15336 results in Economic development and growth
The Making of an International Investment Facilitation Framework
- Legal, Political and Economics Perspectives
- Edited by Axel Berger, Manjiao Chi
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- 30 November 2024
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This book comprehensively investigates the rationale and effects of the first multilateral agreement on investment facilitation for development, including the interests of key WTO members. It adopts a multidisciplinary, transregional and data-driven approach to explore the political, economic and legal aspects pertaining to the most recent WTO agreement. The book highlights how this agreement broadens the scope of the WTO to the contentious area of foreign investment and adopts the innovative facilitation approach. The book presents cutting-edge research on the (non-)adoption of investment facilitation worldwide, the economic impact of the agreement, its legal implications and the political economy explaining why the investment facilitation for development agreement came about. The book brings together leading experts from various disciplines and practices and aims at inspiring more substantive research in this new field of international economic rule-making. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Regulating and Managing Banks in India
- An Economic Perspective
- Volume 1
- Amaresh Samantaraya
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Europe's Auto Industry
- Global Production Networks and Spatial Change
- Petr Pavlínek
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Drawing on the analytical approaches of global production networks, global value chains, and spatial divisions of labor, this book investigates the changing automotive industry in Europe. Petr Pavlínek is a leading scholar of the automotive industry and here he focuses on its restructuring and geographic reorganization since the early 1990s to analyze the driving forces and regional development effects of these changes. Pavlínek explains the spatial profit-seeking strategies of large automotive firms and their role in the restructuring and increasing internationalization of Europe's automotive industry through foreign direct investment. He also considers how rapid growth in eastern Europe has affected western Europe, evaluates the relative position of countries in the European automotive industry, and examines the transition to the production of electric vehicles in eastern Europe. Europe's Auto Industry features original data along with concepts and methods that may be applied in economic geography, economics, industrial sociology and development studies.
Agricultural Science as International Development
- Historical Perspectives on the CGIAR Era
- Edited by Helen Anne Curry, Timothy W. Lorek
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- 31 August 2024
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For more than fifty years, international aid for agricultural research has been shaped by an unusual partnership: an ad-hoc consortium of national governments, foreign aid agencies, philanthropies, United Nations agencies, and international financial institutions, known as CGIAR. Formed in 1971 following the initial celebration of the so-called Green Revolution, CGIAR was tasked with extending that apparent transformation in production to new countries and crops. In this volume, leading historians and sociologists explore the influence of CGIAR and its affiliated international research centres. Traversing five continents and five decades of scientific research, agricultural aid, and political transformation, it examines whether and how science-led development has changed the practices of farmers, researchers, and policymakers. Although its language, funding mechanisms, and decision-making have changed over time, CGIAR and its network of research centres remain powerful in shaping international development and global agriculture. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Figures
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2 - Demographic Dividend in India
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Summary
Introduction
The demographic dividend has been the subject matter of immense interest across countries, among both scholars and policymakers in recent decades. It is also known as the demographic window of opportunities, implying that considerable opportunities exist for nations due to the favourable changes in the age structure brought about by fertility decline. The demographic dividend is the result of an increase in the share of the working-age population and a decline in the combined share of the old- and young-age dependant population. The swelling of the working-age population may cause a rise in the supply of labour force in the market, a decline in the child population may cause a shift in demand for household resources from investment in children to greater capital investment, and fertility decline may allow a rise in female workforce participation (Bloom et al., 2009).
The debate on the change in the population structure and economic growth has been a well-researched and discussed issue that was initiated by Thomas Robert Malthus. Later, Coale and Hoover (1958), in a seminal work, estimated the economic benefits of fertility decline, taking India also as an example. Similarly, Kuznets (1967) found that a population increase negatively affects the economic development of a country. On the contrary, Kelley (1988) observed that there is no universal association between population increase and growth in per capita income and savings rates. On the other hand, Lutz et al. (2019), using the panel data of 165 countries, documented that the human capital as measured by educational attainment causes a change in the age structure and economic development. Despite these mixed findings on the relationship between population and development, a large number of studies established that the change in the age structure itself has inevitable economic benefits (Lee and Mason, 2006; Bloom et al., 2010; James, 2008; Joe, Kumar, and Rajpal, 2018; Mason, Lee, and Lee, 2010).
