Sex ratios at birth rose sharply in the South Caucasus countries after 1991, but recent data indicate that this trend is turning. What caused this rise, and what can be done to accelerate its normalization? Traditional kinship systems in the region are similar to those of other settings with...

The authors study the impact of governance and administrative factors on communicable disease prevention in the Indian state of Karnataka using survey data from administrators, frontline workers, and elected local representatives. They identify a number of key constraints to the effective...

Violent conflict, a pervasive feature of the recent global landscape, has lasting impacts on human capital, and these impacts are seldom gender neutral. Death and destruction alter the structure and dynamics of households, including their demographic profiles and traditional gender roles. To...

Public health systems in India have weakened since the 1950s, after central decisions to amalgamate the medical and public health services, and to focus public health work largely on single-issue programs - instead of on strengthening public health systems’ broad capacity to reduce exposure to...

The central government’s policies, though well-intentioned, have inadvertently de-emphasized environmental health and other preventive public health services in India since the 1950s, when it was decided to amalgamate the medical and public health services and to focus public health services...

Kinship systems in China, the Republic of Korea, and North India have similar features that generate discrimination against girls, and these countries have some of the highest proportions of girls"missing"in the world. The authors document how the excess mortality of girls was increased by war,...

Public health services, which reduce a population's exposure to disease through such measures as sanitation and vector control, are an essential part of a country's development infrastructure. In the industrial world and East Asia, systematic public health efforts raised labor productivity and...

Levels of child malnutrition in India fell only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and large public spending on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To unravel this...

The author distinguishes the lifeboat ethic of Northern Europe's stem family system from the corporate ethic of North India's joint family system, which has much in common with that of China. She contrasts these family systems to show how norms of residence and inheritance: a) Profoundly...

The authors compare changes in gender roles and women's empowerment in China, India, and the Republic of Korea. Around 1950, these newly formed states were largely poor and agrarian, with common cultural factors that placed similar severe constraints on women's autonomy. They adopted very...