Direct and Indirect Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on Age at First Marriage in Slum Areas,Bangladesh

This article attempts to examine the influence of some selected predictor variables on female age at first marriage in slum areas of Bangladesh. A path and multiple classification analysis （MCA） approach have been adopted. Authors thought that respondent＇s educational level and the mass media such as watching television have a significant direct impact on age at marriage, while the types of family and occupational status have an indirect effect on age at marriage.     

Age at first marriage and its relation to fertility in Bangladesh

The 2007 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey(BDHS)data are exploited to examine the effects of socioeconomic and demographic factors on age at first marriage linkage to reproductive behavior of Bangladeshi women.The mean age at first marriage of women is found to be 15.48 years.Multivariate logistic regression technique shows that place of residence,religion,region,wealth index,education,and occupation are significantly important factors for determining age at first marriage.The relationship between marriage and fertility suggests that women who marry at a younger age produce more children than women who marry late.Findings of this study show that if the age at first marriage of adolescents is increased by 1 year,the age at first birth is postponed by 0.728 years.With the increase in age at first marriage,the fecundability of women sharply rises,whereas the proportion of temporary sterility decreases.Although there is a positive association between age at first marriage and age-specific marital fertility rates,the total parity per woman at the end of the reproductive period is expected to reduce by 0.196 for each 1-year delayed marriage.     

Correlates of age at first birth among the slum dwellers in Sylhet,Bangladesh

The first birth marks a transition of a woman into motherhood. It contributes substantially to overall fertility of each individual woman. The age at which childbearing begins influences the number of children a woman bears throughout her whole reproductive life span. Thus, the mother’s age at first birth influences the total number of births that she might have in her life, which impacts the size, composition, and future growth of the population. Child-bearing at very young ages is common among the poor in Bangladesh. The objective of the present study is to examine the factors associated with age at first birth among slum dwellers of five selected slums (locally, colony) in Sylhet city corporation area, Bangladesh. The data of this study was collected from 520 women aged 14–50 years. The study found that almost 93% of women were married by the ages of 18 years and about 56% of the women have had their first child by the age of 18 years. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model was used to analyze the factors correlated with women’s age at first birth. The regression model is significant with an F-value of 49.48 and can explain 40.4% of the variation in the dependent variable as it is indicated by the R-square.     

Analysis on Temporal and Spatial Changes and Driving Forces of Poverty-Stricken Areas in Hebei Province

Abstract

This paper takes poverty-stricken county as the basic unit, and selects net income per peasant to study the poverty status in Hebei Province during 1986–2000. Temporal and spatial changes of poverty-stricken areas are analyzed. The result shows that poverty-stricken areas in Hebei Province distributed concentratedly and the areas decreased during 1986–2000, the net income per peasant was on the rise with an increasing speed in off-poverty counties being slightly higher than that in poverty-stricken counties, but the growth rate was extremely unstable, rising slowly in off-poverty counties while dropping in poverty-stricken counties. The main driving forces that influenced temporal and spatial changes were economic development of the whole province, ecological environment quality, infrastructure conditions and radiation of the key city. On this basis, some anti-poverty countermeasures suitable to local conditions are proposed.     

Characteristics of Rural Labor Emigration in Minority Areas of Honghe, Yunnan and Its Impact on New Socialist Countryside Construction in the 21st Century

China is a country with multinationalities. The political, social, and economic significances of the economic and social development in the minority areas have a very close connection with the modernization of the whole China's politics, society, and economy. The movement of minority rural migrants to the urban areas or to the nonagricultural industries is one of the key issues in the economic and social development in the minority rural areas. The rural population migration in the minority areas was taken as the important research topic, hoping to be of benefit to the deeper understanding of the current migration movement in China.     

Effects of anthropogenic disturbances on vegetation diversity and structure: a case study in the remnant forests surrounding the village ecosystems of Tripura,Northeast India

The types, frequency, and intensity of human interference with forests markedly affect the vegetation dynamics. Assessment of the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on forest diversity and structure is one of the central issues related to human behaviour and forest ecosystems and management. Both species diversity and density are very sensitive to local anthropogenic disturbance, which can be reduced depending on land-use systems. We used 10 line transects of 500 × 10 m to record and measure all plants ≥10 cm girth in some of the remaining forests surrounding villages in Tripura, Northeast India. To predict the effects of anthropogenic pressure on species richness and forest structure, we recorded and scored all ongoing disturbances in all transects of the forests. Although our study did not show any significant effects on the mean number of species, all diversity indices were significantly affected by disturbance. Total stem density (F = 128.60, p < 0.0001) and basal area (F = 65.30, p < 0.0001) of the forest stands were significantly affected by disturbance. Disturbance significantly (F = 84.81, p < 0.0001) impacts the abundance of mature voluminous trees removed by extensive illegal logging. Further, stem density at the middle (F = 10.01, p < 0.05) and upper (F = 131.70, p < 0.0001) canopy stories was also reduced by high disturbance intensity. The present analysis will be useful to policy-makers and planners for implementation of sustainable forest management at both the local and regional scale.