling units. Results show a positive association between child malnutrition and factors such as maternal illiteracy, unsafe drinking water, and dirty cooking fuel in South and Southeast Asia. Children from impoverished households in India, Pakistan, and Cambodia were disproportionately affected. In addition to socio-economic factors, climatic risks such as temperature increase and rainfall variations also emerged as important determinants of child malnutrition in India, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste. This paper emphasizes the role of environmental and climatic factors on child nutrition, underscoring their significance regardless of socio-economic conditions. As the impacts of climate change continue to intensify, and agrarian societies bear the brunt, these factors will play a critical role in shaping child nutritional outcomes. Thus, amid growing climate change, nutritional security should be prioritized, considering the spatial domain and targeting climate distress areas along with other socio-economic and demographic aspects.

Rural out-migration is a common phenomenon in Jharkhand and it has become a way of life for the people living in the region. The people have been migrating not just for seeking diverse avenues of employment, but also for accessing better educational and other opportunities. While Jharkhand has been a separate state for more than two decades, its overall social and economic conditions have barely improved. In addition, it has one of the highest rates of rural out-migration in the country. Despite this, relatively little scholarship has focused on the implications of rural out-migration in this region. This paper seeks to examine the extent of out-migration from Jharkhand and discusses its types, patterns, drivers, and implications. The study was conducted by collecting primary data across different parts of Jharkhand. A comprehensive questionnaire with diverse set of questions from various dimensions was used in the study. Several migration related questions from both origin and destination have been considered while framing and conducting the survey. Key finding of the study is that rural out-migration has become an integral part of the livelihood of people in Jharkhand. Out-migration is not solely economic, as many young people are leaving rural areas to pursue higher education. The current rate of out-migration is not sustainable for the state, resulting in several socio-economic problems. The study also put forth some policy measure and recommendations to mitigate the negative impacts of migration and ameliorate the well-being of migrants and migrants’ households. The lessons from this study can help design effective future policy interventions to minimize the high rate of out-migration from the region.

India is a global hotspot for irrigation-induced groundwater withdrawal, leading to widespread lowering of water levels, in turn resulting in disproportionate access to irrigation supplies among farming communities. Efforts to mitigate the situation, however, have fallen short, largely due to technocentric vision (e.g. microirrigation adoption) of the regulatory authorities (RAs), which does little to integrate the vast groundwater-dependent socioecologies with the decision making system. In view of that, we invite the RAs to deliberate upon a cap-and-trade mechanism that proposes to mobilize the farmers at every aspect of planning and execution, while to tackling multiple challenges simultaneously: (a) restrict groundwater pumping to a pre-defined safe level (cap), (b) creating a shared space/quotas for all to pump (allocation); and (c) making provisions for trade of allocations. The latter further augments farmers’ access to groundwater (and irrigation). Using a systematic bibliometric analysis of relevant world literature and contextual appraisal of groundwater-irrigation landscape in India, we develop a conceptual framework of cap-and-trade in three parts. In the first Pre-implementation stage, we emphasize a reality check study to assess ground conditions, if favorable for a cap-and-trade approach (existing social, economic, institutional circumstances). Next, in the Implementation stage, (1) we recommend an integrated hydrogeological-hydrometeorological modeling to determine flexible capping arrangements, with the possibility of delineating certain priority regions (coastal ecosystems); (2) for allocations, a reasonable fraction of the cap over a defined period; we envision a thoroughly participatory arrangement, centering on four action areas: identifying, informing, consulting, and involving the farmers, alongside all stakeholders engaged in the groundwater-irrigation decision making; (3) for trade, we urge the RAs to create win-win situations for both the sellers and buyers; develop the transaction protocols on certain foundational principles (e.g. simplicity, transparency and consistency); strengthening of local institutions, and development of targeted financial support schemes. We consider the third part of the narrative, Post-implementation stage, as a real game changer, comprising of a monitoring, auditing (performance benchmarking) component coupled with multitiered outreach-mentoring drives that demonstrate to the farmers the benefits of becoming part of the cap-and-trade program. Overall, a main motivation to present this research is to shatter the age-old socio-cognitive beliefs/taboos around groundwater pumping (My land, My Water) , breaking the hegemony of the water sellers (rich/wealthy large landholder clans), to potentially, create a social norm whereby the farmers realize the value of restricting groundwater pumping and sharing for mutual prosperity.

