The Effect of Socio-Economic & Demographic Determinants on Children's Solid Food-Intake in India: A Study Based on NFHS-4

As nutrition is very critical and its access helps in the improvement of health and creates overall development, it is very vital for the children at their initial stages. In these period of rapid growth, India is still witnessing a huge discrimination regarding the children's solid food intake.<div>This paper seeks to find out the extent of these supplemental food inequality among children aged 6 to 59 months of age using the National Family Health Survey, round 4 data.</div><div>The results are very much evident to show the inequality among female children, along with discontinued breastfeeding. </div>

The Effect of Socio-Economic & Demographic Determinants on Children's Solid Food-Intake in India: A Study Based on NFHS-4

As nutrition is very critical and its access helps in the improvement of health and creates overall development, it is very vital for the children at their initial stages. In these period of rapid growth, India is still witnessing a huge discrimination regarding the children's solid food intake.<div>This paper seeks to find out the extent of these supplemental food inequality among children aged 6 to 59 months of age using the National Family Health Survey, round 4 data.</div><div>The results are very much evident to show the inequality among female children, along with discontinued breastfeeding. </div>

Contribution of economic and nutritional context to overweight/obesity dynamics in Indian women from 1998 to 2016: a multilevel analysis of national survey data

BackgroundOverweight/obesity increased dramatically among Indian women since 2000. We evaluated the independent contributions of economic and nutrition context to the changing distribution of overweight/obesity among women from 1998 to 2016 across India.MethodsIndividual-level data from 473 912 ever married Indian women aged 18–49 in the National Family Health Surveys (1998–1999, 2005–2006, 2015–2016) were merged with year-matched state-level economic and nutrition context indicators. Cross-classified generalised linear mixed models were estimated to quantify associations of contextual characteristics with overweight/obesity (body mass index ≥25 kg/m2) across survey rounds.ResultsBetween 1998 and 2016, age-standardised prevalence of overweight/obesity increased from 13.9% to 27.5% nationally at an annual growth rate of 0.8%. After accounting for a woman’s age, parity and social class, the adjusted OR (aOR) for overweight/obesity was 2.02 times higher for every unit of state log per capita gross domestic product (GDP) (95% credible interval (CrI) 2.00 to 2.03). Yet, the association of state GDP with overweight/obesity generally decreased over survey round. Women in states with higher per capita daily oil (aOR 1.02 per gram; 95% CrI 1.01 to 1.03) and sugar (aOR 1.05 per gram; 95% CrI 1.04 to 1.05) consumption were more likely to be overweight/obese, while women in states with higher cereal consumption were less likely to be overweight/obese (aOR 0.93 per 10 gram; 95% CrI 0.93 to 0.93).ConclusionsIndicators of state economic development and nutrition transition were independently associated with a woman’s likelihood of being overweight/obese. The impact of state wealth waned over survey round, suggesting that risks for overweight/obesity may be increasingly shaped by individual factors as economic development expands in India.

The Gender Life Satisfaction/Depression Paradox

According to the gender life satisfaction/depression paradox women are significantly more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction than men after controlling for all relevant socio-demographic factors, but also significantly more likely to declare they are depressed. We find that the paradox holds in the cross-country sample of the European Social Survey and is stable across age, education, self-assessed health, macroregion and survey round splits. We find support for the affect intensity rationale showing that women are relatively more affected in their satisfaction about life by the good or bad events or achievements occurring during their existence and less resilient (less likely to revert to their standard levels of happiness after a shock). We as well discuss biological, genetic, cultural, personality rationales advocated in the literature that can explain our findings.