Even while the demographic dividend potential is well recognized in India, there are many pessimistic views expressed on the ability of the country to take advantage of demographic changes due to several institutional constraints. The primary argument against expecting a substantial demographic dividend in India rests on the poor skill levels in the country and the lack of job opportunities. Of these, the lack of significant increase in female labour-force participation has attracted wide attention in recent times (Desai, 2010; Klasen and Pieters, 2012).
Preface and Acknowledgements
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Summary
There is an increasing attention on India's population and its changing age structure in recent times with its long-term implications for every facets of life. Considering the sheer volume of the country's population size, the demographic changes in India will have a unique role in altering the global population scenarios. With the global community and national governments being deeply committed and enthusiastically engaged in the achievement of Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs), India's demographic and health changes become critically significant.
Undoubtedly, the major demographic processes in India are experiencing extraordinary changes: fertility reaching at replacement level, life expectancy climbing up significantly, rapid changes in the health and epidemiological transitions, and a faster urbanization with new flows of migration. Along with structural changes, India is also witnessing a dramatic rise in its middle class and its fast-changing aspirations. All these ongoing transitions have considerable socio-economic and political repercussions. In this context, India Population Report would be an important resource for researchers and policymakers to understand (a) the contemporary scenarios of the Indian population, (b) the different challenges posed by geographically and socio-economically heterogeneous fertility, mortality, and health transitions, and migration flows, and (c) the opportunities from the point of view of the well-being of all.
The International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, is the leading training and research institution for Demography and Population Studies in Asia. Over the years, IIPS has undertaken landmark surveys and significant research on population, health, fertility, mortality, nutrition, ageing, and migration, and on women and children. Given this background, it was felt that IIPS should bring out a population report on India at regular intervals, deliberating current scenarios and future implications. This volume is the first attempt in that series of publications contemplated.
The volume is an outcome of the recent studies undertaken by a large number of scholars with deep understanding of India's demographic and health sectors. By making use of the latest available scientific evidences, the chapters in the volume illustrate the implications ahead for India in meeting the inevitable population and health challenges in the coming decades.
We are grateful to all the authors for their interest and contributions. We also acknowledge the meticulous efforts of Cambridge University Press, particularly Anwesha Rana and Priyanka Das, for their help in bringing out this volume.
Frontmatter
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Tables
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Maps
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11 - Localizing the Sustainable Development Goals
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Summary
Introduction
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), comprising of 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 indicators adopted by 193 nations in September 2015, provide a global framework for measuring developmental progress globally and nationally (United Nations, 2015). The SDGs are broad, comprehensive, complex, and time-bound goals (2016–30). Realizing the SDGs is a reflection of the global commitment to achieve improvement in the key areas of human and sustainable development, such as eradication of poverty and inequality and access to nutritious food, affordable healthcare, and clean energy through mutual collaboration and support (Menne et al., 2020; Sachs et al., 2016; Buse and Hawkes, 2015; Sachs, 2012; Singh, 2016). The progress on the SDGs is largely uneven and masks large variation across countries, within countries, across goals, and by socio-demographic characteristics (Lozano et al., 2018; Sachs et al., 2020).
In low- and middle-income countries, the national progress on the SDGs conceals large disparities at the sub-national level and among socio-economic groups (Dandona et al., 2017; Newton et al., 2015; Nomura et al., 2017; Panda and Mohanty, 2019). Thus, global and national efforts for localizing the SDGs have been recommended for efficient resource allocation and service delivery (Oosterhof, 2018; Patole, 2018; Xu et al., 2020). Many national and local governments have now been integrating the SDGs into their planning processes and using the SDGs as a management tool for policy (Avtar et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2019; Sachs, 2012). One of the key challenges in documenting such disparity is the unavailability of reliable data at the sub-national level. As the SDGs demand disaggregated information by geographies, getting reliable information is becoming more difficult (Dandona, Pandey, and Dandona, 2016; Oosterhof, 2018; Patole, 2018; Saikia and Kularni, 2017). Though these goals are ambitious in some aspects, monitoring the SDGs at the local level is also necessary.
