An official website of the United States government
Abstract During the twentieth century, childhood mortality was dramatically reduced globally, falling by more than 90% in the United States and much of Europe. Total fertility also fell, with the combined result that many parents who otherwise would have experienced the loss of a child were spared the trauma and negative health consequences that accompany such a loss. Here I use mathematical modeling to argue that the reduction in the frequency of child death that occurred in the twentieth century indirectly led to a substantial reduction in female mortality, resulting in an extension of female lifespan. I estimate that the reduction in maternal bereavement in the US during the twentieth century indirectly increased mean female lifespan after age 15 by approximately 1 year. I discuss implications for our understanding of the persistence of the sex gap in longevity and approaches to improving maternal health outcomes in countries that still face high levels of childhood mortality.
more »
« less
Gender Discrimination and Excess Female Under-5 Mortality in India: A New Perspective Using Mixed-Sex Twins
Abstract Son preference has been linked to excess female under-5 mortality in India, and considerable literature has explored whether parents invest more resources in sons relative to daughters—which we refer to as explicit discrimination—leading to girls’ poorer health status and, consequently, higher mortality. However, this literature has not adequately controlled for the implicit discrimination processes that sort girls into different types of families (e.g., larger) and at earlier parities. To better address the endogeneity associated with implicit discrimination processes, we explore the association between child sex and postneonatal under-5 mortality using a sample of mixed-sex twins from four waves of the Indian National Family Health Survey. Mixed-sex twins provide a natural experiment that exogenously assigns a boy and a girl to families at the same time, thus controlling for selectivity into having an unwanted female child. We document a sizable impact of explicit discrimination on girls’ excess mortality in India, particularly compared with a placebo analysis in sub-Saharan Africa, where girls have a survival advantage. We also show that explicit discrimination weakened for birth cohorts after the mid-1990s, especially in northern India, but further weakening has stalled since the mid-2000s, thus contributing to understandings of how the micro-processes underlying the female mortality disadvantage have changed over time.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1729185
- PAR ID:
- 10222415
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Demography
- Volume:
- 57
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 0070-3370
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2143 to 2167
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract ObjectiveA mother–child dyad trajectory model of weight and body composition spanning from conception to adolescence was developed to understand how early life exposures shape childhood body composition. MethodsAfrican American (49.3%) and Dominican (50.7%) pregnant mothers (n= 337) were enrolled during pregnancy, and their children (47.5% female) were followed from ages 5 to 14. Gestational weight gain (GWG) was abstracted from medical records. Child weight, height, percentage body fat, and waist circumference were measured. GWG and child body composition trajectories were jointly modeled with a flexible latent class model with a class membership component that included prepregnancy BMI. ResultsFour prenatal and child body composition trajectory patterns were identified, and sex‐specific patterns were observed for the joint GWG–postnatal body composition trajectories with more distinct patterns among girls but not boys. Girls of mothers with high GWG across gestation had the highest BMIzscore, waist circumference, and percentage body fat trajectories from ages 5 to 14; however, boys in this high GWG group did not show similar growth patterns. ConclusionsJointly modeled prenatal weight and child body composition trajectories showed sex‐specific patterns. Growth patterns from childhood though early adolescence appeared to be more profoundly affected by higher GWG patterns in females, suggesting sex differences in developmental programming.more » « less
-
Attributing gender discrimination to implicit bias has become increasingly common. However, research suggests that when discrimination is attributed to implicit rather than explicit bias, the perpetrators are held less accountable and deemed less worthy of punishment. The present work examines (a) whether this effect replicates in the domain of gender discrimination, and (b) whether sharing a group membership with the victim moderates the effect. Four studies revealed that both men and women hold perpetrators of gender discrimination less accountable if their behavior is attributed to implicit rather than explicit bias. Moreover, women held male (Studies 1–3), but not female (Study 4), perpetrators of gender discrimination more accountable than did men. Together, these findings suggest that while shared gender group membership may inform judgments of accountability for gender discrimination, it does not weaken the tendency to hold perpetrators less accountable for discrimination attributed to implicit, compared with explicit, bias.more » « less
-
Three hundred and ninety‐one children (195 girls;Mage = 9.56 years) attending Grades 1 and 5 completed implicit and explicit measures of math attitudes and math self‐concepts. Math grades were obtained. Multilevel analyses showed that first‐grade girls held a strong negative implicit attitude about math, despite no gender differences in math grades or self‐reported (explicit) positivity about math. The explicit measures significantly predicted math grades, and implicit attitudes accounted for additional variance in boys. The contrast between the implicit (negativity for girls) and explicit (positivity for girls and boys) effects suggest implicit–explicit dissociations in children, which have also been observed in adults. Early‐emerging implicit attitudes may be a foundation for the later development of explicit attitudes and beliefs about math.more » « less
-
Mavhu, Webster (Ed.)Background The concept of ‘child marriage’ in global health distinguishes ostensibly harmful from healthy ages to marry at a universally-applied threshold of 18-years. With intensifying efforts to end child marriage, targeted communities are increasingly asked to change their perception of such marriages from relatively benign to profoundly problematic. The objective of this study is to understand how this shift in perception is navigated by adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). Methods Using qualitative data collected in 2019 from a semi-urban community in Tanzania where marriage under 18-years is common and campaigns to end child marriage ongoing, we contrast reports of lived experiences of marriage under 18-years among AGYW to views of child marriage as an abstract concept. Thirteen in-depth interviews with AGYW, as part of a wider qualitative study, were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a framework analysis approach. Results While many AGYW had heard of child marriage, the concept was routinely conflated with forced marriage, which is rare in the community, and non-marital teenage sex and pregnancy, which are common. As a likely consequence, participants disagreed on whether or not child marriage occurs locally. Furthermore, accounts of real-life marriages under 18 sometimes aligned with, but often departed from, common narratives about the purported causes and harmful consequences inherent to the global health concept of child marriage. Conclusions We argue that engaging with diverse local views and experiences of marrying young is essential to producing culturally-sensitive, effective initiatives addressing the vulnerabilities of female adolescence.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-020-00909-0
