We are five years away from 2015, the year when the Millennium Development Goal of universal education is supposed to be achieved, and the school attendance numbers do look good. In many parts of both East and West Africa, and almost all of South Asia, school enrollment has grown rapidly, with...

The mental health of the elderly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is a largely neglected subject, both by policy and research. We combine data from the health and retirement family of surveys in seven LMICs (plus the US) to document that depressive symptoms among those aged 55 and...