Education's economic return in multicultural Australia: Demographic analysis

This article focuses on the impact of education as the most important human capital endowment in the context of migration, religion, gender and ethnic identity from a demographic perspective. It presents research-based evidence to address such key research questions as whether and how significantly women's education provides equal benefit in the labour market for individuals, based on their migration status, religion, and ethnic identity. The field of this study is the multi-ethnic and multicultural context of Australia with a wide range of ethnic and religious groups of migrants from throughout the world. Preliminary results show that labour market achievement is positively and significantly associated with the educational attainment of individuals, irrespective of their migration status, religious affiliation and ethnicity. However, more comprehensive analysis from comparative perspectives reveals that the positive economic return of education is higher for natives (compared with migrants), for ethnic migrants from developed regions of origin (compared with those from less developed regions of origin) and for non-Muslims (compared with Muslims). The article provides two plausible explanations for these patterns. The first refers to the lack of recognition of overseas qualifications and to the devaluation of foreign education that particularly applies to ethnic migrants from less developed regions. The second relates to disadvantage through structural discrimination against migrants, particularly when their cultural and religious identity, such as Islamic names and dress codes, are distinctively displayed. In sum, this analysis presents further research-based evidence to go beyond the human capital theory in order to explain more appropriately the economic return of women's education in the context of religion and migration from a demographic perspective.

Socio-economic determinants of child mortality in Pakistan and the moderating role of household’s wealth index

Background Child mortality is an important social indicator that describes the health conditions of a country as well as determines the country’s overall socio-economic development. The Government of Pakistan has been struggling to reduce child mortality (67.2 per thousand live births in 2019). Pakistan could not achieve the target set for Millennium Development Goals to reduce child mortality and still working to meet the target set by the Sustainable Development Goals. This study has investigated the socio-economic determinants of child mortality in Pakistan by using household-level data. Socio-economic characteristics related to women (mothers) and households have been considered as possible determinants of child mortality. The moderating role of a household’s wealth index on the association between woman’s education and child mortality has also been investigated. Methods The comprehensive dataset of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 2017–18 has been used to explore the determinants of child mortality by using multivariable logistic regression. The interaction term of women’s education and household wealth index has been used to investigate the moderating role of the household’s wealth index. Results The results indicate that the likelihood of child mortality decreases with an increase in women’s education, their empowerment, their husband’s education, the wealth status of their households, access to clean drinking water, access to toilet facilities, and exposure to mass media. Whereas, an increase in unmet need for family planning increases the likelihood of child mortality. The study also identified the moderating role of a household’s wealth index on the association between woman’s education and child mortality. Conclusions Household wealth status moderates the association between women’s education and child mortality. The absolute slope of the curve showing the association of women’s education and child mortality is higher (more negative) for richer households than poorer households. It implies that a household’s wealth status strengthens the relationship between women’s education and child mortality. With the increase in the household’s wealth status, the effect of a mother’s education on child mortality becomes more pronounced.

Education for Women and Girls in Iraq

Women in Iraq are still acquiring equality and equity in various aspects of their personal and professional lives. Hence, it is essential to identify factors that influence their education, emphasizing equity as it fulfills lives with strength, success, and prosperity. This chapter presents key challenges that impede a prosperous educational climate that is fair among genders. The chapter presents cultural, economic, social barriers, and pushbacks against women's education in Iraq, the overall impact of education decline, among other factors that reduce equity for women. The author then presents various solutions and recommendations based on an analytical evaluation to achieve education access, equality, and equity for Iraqi women. The chapter calls to develop effective policies and programs that target the identified cultural, societal, and infrastructure obstacles to help improve women's education in Iraq and assure equality and equity.

The Feminism in the Eye of Jane Austen

In this paper the author first makes an analysis of the feminism hinted in Jane Austen, she implicitly expresses her discontentment of a popular view of her day—women were born less talented than men and women were less rational than men. As is known, nearly every literary works has its own social or political background. Pride and Prejudice is no exception. So the writing about feminism in this novel, namely the status of women, legalities of marriage, women’s education, moral standard upon sex as well as Jane Austen’s own life experience. It was thought that Austen was a romance writer who taught virtue in her prose.

Coda

This concluding chapter reverses the perspective of the preceding chapters and explores travel writings of Meiji Japanese women who sailed to Victorian Britain. It focuses on the writings of three Japanese women—namely, Tsuda Umeko, Yasui Tetsu, and Yosano Akiko—with diverse backgrounds and purposes. It picks up testimonies of travelling women in Meiji Japan who encountered British people and culture and unveils cross-racial female intimacy and burgeoning transnational feminist alliance on the issues of women’s education and civil rights. It documents their connections with Victorian female educationists such as Dorothea Beale and Elizabeth Phillips Hughes and discovers a long-forgotten link between Isabella Bird and Meiji women’s education.

Revolutionary Christian Attitudes toward Women and Family in Late Qing and Republican-Era China

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Chinese Christian familial ideals were traditional and revolutionary at the same time. They were traditional in wanting to preserve some role for parents in forming the marriages of their children and in seeing wives as primarily responsible for the care of children. But Christians were revolutionary in encouraging women to develop their personalities and work outside the home. They advocated women’s education and associated education with women’s empowerment and independence. Christians taught that marriage should be based on love and that daughters were just as important as sons, even if they chose to be single. Singleness, spouse self-selection, prioritizing the husband-wife relationship over the parent-child relationship, and pursuing a companionate model of marriage were all ways that Christians helped revolutionize familial ideals in China.

Digital Dose of Didactics: Reinforcing Patriarchy through Moral Stories on YouTube

Should girls get a formal education? Should women earn? And who should handle the money they earn, if at all? Can a woman’s personality be tied to learning and earning? These questions may be easily overlooked in the 21st century, when women have forayed into almost all possible careers. However, these and more questions related to women’s education, employment and empowerment find clear answers in the so-called moral stories in Hindi and other Indian languages, one finds on YouTube these days. The paper analyzes a selection of such stories centered on women and argues how these ‘moral stories’ ultimately emerge as schemes to keep the patriarchal structure alive by creating an easily accessible digital repository, and end up patronizing women in the pretext of empowering them. The paper focuses particularly on the idea of ‘moral’ these stories contain and argues that the moral messages they convey are actually detrimental to the empowerment of women as their deep structures work to cement the foundations of patriarchy.