Demographics in Malaysia and Viet Nam are evolving rapidly, potentially disrupting traditional family support to older people. We estimate a set of Poisson random effects models with panel data from the Malaysia Ageing and Retirement Survey and the Viet Nam Aging Survey to analyze how living...

Measuring the equity of opportunity in a given society is an essential ingredient in the formulation of policies and programs that promote inclusive growth. In this paper, equity of opportunity is defined and measured through the theoretical framework of the social opportunity function, a...

Climate change poses significant challenges to healthcare systems. This research estimates temperature impacts on hospital workload, using inpatient records from more than 1,000 emergency departments (EDs) in the People's Republic of China between 2013 and 2022. We find inpatient admissions in...

Populations become increasingly feminized with age. Since older women are more vulnerable to poverty, they may find it more difficult than men to access health care. This study examines factors that may constrain older persons in Southeast Asia from meeting their health-care needs when sick. Our...

We use data from two separate randomized control trials to examine whether career mentoring influences the educational preferences and career choices of Bhutanese students in grades 10 and 12. These mentoring programs provide information on technical and vocational education and training (TVET)...

This paper studies the effects of firms' investments in information and communication technologies (ICT) on their demand for female and skilled workers. Using the gradual liberalization of the broadband Internet sector across provinces from 2006 to 2009 as a source of exogenous variation to...

Asia's rapid population aging fortifies the case for strengthening human capital investments. Further, the experience of the newly industrialized economies suggests that human capital investments will be a vital ingredient of the transition from middle income to high income. Those investments...

Extensive global evidence suggests that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) encourage long-term investment in human capital by poor households. However, CCTs also have the potential to distort incentives for investment among children. If only some children in the household are monitored/subsidized...

This paper uses value-added models and panel data from a comprehensive set of highstakes secondary school exams to assess determinants of student performance during the coronavirus pandemic in Bhutan. Gender gaps, urban-rural gaps, and socioeconomic gaps do not appear to have widened...

We study the influence of social norms in determining the impact of early life exposure to the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 on gender inequality. We model how social norms interact with adverse shocks to affect male and female survival chances and influence subsequent human capital...