While an extensive literature explores the effects of economic development on women’s labor market outcomes, the relationship between GDP growth and women’s empowerment within the family remains an open question. Using data on approximately one million women from 36 countries, we describe associations between a country’s GDP per capita and different measures of attitudes towards women within the household. We find that when a country experiences a higher GPD per capita, women are more likely to report that they participate in decisions on major household purchases, visits to family and friends, and their own health care. We fail to find evidence, however, that an increase in GDP per capita is associated with changes in women’s objections to wife-beating. While economic growth can promote some empowerment of women within the family, our results suggest that traditional gender norms are maintaining some aspects of gender inequality, which must be tackled independently of policies that stimulate economic growth. 1 We acknowledge the support of the International Development Research Centre, the Hewlett Foundation and the Department for International Development for the work that underlies this paper. We are also thankful to Caroline Heller for able computational assistance, and to Adaeze Okoli for bibliographic help.

The goal of this study was to examine the types of social support provided by STRIVE, an inner‐city‐based workforce development program. Life history interviews were conducted with 20 African American graduates (aged 18–24 years) of the workforce development program. Nearly half of the sample was male (45%). Over half of the sample was employed at the time of the interview (65%). Participants described receiving extensive informational and emotional support from the workforce development program. After participating in the workforce development program, respondents described themselves as being less stressed and more self‐confident. Participants described using the skills gained and support offered to gain employment, enroll in educational programs, and interact more effectively with others. Thus, workforce development programs may be a viable option to address employment needs and provide meaningful support to vulnerable young people during their transition into adulthood.

White and minority women experience different rates of obesity in the United States. Yet our understanding of the dynamics that give rise to this gap remains limited. This article presents a conceptual framework that considers pathways leading to these different rates. It draws upon the life-course perspective, allostatic load, and the weathering hypothesis to identify pathways linking childbearing, stress, and obesity. This conceptual framework extends prior work by identifying age at first birth as an important parameter that influences these pathways. Empirical evidence to test these pathways is needed.

In recent decades, there has been an increase in cognitive achievement gaps between children from low-income and higher-income families. Changes in the parenting practices of fathers may be partly responsible. The major difference in parenting practices among fathers is one of residence—whether they live with their children— rather than income. Previous research has conflated these two dimensions, often focusing on low-income fathers who do not live with their children and higher-income fathers who do while ignoring fathers who do not fit into either category. Using data from the 2011–13 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth, we attempt to rectify this issue by examining differences in parenting practices across a more complete range of incomes and residential statuses.

From 2010 to 2030 the United States will become more racially and ethnically diverse, but demographic projections suggest the patterns of increasing diversity will vary widely across cities and regions. In this brief, we project changes in the population shares across geographies for four major groups: Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites, nonHispanic blacks, and non-Hispanic others. Though growing diversity across the United States will be welcome in many ways, it will also bring challenges to areas in which different groups increase in population share.

Purpose: Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global health and human rights issue with individual and social determinants. Youth are considered high risk; national influences include norms, policies and practices. By age, nation, and region, we contrast key GBV indicators, specifically intimate partner violence (IPV) and forced sexual debut among adolescent and young adult women using Demographic and Health Surveys across low-and middle-income countries.Methods: National prevalence estimates were generated among adolescents (15-19 years) and young adults (20-24 years) for lifetime and the past-year physical and sexual IPV among ever-married/ cohabitating women (30 nations) and forced sexual debut among sexually experienced women (17 nations). Meta-analyses provided regional estimates and cross-national comparisons, and compared the past-year IPV prevalence among adolescent and young adult women to adult women.Results: An estimated 28% of adolescent and 29% of young adult women reported lifetime physical or sexual IPV, most prevalent in the East and Southern Africa region. Regional and cross-national variation emerged in patterns of violence by age; overall, young adult women demonstrated higher risk for the past-year IPV relative to adult women (meta-analysis odds ratio, 1.20; 95% confidence interval, 1.10-1.37) and adolescents had a comparable risk (meta-analysis odds ratio, 1.07; 95% confidence interval,.91-1.23). Forced sexual debut was estimated at 12% overall, highest in the East and Southern Africa region.Conclusions: GBV is pervasive among adolescent and young adult women in low-and middleincome countries. The unique risk to youth varies across nations, suggesting an ageeplace interaction. Future research is needed to clarify contextual determinants of GBV. Findings provide direction for integrating youth within GBV prevention efforts. (C) 2015 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. All rights reserved.

In this paper we discuss findings from the Transition to Fatherhood Project, as well as other research, to consider how changes in fatherhood may affect men. We first outline how the context of fathering has changed over the past half a century; we focus particularly on non-marital fatherhood, non-custodial fatherhood and multiple- partner fertility. Then, in the second part of the paper, we summarize what the literature can tell us about the employment and health consequences of fatherhood for men in different contexts and the intrinsic benefits from direct involvement with children. We close with a call for more research on the motivations for fatherhood, how fatherhood affects men differently and on how men think about fatherhood. In addition, we call for public policy based on the idea that children need time as well as money from their fathers.