Early Statehood and Support for Autocratic Rule in Africa

Recent work highlights the importance of pre-modern political practices for explaining persistent institutional features, including representative democracy. Typically, this argument is institutional in nature—pre-industrial practices are hypothesized to either bolster or retard the transmission of democratic institutions. This article proposes a separate channel through which legacies of early statehood continue to impact the prospects of democratic governance. Using survey data from Africa, we document a positive relationship between early statehood development and support for autocratic rule among ordinary Africans. This finding is robust to a wide range of pre- and post-treatment covariates, country and survey round fixed effects, as well as an instrumental-variable design. The identified relationship is particularly prominent in respondents from precolonially centralized ethnic groups in former British colonies, suggesting the importance of locally surviving traditional institutions for propagation of norms that owe their origins to precolonial autocratic socialization.

Assessing Water Security in Central Asia through a Delphi Approach

&lt;p&gt;Water security in Central Asia (CA) plays a vital role because of transboundary river systems and interconnected infrastructure assets. Each CA country has differently contextualized the water security notion to serve national priorities and needs. Various scholars have studied and interpreted the concept of water security in CA through economic, environmental, social, and technical perspectives. Yet however, there is very little information on the perceptions of policymakers and water professionals that are directly engaged with the water policy discourse in the CA region.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In this regard, we attempted to identify policy makers and water professionals' views on water management and security aspects in CA. &amp;#160;A Delphi method was introduced through a two-round survey to decision-makers and water professionals to assess the rate of agreement on different water security dimensions that have been identified through a thorough literature review.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Namely, the dimensions associated with urban &amp; household facilities, economic activities, environmental aspects and natural hazards were assessed, whereas different attributes related to each dimension were also considered. The first survey round explored the rate of agreement in the following six different sections: the proposed water security dimensions (1) and attributes (2) in CA; historical trends and dynamics of each dimension (3) and the implications on a policy level (4); the national priorities for each country (5); and the effectiveness of mechanisms dealing with regional water security issues (6). &amp;#160;The second round synopsized the initial findings by exploring whether a higher agreement rate was attained in each of the sections mentioned above.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;#160;Clustering analysis was applied to better identify the agreement rate and assess decision-makers and water professionals' behavioral patterns within the two-survey rounds.&amp;#160; A number of clustering techniques were tested out. Methods such as K-Medoids, Spectral, Hierarchical, and Agglomerative clustering, as well as the Affinity Propagation, were applied. Hyperparameters were chosen based on the observations of how well the clusters are formed, i.e., how similar the responses are within the cluster and how much they differ from other clusters. The clustering was applied to the whole range of responses, as well as separately on different sections of the surveys. &amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The findings indicate that the clustering of all six parts did not clearly define separation and distinctive agreement rates in the first survey round. However, when the clustering was performed within specific sections, e.g., the national priorities in each country, behavioral patterns were revealed among respondents. The clustering trends among sections became more apparent in the second survey round. &amp;#160;Our preliminary findings indicate that a set of socio-demographic and professional-related features of the participants are aligned with the patterns of the clustering outcomes on water security priorities in CA. The study findings could identify the major challenges that policymakers and water professionals face being mutually addressed by improving water security dialogue in the CA region.&lt;/p&gt;

Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic for Software Development in Nordic Companies – Agility Helps to Respond

In 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic affected almost every company in some way also in the Nordic countries. Depending on the different industry sectors of the companies, the impacts have varied from minor risks to severe disruptions but also even booming businesses. In all, agility and resilience have been required to continue and even to survive. In 2018, we started conducting large-scale agile surveys in Finland and Sweden. For the 2020 survey round, we included questions about the current pandemic situation impacts and how agility has helped to respond. The respondents represented software professionals from different industries, not limited to information and communication technology (ICT) companies. The results indicate that although the perceived impacts have mostly been negative (53%), it is not all so. One-third (33%) reported positive impacts such as increased business and better well-being. The majority (55%) of the responses indicated that agility has helped to respond to the pandemic situation. Remarkably, 59% reported that their companies have improved agility during the past year. Improved agility appears to be positively related to the ability to respond to the pandemic. We did not discover significant differences between the Finnish and Swedish respondent cohorts.