The first systematic attempt to quantify the SDGs was made by the Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN) (Sachs et al., 2016). The 2016 edition of the SDG Index and Dashboards report was prepared for 149 countries using a set of 77 indicators (Sachs et al., 2017). Each country was ranked on an initial level using benchmark data of 2015 or period closure to 2015. Each of the indicators was standardized on a 0 to 1 scale, and the countries were ranked based on the SDG index.
5 - Gender Roles and Help-Seeking among Women Experiencing Marital Violence in India
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Summary
Introduction
The policy discourse relating to domestic violence in India was vastly strengthened by the enactment of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005), which not only provided an inclusive definition of domestic violence but also outlined the many care-seeking options it affords (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2005). Notably, domestic violence is defined to include perpetration or threatened perpetration of physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, and economic violence. The Act also appoints protection officers and calls for the establishment of crisis facilities to support those who experience violence. India is, moreover, a signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), calling for the elimination ‘of all forms of violence against all women and girls in public and private spheres’ (SDG target 5.2) (United Nations, 2015). Despite these commitments, spousal violence against women and girls remains widespread, with 26 per cent of women aged 15–49 years experiencing physical, sexual, and/or emotional violence, and 24 per cent of women reporting the experience of physical and/or sexual violence perpetrated by their spouse in 2015–16. A reflection of women's powerlessness in marital relationships is the persistence of attitudes justifying the acceptability of marital violence, with as many as half of all women (51 per cent) and husbands (50 per cent) espousing that a husband is justified in beating his wife for at least one reason (International Institute for Population Sciences [IIPS] and ICF International, 2017).
The adverse effects of marital violence on the health and well-being of women and their children are well recognized. Injuries are, of course, the most direct effect and range from cuts, bruises, and aches to deep wounds, broken bones, sprains, dislocations, and even burns (see, for example, IIPS and ICF International, 2017). Adverse longer-term consequences have also been observed and persist even after a host of socio-demographic factors are controlled. As documented in a global review, consequences include low-birth-weight infants, induced abortions, sexually transmitted infections, and depression (World Health Organization [WHO], 2013).
12 - Urbanization and Housing Infrastructure in Urban India
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Summary
Introduction
Cities are considered the growth engines for an economy (Chen and Partridge, 2013). They cover a very small part of the land but account for a major share of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). In India, the urban share of the GDP was 62–63 per cent in 2009–10, which is expected to increase to 70–75 per cent by 2030 (Housing and Urban Development Corporation [HUDCO] and National Institute of Urban Affairs [NIUA], 2017). As per The Economic Survey 2016–17, about 90 per cent of tax revenues are generated by just one-third of the country's population, which reside in urban areas (Ministry of Finance, 2017). However, the rapidly growing cities in developing countries are struggling to provide the adequate infrastructure, services, and governance systems needed by the increasing populations (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2016). Urban infrastructure is the underlying structural support and needs of a city. It is defined as the ‘sinews’ of the city, which include its roads, bridges, water and sewer lines, waste disposal facilities, power systems, public buildings, parks, and recreation areas (National Research Council, 1984). The basic infrastructure and services such as availability of electricity, improved source of drinking water, improved sanitation, and clean fuel are the most critical aspects for the better quality of life of the urban population (Bhagat, 2011). No doubt, cities play a vital role in the national economy, but on the contrary, they also face increased strain on existing inadequate infrastructure such as transport, housing, water, sanitation, and electricity. According to the 2011 census, in India about 93 per cent of the households have electricity as the main source of lighting, 81 per cent have latrine facilities within the premises, 71 per cent have access to tap-water facility, and only 68 per cent in urban areas have housing that may be deemed to be in good condition.
Since independence, India's total population has increased two-and-a-half times, while at the same time the urban population has grown by more than sixfold. As per the 2011 census, 377 million Indians (31 per cent) lived in nearly 7,933 towns and cities of the country, which was only 62 million (17 per cent) in 1951. India accounts for about 11 per cent of the global urban population.