Early adolescence (ages 10-14 years) is among the most neglected stages of development, yet there are few stages during the life course where changes are as dramatic. The present conceptual framework proposes four central goals to be achieved by early adolescence: engagement with learning, emotional and physical safety, positive sense of self/self-efficacy, acquisition of life/decision-making skills. The framework proposes an ecological model where the macro level factors (economic forces, historical events, national priorities, laws/policies/norms and values, national events, and political realities) all set the contexts that influence community, family, school and peer factors that all in turn influence the adolescent. Existing indicators for points of development are noted as are future areas of research priority.

CONTEXTUnderstanding the relationship between union status and men's sexual risk behavior in their 30s is important to ensure appropriate reproductive health services for men in middle adulthood.METHODSData from 1,083 men aged 34-41 who participated in the 2008-2010 wave of the National Survey of Adolescent Males were used to examine differentials in sexual risk behaviors by union status, past risk behavior and selected characteristics. Bivariate tabulations were done to assess relationships between current risk behavior and background variables, multinomial regression analysis was conducted to identify associations between union status and past risk behavior, and logistic regression analysis was used to assess associations between current behavior and both union status and past behavior.RESULTSEight percent of men in their 30s had had three or more sexual partners in the last 12 months, 10% had had at least one risky partner and 8% had had concurrent partners. Men living outside co-residential unions reported higher levels of these behaviors (24%, 29% and 24%, respectively) than did married men (1-2%) or cohabiting men (7-12%). In multivariate analyses that controlled for past risk behavior, married men were less likely than cohabiting men to have had at least one risky partner or concurrent partners in the last year (odds ratio, 0.2 for each), while men who were not in a co-residential union had an increased likelihood of reporting each risk behavior (2.2-5.3).CONCLUSIONSMen in their 30s, especially those who are not married, engage in risky sexual behaviors. Further studies are needed to assess what contributes to behavioral differences by union status and what types of services might help men in this age-group reduce their risk.

We examine the relative well-being of three groups of female adolescents and young adults in low and middle income countries: 1) the urban poor; 2) the urban non-poor; and 3) those in rural areas. Our data are from 51 recent Demographic and Health Surveys. We compared six key outcomes (early marriage, contraceptive use, early sexual debut, no schooling and underweight and overweight) through logistic regression within countries and summarized the results via meta-analysis. Our findings suggest that female adolescents and young adults in rural areas remain disadvantaged relative to non-poor urban dwellers on all outcomes. Poor urban adolescents are also disadvantaged relative to the urban non-poor on all outcomes. With respect to underweight, we find that poor female adolescents and young adults from urban areas are disadvantaged relative to both their rural and their non-poor urban counterparts.

Health care providers are challenged to use culturally appropriate, low-technology approaches to improve child health in resource-poor countries. Village fathers' clubs is one approach used in rural Haiti since 1994. Fathers meet regularly for health education and community-building activities. Our aim was to investigate parenting practices and beliefs among Haitian fathers of young children and to explore their views on fathers' clubs. We conducted semistructured interviews with 18 fathers. Themes identified were fathers' involvement in routine care of their children, the close partnerships of fathers and mothers in child care, fathers' responsibilities to their communities, and fathers' clubs as an important supportive institution for the Haitian fathers and their families. Rural Haitian fathers reported taking a very active role in the lives of their families and children. Increased involvement of fathers should be explored as a strategy to improve child health and survival in other parts of Haiti and throughout the world.

In this paper we tested three hypotheses: (a) the transition to fatherhood is associated with an increase in work effort; (b) the positive association (if any) between the transition to fatherhood and work effort is greater for fathers who are married at the time of the transition; and (c) the association (if any) is greater for men who make the transition at younger ages. The data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort. The transition to fatherhood was associated with an increase in work effort among young unmarried men, but not for married men. Among married men who were on-time fathers, work effort decreased. Among childless men, the marriage transition was associated with increased work effort.

In recognition of the important role that fathers play in the lives of young children in Haiti, a public health organization instituted fathers' clubs in 1994 as a strategy to improve the health outcomes of children. Fathers' clubs focus on child and family health education. To evaluate the effectiveness of fathers' clubs, we examined the health of children born in Haitian villages with and without active fathers' clubs and compared results for the two groups. The presence of a fathers' club in a child's birth village had a positive effect on vaccination status, growth monitoring, and vitamin A supplementation after we controlled for socioeconomic status, time, and the quality of the village health agent. Child weights and mortality were not affected by the fathers' clubs.

