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AbstractMacroeconomic forecasts and program evaluations of health service interventions are pessimistic about ageing populations, given their low work participation and high demand for social services. We estimate the impact of heart disease on paid work and the value of unpaid non‐market activities of the Australian elderly, using Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data, finding significant losses in the value of their contributions to adult care and voluntary work. Impacts on non‐market contributions of older women were more significant than for older men. A broader perspective on the value of the contributions made by the elderly is needed to enhance efficiency and (gender) equality.

The paper has two main objectives. The first is to trace the progress in the process of decentralisation in the provision of public services in India. The second is to test the hypothesis that decentralisation in the system of public service delivery in primary health care and education led to improved outcomes for the rural Indian population. Before 1992, with few exceptions, there was little movement towards decentralisation. Rural local bodies functioned primarily as program executing agents for government line departments, with little control over finances, administration, or the pattern of expenditure. The only decentralisation that existed was in the importance of state governments vis-à-vis the centre. After the 1992 Constitutional Amendments, significant progress has taken place in the form of the passing of conformity legislation by state governments, the setting up of State Finance Commissions to examine the distribution of resources from states to local bodies, and accelerated moves towards transfer of planning and expenditure responsibilities to village bodies. The paper used data from the 1994 NCAER survey to test the hypothesis that increased decentralisation/democratisation positively influences enrolment rates and child mortality once the influence of socioeconomic circumstances, civil society organisations, the problem of capture of local bodies by elite groups, and so on are controlled for. Our main empirical findings are that indicators of democratisation and public participation, such as frequency of elections, presence of non-governmental organisations, parent-teacher associations and indicator variables for decentralised states generally have the expected positive effects, although these are not always statistically indistinguishable from zero. ; Die vorliegende Arbeit analysiert zwei Aspekte der dezentralisierten Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter in Indien. Der erste Teil veranschaulicht den Prozeß der Dezentralisierung, während im zweiten Teil die Hypothese getestet wird, daß eine dezentralisierte Bereitstellung von medizinischer Grundversorgung und Schulen zu einer Verbesserung der Rahmenbedingungen der indischen Landbevölkerung geführt hat. Im Zuge der Verwaltungsreform 1992 wurden den ländlichen Organen zunehmend Aufgaben übertragen. Durch die entsprechende Verfassungsänderung wurde ein fiskalischer Föderalismus eingeführt, der den Gemeinden und Kreisen auch nötige finanzielle Unabhängigkeit verschaffte. Der empirischen Analyse liegen die Daten der NCAER - Erhebung aus dem Jahre 1994 zugrunde. Die Hypothese des positiven Einflusses der Dezentralisierung auf Sterblichkeitsrate und Schülerzahlen wird um die sozioökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen ergänzend überprüft. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf einen positiven Einfluß der verwandten Variablen hin, wobei dieser Einfluß z.T. jedoch gering ausfällt.

AbstractIntimate partner violence (IPV) is a major health and social issue that affects around 30 percent of women globally. This study investigates the relationships through which witnessing IPV in adolescence may impact the labor force participation and employment prospects of women in early adulthood, using a unique dataset from Bihar (India), which surveyed youth (primarily girls) in adolescence and again nine years later. The study examined the relationship between exposure to IPV and labor market outcomes among young women, including intermediate factors likely to influence their employment prospects, such as educational attainment, self‐efficacy, mental health, and soft skills. Witnessing IPV as an adolescent had a negative effect on educational attainment, mental health, and social and behavioral aspects of young women almost nine years later. IPV was not associated with the likelihood of paid employment or participation in skilled work among women, although it was associated with higher levels of labor force participation. These findings suggest that witnessing IPV should be considered one of multiple forms of violence that may expose young women to longer term vulnerability related to poorer educational and employment prospects, mental health, and social networks, with implications for economic and social development far beyond the family.

The government of Myanmar, with support from international donors, plans to address household financial risks from ill health and expand coverage. But evidence to design policy is limited. WHS (World Health Survey) data for 6045 households were used to investigate the association of out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending, catastrophic expenditures, and household borrowing and asset sales associated with illness with key socioeconomic and demographic correlates in Myanmar. Households with elderly and young children and chronically ill individuals, poor households, and ethnic minorities face higher financial stress from illness. Rural households use less care, suggesting their lower OOP health spending may be at the cost of health. Poorer groups rely more on public sector health services than richer groups. Better targeting, increased budgetary allocations, and more effective use of resources via designing cost-effective benefits packages appear key to sustainably addressing financial risks from ill health in Myanmar.

We assess old age financial security in a sample of sex workers in India. Our analysis, based on primary data for 240 former sex workers and 340 current sex workers in the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra, highlights three features of their economic situation. First, former sex workers economically outperform female-headed households in the general population. Second, old age security for sex workers is hampered by limited access to mechanisms to invest their savings productively during working ages, their incurring of high levels of out of pocket expenses for ill health and borrowing costs. Third, traditional sources of support in old age such as children are limited, in contrast to what we know about family-based support for the elderly in India. The article concludes by examining recent policy developments in India and their relevance for economic security among older sex workers.