Background: Evidence suggests a much higher prevalence of postpartum depression in South Asia than in ‘western’ contexts. Aim: To conduct a rapid systematic review of evidence on the association between social relationships and postpartum depression in South Asia. Methods: Five databases...

We estimate the harm from smoking during pregnancy upon child birth outcomes, using a rich dataset on a cohort of mothers and their births. We exploit a fixed effects approach to disentangle the correlation between smoking and birth weight from the causal effect. We find that, despite a detailed...

There has been a significant decline in fertility in many parts of India since the early 1980s. This paper reexamines the determinants of fertility levels and fertility decline, using panel data on Indian districts for 1981 and 1991. We find that women's education is the most important factor...

This paper uses microdata from Brazilian natality and mortality vital statistics between 2000 and 2010 to estimate the impact of in-utero exposure to local violence - measured by homicide rates - on birth outcomes. The estimates shows that exposure to violence during the first trimester of...

In this paper we revisit the gender decomposition of wages in the presence of selection bias. We show that when labor market participation decisions of couples are not independent, the sample selection corrections used in the literature have been incomplete (incorrect). We derive the appropriate...

We examine the vertical transmission of overweight drawing upon a sample of English children, both adopted and non-adopted, and their families. Our results suggest strong evidence of an intergenerational association of overweight among adoptees, indicating transmission through cultural factors....

If participation in the labor market helps to secure women’s outside options in the case of divorce/separation, an increase in the perceived risk of marital dissolution may accelerate the increase in female labor supply. This simple prediction has been tested in the literature using time...

Mental illness accounts for a massive share of the total burden of disease. Even when we include the burden of premature death mental illness accounts for 23% of the total burden of disease. Yet, despite the existence of cost-effective treatments, it receives only 13% of NHS health expenditure....

The Government’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) programme aims to implement NICE Guidance for people with depression and anxiety disorders. In the first phase of the programme, two demonstration sites were established in Doncaster and Newham with funding to provide increased...

Gaps in welfare attainment between boys and girls in China have attracted international attention. In this paper demand analysis is used to try and uncover the factors which may be driving the emergence of the gender gaps. Drawing on household expenditure data from a poor (Sichuan) and rich...