The objective of this study was to investigate whether maternal socio-economic status during childhood and at the time of pregnancy each have unique associations with infant birthweight when biological determinants of birthweight are controlled. The data are from a three-generation study which contains information on the mothers and grandmothers of 987 singleton infants, collected over a period of 25 years. We used simple and multivariable regression to assess the association between indicators of a woman's socio-economic status and her offspring's birthweight. Women who grew up in poor households had smaller babies than those who did not, and a unit increase in the income/needs ratio (analogous to the poverty index), in non-poor households only, was associated with a 185 g [95% CI 70, 200] increase in infant birthweight. Maternal age at the index infant's birth had a positive association with birthweight that diminished as women reached their mid-twenties. Among mothers with low education, high grandmaternal education was associated with a 181 g [95% CI 71, 292] increase in infant birthweight, while high grandmaternal education had no effect among infants whose mothers were relatively well-educated. This interaction between grandmaternal and maternal education is consistent with claims that cumulative stress is an important mechanism connecting maternal socio-economic status and infant health.

Much research has been done on demographic manifestations of son preference, particularly girls’ excess mortality; however, there is less research that focuses on son preference itself. This paper analyzes the determinants of son preference in rural India. We separate the independent, relative effects of characteristics of individual women and their households, village opportunities for women and village development, and social norms. We look at both socioeconomic and sociocultural variables. Finally, we examine whether predictors of son preference differ by desired family size. Our data come from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) India, 1992–1993. We use an ordered logit model, with dummy variables for state of residence. Our analysis shows that women’s education, particularly at secondary and higher levels, is consistently and significantly associated with weaker son preference, regardless of desired family size. Once factors measuring social norms, such as marriage customs, caste and religion, are included, economic wealth and women’s employment at household or village levels are not significant. Media access remains significant, suggesting an influence of “modernizing” ideas. Among social factors, caste and religion are associated with son preference but, once state of residence is controlled for, marriage patterns and cultivation patterns are insignificant. The strength and significance for son preference of many determinants differs by desired family size. Our results suggest that policy makers seeking to influence son preference need to identify and target different policy levers to women in different fertility and social contexts, rather than try an approach of one size that fits all.

Using data from Welfare, Children and Families: A 3-City Study, this study explores how change and stability in out-of-school care are associated with changes in problem behaviors among youth from Time 1 (i.e., at ages 10–11) to Time 2 (an average of 16 months later). Girls in at-home, family care or an organized activity at Time 1 and in informal, out-of-home care or self-care at Time 2 experienced greater increases in problem behaviors than girls remaining in at-home family care or an organized activity. Other changes in care were related to youth outcomes differently depending upon maternal psychological distress. Policies must provide a full range of support services related to childcare and mental health care for low-income families.

Building on social ecological research, this study considers whether neighborhood socioeconomic advantage modifies the relationship between parenting practices and sex initiation among young adolescents. Using data on a national sample of 2,559 middle school students, the authors examined two-way interactions between neighborhood socioeconomic status and parental involvement, decision making, and communication about sex. The parental decision-making measure was developed using latent class analysis. Greater parental involvement was related to a lower likelihood of sex initiation only when youth lived in socioeconomically advantaged neighborhoods. Parental decision making centered on the child’s activities within (e.g., television watching) and outside (e.g., hanging with peers) of the home was associated with a lower likelihood of sex initiation for adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods but to a greater likelihood of sex initiation for youth in advantaged neighborhoods. Results suggest that the neighborhood context must be considered in preventive interventions aimed at discouraging adolescent involvement in sexual intercourse.

The relationship between women's employment and the risk of divorce is both complex and controversial. The role specialization (or interdependence) view of marriage argues that the gains to marriage for both partners decrease when both are in the labor force, and hence women's employment destabilizes marriage. In contrast, the economic opportunity hypothesis asserts that female labor force participation does not intrinsically weaken marriage, but gives women resources that they can use to leave unsatisfactory marriages. Here we use data from the two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to conduct the first large-scale empirical test of those conflicting claims. Our results provide clear evidence that, at the individual level, women's employment does not destabilize happy marriages but increases the risk of disruption in unhappy marriages.

OBJECTIVES:This study examined predictors of longevity in a cohort of inner-city African American women.METHODS:Data were derived from a cohort study of inner-city African American mothers whose median age in 1966 was 31 years. Analyses involved single-decrement life tables and pooled logistic regression.RESULTS:Giving birth for the first time before age 25 and having at least a high school education predicted longevity in this sample. Effects of later age at first delivery in terms of mortality risk were stronger after 55 years and, especially, after 70 years.CONCLUSIONS:The findings offer support for Geronimus's weathering hypothesis. Predictors of longevity among African Americans may be distinct from predictors for the population as a whole.