We use a dataset of rural Indian households to investigate the effects of maternal participation in labor markets on child nutrition (the standardized height-for-age). Our study differs methodologically from previous research in this realm in that we are using an instrumental variable quantile regression framework in order to estimate the causal effects of maternal work at various locations of the height-for-age distribution in rural India. The quantile estimates provide evidence of large heterogeneity in the effect of a mother’s work on child nutrition. In particular, the results suggest that it is children in the lower tail of the distribution who experience more sizable ‘nutritional premiums’ due to maternal labor market participation; the effects are small and insignificant for children in the rest of the distribution.

This study explores similarities and differences in the perceptions of rural Indian women and their husbands with regard to various dimensions of women's autonomy and investigates the extent to which various reproductive outcomes-contraception, unmet need, recent fertility, and spousal communication-are influenced by individual partners' views of women's autonomy. Data are drawn from a 1993-94 community-based study of women's autonomy in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, states that are, respectively, more and less patriarchal. Matched data were obtained from 1,660 women and their husbands. Results indicate no more than a loose agreement between women and their husbands concerning the dimensions of women's autonomy within the home. Where disagreement is expressed, husbands are more likely to project a comparatively liberal picture of their wives' autonomy than do their wives, and the inference can be made that in surveys men tended to provide more \"acceptable\" responses than when they were questioned in greater depth. Findings also suggest that cultural context affects the influences that wives' and their husbands' perceptions of women's autonomy have on reproductive outcomes. A clear regional divide is seen, net of individual and household characteristics, in the influence of almost every aspect of women's autonomy.

Using multivariate analyses and reading, mathematics and writing scores of children (aged 8–11 years) from a nationally representative sample, we find that children from female headed households either perform better or similar, but never worse than those from male headed households. Also, household fixed effect analysis reveals no gender disparity in academic scores of children belonging to female headed households, a case not true for children from male headed households. We relate this finding to gender parity in educational expenditure on children in female headed households against gender disparity in the same in households headed by males. Based on our findings we also offer some policy suggestions.

Researchers in demography, the labour market and health have observed that North Indian women face greater discrimination than women in other zones. This study examines whether a similar pattern is replicated with respect to completion of school education. We find that gender disparities are higher in northern states in rural areas. In urban areas, however, eastern states display greater disparities. This is also confirmed if we control for household traits, community characteristics and the regional context. However, when we decompose the differences in probability of completing school education across gender, the contribution of the control variables is found to be insignificant, relative to that of the coefficient effect (which is sometimes put forward as a measure of discrimination) in both rural and urban areas of Eastern India. The divergence in regional pattern of gender disparity from patterns observed for demographic and health indicators shows that gender discrimination is a complex multilayered phenomenon and the interaction between these layers may assume unexpected forms.

The role of economic factors, particularly income and consumption, in the wellbeing of a population is well documented. The well-being, however, does not depend solely on these factors, social indicators such as life expectancy, health, education and nutrition serve an important complementary function [Linnemayr, et al. (2008)]. The most significant social problems in many developing countries including Pakistan are widespread child malnutrition, high infant mortality and low literacy. Child malnutrition is considered as the key risk factor for illness and death, contributing to more than half the deaths of children globally [Cheah, et al. (2010)]. It also affects the child morbidity rate and poses threat to their physical and mental development, which results in lower level of educational attainment [Chirwa and Ngalawa (2008)]. The recent literature therefore considers the nutrition status as an important dimension of individual wellbeing [Babatunde, Olagunju, and Fakayode (2011)].