9 - Malnutrition Status of Women, Children, and Adolescents in India and its Relation with Educational Attainment
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Summary
Introduction
India is going through a rapid socio-economic transition resulting in considerable changes in dietary patterns and nutrition levels among different sections of the population. Despite several policy initiatives to combat malnutrition (Ministry of Women and Child Development, n.d.) over the past more than four decades, the level of malnutrition in India remains abysmally high. Malnutrition was the top cause of death and disability in India in 2017, followed by dietary risks, including poor diet choices, according to the 2017 Global Burden of Disease study (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation [IHME], 2018). The groups at the greatest risk of malnutrition are children, adolescents, and women. According to the 2020 Global Nutrition Report, every second child under five years of age in India is malnourished in some form or the other, with a prevalence of wasting being 21 per cent and stunting being 38 per cent – both figures notably greater than the than the average for Asia, where the wasting level is over 9 per cent and stunting level 23 per cent (Development Initiatives, 2020). Additionally, 36 per cent of children under five years of age are underweight, while 2 per cent are overweight (International Institute for Population Sciences [IIPS] and ICF International, 2017). A poor nutritional status, particularly in early life, can have lifelong consequences on physical and psychological well-being and can also impair long-term employment opportunities (Black et al., 2013).
The proportion of under-nutrition among women of reproductive ages declined from 36 per cent in 2005–06 to 23 per cent in 2015–16; at the same time, the proportion of over-nourished (overweight or obese) women increased from 13 per cent to 21 per cent. Maternal under-nutrition contributes to foetal growth restriction, which increases the risk of neonatal deaths and, for survivors, stunting by two years of age (Black et al., 2013), thus passing on the burden of under-nutrition to the next generation.
School-age children and adolescents, too, are affected by under-nutrition and over-nutrition, but they failed to gain attention until the recent past; women and child health, particularly the health of children below the age of five years, had been the focus of researchers and policymakers all these years. According to a study on worldwide trends, more children and adolescents aged 5–19 years are moderately or severely underweight than obese (NCD Risk Factor Collaboration [NCD-RisC], 2017).
8 - Data-Quality Indicators from the National Family Health Survey
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Summary
Introduction
The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) was initiated under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, in the year 1992 when its first round was conducted. Four more rounds since then have been conducted. All rounds of the NFHS have persistently made a sincere effort to provide valuable nationally representative maternal and child-health indicators. The sample size and structure of the questionnaire, along with the pertinent health-related questions, have increased with the passing time. In NFHS-1 (1992–93), 88,562 households were surveyed in 24 states and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. A total of 89,777 ever-married women aged 13–49 years were interviewed to obtain the maternal and child-health indicators. In NFHS-2 (1998–99), the sample size of ever-married women increased to 91,000 aged 15–54 years from 26 states. A few additional health indicators, such as the nutritional status of women and children by running blood tests, were introduced in this round. In NFHS-3 (2005–06), the sample size for ever-married women was increased to 131,596 aged 15–49 years from 29 states of India. For the first time, information on men aged 15–54 years was collected in this round. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and anaemia testing among women and children was also initiated.
After NFHS-3, the MoHFW wanted to integrate the different existing health surveys into one full-fledged survey providing district-level estimates. The NFHS had been designed as per the standard Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), which have global coverage, whereas some of the previous district-level surveys like the Annual Health Survey (AHS) and the District-Level Household Survey (DLHS) had been planned to cover limited demographic and health issues and were subsequently subsumed to avoid duplication of efforts. In lieu of this, the periodicity of the NFHS was fixed at three years, and the NFHS was proposed to be turned into a government-funded survey (Shrinivasan, 2012). NFHS-4 (2015–16) was partially funded, and the most recent round, NFHS-5 (2019–21), is completely funded by the MoHFW. NFHS-4 was evidently different from its successors in two ways: (a) it provided an array of maternal- and child-health estimates at the district level, and (b) there was more than a five-fold increase in its sample size (Table 8.1). In addition to the 29 states that were surveyed in NFHS-3, six union territories were also included in the NFHS-4 sample.
