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Motivation: The participation rate of women in India's labour force is not only one of the lowest in the world, it has also been declining. To increase women's employment, some observers argue for reducing occupational gender segregation so that more women enter non‐traditional jobs. Purpose: I ask how aspirations for non‐traditional jobs are formed among young women in Delhi. The aim was to enable policy‐makers to foster occupational aspirations for non‐traditional jobs so women could enter jobs considered to be men's work, reducing gender segregation and increasing women's participation in the labour market. Methods and approach: I interviewed 72 young women from low‐income households in Delhi, following a semi‐structured guide. These young women were training either in jobs seen as the preserve of men—taxi drivers, electricians, and electronics mechanics—or in traditionally female work in beauty salons. Findings: Contrary to conventional wisdom, young women's entry into non‐traditional training in Delhi was not a result of their occupational aspirations. Rather, entry into training saw them aspire to the jobs for which they trained. Policy implications: To increase women's entry into jobs dominated by men, policy‐makers do not need to influence young women's occupational aspirations. Instead, they should focus on factors that directly affect job entry—for example, having training centres close to where these young women live—and provide opportunities for young women to train. Traditional concepts of occupational aspirations, generally derived from the global North, do not apply in the same way to young women in India. My study raises questions about these conceptions of aspirations and prompts future studies to assess whether they apply in other parts of the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicriteria mathematical modeling is an analytical framework for formally describing real‐life problems involving multiple and conflicting objectives. In the past decade, multicriteria decision‐making techniques have been applied in almost every area of the decision‐making including energy‐economic planning and sustainable development. Various mathematical and analytical models have been presented for the sustainable development planning and their assessment. In this paper, we discuss an approach related to multicriteria decision‐making and apply it for the assessment of the sustainable development goals of India by the year 2030. In the INDC report submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015, http://www..unfccc.int/submissions/INDC/Published%20Documents/India/1/INDIA%20INDC%20TO%20UNFCCC.pdf), India has identified many goals related to the sustainable development like energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, GVA growth, and an increase in the employment by the year 2030. This paper overcomes the energy resource allocation problem in related literature due to the lack of sectorial data for the same year by calculating the estimates for each sector for the year 2030. We presented a multicriteria decision‐making model which allocates public labor force in the key economic sectors of India. The presented model is validated with the data of the key economic sectors and their contribution in the identified goals. The paper provides a decision support for the better management of future sustainable policies by assessing the efficiencies of the current policies toward future sustainable goals. We evaluated the identified goals using the multicriteria decision‐making approaches so that the strategic planning can be implemented by the policy makers and to present a quantitative justification of planning strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale, aims and objectives: A key consideration in designing scalable solutions for improving global mental health involves balancing the need for interventions to be uncomplicated for mental health workers (MHWs) and the need for the intervention to be widely applicable to many clients. Often these needs are in competition, since interventions are routinely simplified by removing procedures or reducing their dynamic responsivity, which in turn lowers their overall utility in serving large, clinically diverse populations. The principal aim of this pilot study involved evaluating the feasibility and acceptability of a brief strategy designed to delegate problem classification and practice selection to MHWs operating within a flexible, modular, cognitive behavioural protocol. A secondary aim involved gathering data on which to base a hypothesis regarding the potential effectiveness of this strategy. Method: Within an open trial, an educationally diverse sample of local MHWs in India (N = 18) reviewed fictional case vignettes, classified mental health problems, and then selected practices before and after a two‐hour training that included a one‐page decision‐making resource. Feasibility was measured by assessing the integrity of the study protocol and training, the measurement and administration of questionnaires as well as study recruitment and completion. Acceptability of the intervention was measured by MHW‐perceived performance, ease of use, value, importance, and intention for continued use. Decision‐making accuracy was assessed by comparing MHWs' clinical decisions with criteria established through consensus among psychologists with expertise in modular protocols. Results: Results suggested high feasibility and acceptability on all metrics. Secondary analysis revealed that MHW's decision‐making accuracy and confidence also significantly improved, providing a basis for the hypothesis that this brief approach is useful for building MHW capacity in low‐resource settings. Conclusion: Overall these findings provide initial support for these methods and potential training outcomes to test within a larger, randomized controlled trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major health and social issue that affects around 30 percent of women globally. This study investigates the relationships through which witnessing IPV in adolescence may impact the labor force participation and employment prospects of women in early adulthood, using a unique dataset from Bihar (India), which surveyed youth (primarily girls) in adolescence and again nine years later. The study examined the relationship between exposure to IPV and labor market outcomes among young women, including intermediate factors likely to influence their employment prospects, such as educational attainment, self‐efficacy, mental health, and soft skills. Witnessing IPV as an adolescent had a negative effect on educational attainment, mental health, and social and behavioral aspects of young women almost nine years later. IPV was not associated with the likelihood of paid employment or participation in skilled work among women, although it was associated with higher levels of labor force participation. These findings suggest that witnessing IPV should be considered one of multiple forms of violence that may expose young women to longer term vulnerability related to poorer educational and employment prospects, mental health, and social networks, with implications for economic and social development far beyond the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]