Women Caregivers Under the Spanish Autonomy and Dependence System: A New Social Underclass?

Long-term care in Spain has traditionally been provided by women as consequence of a family welfare system based historically on familism and sexual division of labour. The Autonomy and Dependence Law, passed in 2006, involved the regulation by the State of informal care. However, the economic crisis is maintaining and stressing gender differences in relation to care since a new profile of women is being built: poor caregivers, as a specific group responsible for the provision of care, becoming an ‘internal market’ linked to the application of the so called Dependence Law. This study presents an analysis of key secondary sources from the System of Autonomy and Attention to Dependency, the Unemployment System and the most relevant indicators of poverty and social exclusion. In addition, an ad hoc survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted. 55.2% of caregivers are poor women, inactive or unemployed and use the cash-for-care as basic income.

Fishing in Salty Waters: Poverty, Occupational Saline Exposure, and Women’s Health in the Indian Sundarban

Collecting wild tiger prawn seedlings, also known as prawn post-larvae (PL), from rivers and creeks is an important occupation for more than 100,000 poor women in India’s Sundarban estuarine delta. Prawn PL collecting requires many hours of immersion in saline river water. This paper uses a large household survey to explore the determinants of poor women’s engagement in this occupation and the health impacts. The results reveal high significance for two variables: (i) the opportunity wage, proxied by years of education and (ii) child-care demands, proxied by the household child-dependency ratio. Together, these variables are sufficient to distinguish between women who have no engagement with prawn PL collecting and those with many years of engagement. The probability of self-reported health problems is also significantly higher for women with more saline exposure from prawn PL collecting and whose drinking water is from tube wells with higher salinity.

Impact of Microcredit on Women Empowerment: A Case Study in the Context of Chattogram District, Bangladesh

The microcredit sector in Bangladesh has flourished over the past few years by providing financial services to poor women who were previously unreachable, and it has been successful in meeting their fundamental needs, empowering them. This paper is an attempt to find out the role of microcredit on the empowerment of women borrowers in the context of some regions of the Chattogram district. These three Upazillas were surveyed cross-sectionally. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data during face-to-face interviews with 50 microcredit women borrowers and 50 non-borrowers from two major microcredit providers in Bangladesh. Participants were randomly selected. Data were summarized in tabular form. As a result of the chi-square test and ANOVA, significant results were observed. The paper analyzes the role of microcredit in women's empowerment from three perspectives: psychological, social, and economic. As a result of the study, BRAC and ASA microcredit have a significant role in reducing the vulnerability of poor women in the study region by generating income, improving the living standards of borrowers, and enabling these women to become more empowered by: (a) psychological empowerment by acquiring decision-making power in household activities, (b) economic empowerment by making a contribution to living standard & control over assets, (c) social empowerment by getting freedom of voice and mobility.

Formulation of Empowering Poor Women with Pro-Poor Capacity Improvement Model

There are several reasons that lead to the importance of implementing a gender-oriented poverty alleviation program, one of which is that it can stimulate the emergence of empowerment. So the purpose of this research is to formulate the empowerment of poor women with the Pro-poor Capacity Improvement model in an effort to alleviate poverty in rural areas. The formulation of the model is based on the analysis of potentials, barriers, opportunities, threats, and policies in empowering poor women. Research in Gadingkulon Village, Dau District, Malang Regency was carried out through questionnaires, in-depth interviews, observations, Focus Group Discussions (FGD), and literature studies. The first stage uses quantitative analysis to present the frequency table, and the second stage uses qualitative analysis in gender analysis by Sara Longwee. This research resulted in a model for empowering poor women, which was designed in the Pro-poor Capacity Improvement ((PCIM) model which consisted of several components in the model in order to improve family welfare. These components consisted of the results of an analysis of potential, opportunities, obstacles, intervention in entrepreneurship, and welfare.The formulation of empowerment of poor women in Gadingkulon Village can be implemented in poverty alleviation efforts.

Inclusion of venture capital to improve the welfare of female headed households in South Jakarta

This community service activity is focused on helping women from poor families to be able to revitalize their businesses affected by the Covid-19. Poverty in women's groups, especially female headed household has become one of the top global agenda. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted that these groups becoming poorer, not least in Jakarta, Indonesia. Therefore, this community service is focused on efforts to uplifting their economy by providing capital to set up small business. Youth Participatory Action Research (Y-PAR) is used as the community service approach, collaboration of lecturers and students. This service activity has been able to encourage poor women who previously lost their income, managed to regain their economic resources and create new businesses to improve the welfare of their families.

Childbirth in South Asia

This book illustrates the continuing challenges as well as the new paradoxes linked to childbirth in South Asia. It brings together anthropologists and sociologists working in different contexts (at the hospital, within the community) and in a variety of settings (rural, urban) in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. While women in Western countries have pressed for more home deliveries, and for the mitigation of some of the effects of the male appropriation and over-medicalized experience of motherhood, most developing countries are promoting institutionalized deliveries and stigmatizing poor women who deliver at home. In addition, new information technologies are being pressed into service; for example, to identify high-risk mothers and to offer them advice through social media. Such an evolution is particularly salient in South Asia where childbirth has long been an issue, not only for the colonial government, which sometimes used women’s poor health to justify imperialist interests, but also for independent successor states, who have implemented decisive schemes within the last decade, after being long accused of neglecting women’s healthcare. Despite the increased attention being paid to maternal and child health, and the steady rise in institutional deliveries in South Asia, progress on reducing maternal and infant mortality has been slow and halting, with significant disparities across regions and social groups. Far from withering away, traditional birth attendants have seen a resurgence, in part due to the demeaning conditions offered to poor, low-caste, rural women in formal health settings. With this backdrop, the authors explore the ethical and social implications of the changes being introduced in the technologies and social arrangements of childbirth in South Asia.

Women of Color’s Reproductive Perils Reproduced

Last year, women detained at a Georgia ICE detention center accused a doctor of conducting various hysterectomies that were unwanted or without consent. These allegations echo past sterilization abuses on women of color and challenge us to recall some historical accounts of women's sterilization in Black and Brown communities in America, including eugenics programs targeting poor women of color. When particularly examining the women's reproductive health in the carceral system, there are direct conflicts between providing proper healthcare and human rights protections and the economic interests of privately operated detention centers. This essay reviews these concerns and recommends changes from government and carceral facilities.

The Implication of REDD+ in Community Forestry (CF) Governance and Local Livelihood: A Case from Nepal

Nepal's decentralized forest governance has now included a new actor, i.e. REDD+ which is a mechanism based on market for mitigation of climate change through conservation of forest. This paper aims to shed lights on the REDD+ effect on community forestry governance, and local livelihood. For this various published articles and reports were reviewed and analyzed. Organizations like ICIMOD, FECOFUN and ANSAB are leading a pilot project in community forestry on measurement of carbon and equalizing benefit. The major objective of the REDD+ program is to reduce forest carbon emissions by providing financial incentives for developing countries. The impacts of the implication of the REDD+ is more questionable preceding its 10th anniversary. Special income generating activities and awareness programs have been implemented by the REDD+ pilot project targeting the poor, women, disadvantaged groups and indigenous people. While some study findings show the REDD+ gave priority to the carbon outcome rather than community forestry's forest management objective which threatens the objective of meeting the local needs of people. Analysis also showed that REDD+ policies have been developed and interventions are made in a way local people’s participation and representation of their voices is limited which may weaken and reverse the trend of forest decentralization. The involvement of the new actors in forest politics can be seen as a proof of positive impact of implementation of REDD+.