These days, the talk about sexual minority rights is growing momentum. Homosexuality has found acceptance in many countries such a United Kingdom, United States and Canada. Most of these countries are economically developed. Whether such a quality is necessary for any society to accept...

Using data from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS-3), this paper analyzes the socioeconomic correlates of sexual behavior, HIV/AIDS knowledge and stigma in India. The main findings are that, overall, the Indian population is faithful and abstains from sex with very small variations across...

This paper estimates the association between HIV knowledge and risky sexual behavior in India. Using data from the third wave of the national demographic survey, we find that better HIV related knowledge does not always promote safer sexual practices. While, better HIV knowledge increases the...

Lower fertility can translate into a more male-biased sex ratio if son preference is persistent and technology for sex-selection is easily accessible. This paper investigates whether financial incentives can overcome this trade-off in the context of an Indian scheme, Devirupak, that seeks to...

In this paper, we show that the one-child policy has played a significant role in the decline of China's fertility. The one-child policy had reduced China's fertility rate by an additional 11.5%, based on a year-on-year comparison with the case if China had not implemented the policy. The...

A well-known demographic feature in several East and South Asian countries is the continuing decline in the proportion of girls to boys. In India, till recently, the skewed sex ratio was treated as a Northern and Western Indian phenomenon. However, analysis of the 2001 Census shows that some of...

A society is characterized by the common attitudes and behavior of its members. Such behavior reflects purposive decision making by individuals, given the environment they live in. Thus, as technology changes, so might social norms. There were big changes in social norms during the 20th century,...