II - Interlinkages for Better Health
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Index
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Contents
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13 - Occupational Health of Selected Industry Workers in India
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Summary
Introduction
A large number of epidemiological research reveal that work environment factors (that is, the effects of air pollutants, coal dust, heat, noise, humidity, vibration, and so on) are highly correlated with employees’ health and well-being (Chatterjee, 2011; Dey and Pal, 2012; Krishnamurthy et al., 2017; Saha, 2018; Venugopal et al., 2020; Prasad et al., 2020). The gravity of occupational health is well understood in the recent International Labour Organization (ILO) estimate that indicates that 2.8 million deaths per year are attributable to occupational diseases and injuries worldwide. In addition, over 374 million workers are involved in non-fatal occupational accidents causing serious injuries and absences from work (ILO, 2020). Therefore, occupational health has always drawn the attention of researchers and policymakers all over the world. However, coal miners and iron–steel workers are exposed to hazardous environments on a daily basis (Kunar, Bhattacharjee, and Chau, 2008; Oliveira, Cacodcar, and Motghare, 2014; Nowrouzi-Kia et al., 2018, Prasad et al., 2019). These industries continue to be associated with high levels of illnesses, accidents, and injuries compared to other industries (Dash et al., 2015, Ukey-Ujwala et al., 2015).
In India, the coal and iron–steel industries have experienced a strong expansion in recent years, with the extension that India is the second-largest coal and crude steel producer in the world (Ministry of Mines, 2019; Indian Steel Association, 2020). These two industries are regarded as one of the most hazardous and high-health-risk sectors due to the complex nature of the job and work environment (Akanksha et al., 2015; Tripathy and Ala, 2018). According to recent estimates in Indian coal mines, the total number of fatalities were 50 and 44 for 2018 and 2019, respectively, and their fatality rates per 1,000 workers were 0.11 in both years. Likewise, the total number of serious injuries for 2018 and 2019 were recorded as 211 and 71, respectively (Ministry of Labour and Employment, 2015; Ministry of Coal, 2020). Moreover, several studies revealed that a majority of workplace accidents and injuries are attributed to various reasons such as unsafe work practices, poor safety environment, risk-taking behaviours, emotional instability, physical discomfort, and altered behaviour (Maiti and Bhattacherjee, 2001; Ghosh, Bhattacherjee, and Chau, 2004; Ghosh and Bhattacherjee, 2009; Bhattacherjee, 2014; Senapati, Bhattacherjee, and Ravichandran, 2017).
6 - Social Security Schemes for the Elderly in India
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Summary
Introduction
The United Nations’ Population Division (2019) projects global life expectancy to reach 74.5 years for males and 79.1 years for females by 2050. With approximately 1.40 billion inhabitants in 2021, India is projected to become the world's most populous country in 2023, surpassing China. In the 2011 census, the elderly population, aged 60 years and above, totalling to 103 million in number, accounted for 8.6 per cent of India's population. The share of the elderly population is projected to further rise to 19.5 per cent (around 319 million) by 2050 (Registrar General of India [RGI], 2011).
The dramatic and widespread nature of these ongoing demographic shifts indicates that the population-ageing challenges that India will face are both inevitable and exist on an enormous scale. These demographic changes present complex health, social, and economic challenges to which this heterogeneous country must rapidly adapt, both in the present and going forward into the future.
Social welfare schemes play an important role in addressing the problems of the weaker and vulnerable sections of society, particularly the elderly. The government has launched many policies and programmes for the welfare of the elderly, and such programmes are designed to enhance their quality of life. Apart from national schemes, there are many state-specific schemes for the welfare of the elderly that provide healthcare and economic support for older people. To access and avail themselves of the benefits, the elderly need to be aware of the relevant schemes and programmes implemented by the central and state governments. Many eligible elders are not aware of these schemes, or even if they are aware, they do not receive the benefits of such schemes for various reasons.
In this chapter, we discuss the three major social security schemes for the elderly in India. The Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) was introduced in 1995 as part of the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) to provide financial assistance to the elderly poor. The scheme was later transferred to the states in 2002–03 for implementation with additional central financial assistance. The main objective of this scheme is to provide social security to make older people economically independent.