Association of Household Food Insecurity with Nutritional Status and Mental Health of Pregnant Women in Rural Bangladesh

Food insecurity may affect women’s health; however, pertinent research is scant among pregnant women. This study investigated the association of household food insecurity (HFI) with the nutritional status and mental health of 672 early-gestation (5–16 weeks) pregnant women with a singleton fetus, who participated in the screening activity of a community-based trial (NCT04868669) in Matlab, Bangladesh. Height (cm), weight (kg), body mass index (kg/m2), mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) (cm), depression, anxiety, and stress were the outcomes studied. HFI was assessed using the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale. Women’s depression, anxiety, and stress were assessed using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21. Propensity score matching based weighted multivariable linear and logistic regression were used to evaluate the independent association of HFI with the outcomes. In adjusted models, pregnant women from food-insecure households in rural Matlab were on average 2.0 cm shorter (β = −2.0, 95% CI: −3.3, −0.7), 2.0 kg lighter (β = −2.0, 95% CI: −3.4, −0.7), and had 0.6 cm lower MUAC (β = −0.6, 95% CI: −1.1, −0.1) than their food-secure counterparts. HFI was associated with higher odds of depression (OR = 3.3, 95% CI: 1.8, 5.9), anxiety (OR = 6.1, 95% CI: 3.7, 10.0), and stress (OR = 4.8, 95% CI: 1.6, 14.2) among the women. Public health measures should focus on ensuring proper nutrition during the critical growth periods of life, pregnancy, and external environmental shocks, to mitigate the adverse effects of HFI on women’s health.

Productive Capacities, Economic Growth and Economic Growth Volatility in Developing Countries: Does Structural Economic Vulnerability Matter?

Recent years’ global shocks (e.g., the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic) and environmental shocks — such as natural disasters — have heightened the vulnerability of developing countries to future shocks, and can compromise their development prospects. International institutions and researchers have advocated that the strengthening of productive capacities in these countries would help enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable development. This paper has examined the effect of productive capacities on economic growth and economic growth volatility in developing countries, in particular when they face a high level of structural economic vulnerability. The analysis covers 117 developing countries over the period of 2000–2018. It shows that productive capacities not only promote economic growth, but also reduce economic growth volatility. On the other hand, structural economic vulnerability reduces economic growth (in particular when it exceeds a certain level), and induces greater volatility of economic growth. Interestingly, productive capacities promote economic growth and reduce economic growth volatility in countries that face a high degree of structural economic vulnerability. These findings support the recommendation by international institutions and researchers that if they were to enhance the resilience of their economies to shocks, and promote sustainable economic growth, developing countries (in particular the poorest ones) should strengthen their productive capacities.

Road Weather Monitoring System Shows High Cost-Effectiveness in Mitigating Malfunction Losses

Understanding the environmental impacts of road networks and the success of policy initiatives is crucial to a country’s socioeconomic development. In this study, we propose a comprehensive approach to quantitatively assessing whether a given response is effective in mitigating the impacts of environmental shocks on roads. Our approach includes factor analysis, direct and indirect loss quantification, and cost-benefit analysis. Using nationwide data on road malfunctions and weather service performance in China, we found that the macro-level indirect economic losses from road malfunctions were more than the direct losses in multiples ranging from 11 to 21, and that information provided by the weather service could reduce losses, with benefits exceeding costs by a ratio of 51. The results of our study provide a quantitative tool as well as evidence of the effectiveness of sustainability investment, which should provide guidance for future disaster mitigation, infrastructure system resilience, and sustainability-building policy-making.

Does Slack Buffer? Market Performance after Environmental Shock

Slack is a resource held by a firm but exceeds its needs. It is crucial for a firm to raise more attention on slack when facing environmental shocks, which are one of the causes of unsustainability. Based on agency theory and behavioral theory, this paper analyzes the buffer effect of slack on market performance under different periods and degrees of environmental shocks. Taking two major earthquakes that occurred in China as the natural experimental background and the listed firms in hit areas as the sample, we find that environmental shock is exposed to acts as a positive contingency for the impact of unabsorbed slack on market performance, and as a negative contingency for absorbed slack’s effect. The severity of environmental shock promotes the unabsorbed slack to act as a buffer in the immediate post-shock period and absorbed slack in the during-shock period. These findings contribute to answering the question of how to configure slack to protect firms and even achieve sustainable development when facing environmental shock.

International Cooperation and Natural Disasters: Evidence from Trade Agreements

Environmental shocks in the form of natural disasters are well known for their impact on domestic economies. Less known, however, is their impact on the global economy. The scant existing literature suggests that macro-economic impacts manifest in observed empirical decreases in international trade. The literature, however, does not examine whether the impact of natural disasters on trade varies for trading partners with differing levels of market integration. This paper examines if preferential liberalization serves to protect or buffer against the negative economic consequences of natural disasters. I show that deep preferential liberalization can not only protect countries against the negative macro-economic impact of natural disasters but can actually allow countries to increase exports during natural disaster events that otherwise induce trade decline. These findings suggest that by allowing countries to expand the quantity and the range of exports, preferential trade agreements lead to enhanced resilience against exogenous shocks.

Gendered Dimensions of Unpaid Activities: An Empirical Insight into Rural Bangladesh Households

Women in Bangladesh are generally perceived as caregivers, often confined within the households to perform various activities, whereas men are perceived as the providers. These complex gendered roles intersect with multiple factors such as household structure, marital status, religion, cultural beliefs, economic shocks, and livelihood opportunities. This study used the feminist political ecology framework to contextualize and analyze time allocated toward unpaid works, culturally accepted as female/gendered activities, and the nuanced power dynamics between men and women within the rural households of Bangladesh. We used the household survey data collected from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey of 2015 to create a multiple linear regression model that helps understand the impacts of economic, cultural, and environmental shocks on the total time allocated toward unpaid activities by women within the household. Results suggest women who experienced climate-change shocks such as crop losses due to disasters and non-climatic shocks such as dowry tend to allocate more time toward unpaid tasks. In contrast, women who own their businesses tend to give less time toward unpaid tasks. This study provides guidelines for necessary gender-sensitive national policies to address the United Nation’s goal of gender equity and sustainable development.