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This paper examines the mobility of an increasingly important demographic group in the U.S., Hispanic immigrants. Using National Household Travel Survey data for 2009, this paper finds that, compared to the mobility of other populations, the mobility of Hispanic female immigrants is much lower, particularly when household income is low. Hispanic female immigrants are substantially less likely to be drivers than their male counterparts, and their probability of being a driver stagnates for decades after immigration, unlike female immigrants of other race/ethnicity groups. Hispanic female immigrants seem to remain non-drivers rather reluctantly. At the household level, Hispanic immigrants do not actively choose less auto-dependent lifestyles, and females clearly depend on others’ mobility. Yet once Hispanic female immigrants become drivers, they drive more than females of other race/ethnicity groups. Their high, hidden demand for driving is likely not related to domestic needs because their driving mileage is unassociated with child-caring duties, and is associated with household income level. The association between low-income status and driver status of Hispanic female immigrants has policy implications, especially if the barriers to becoming a driver limit Hispanic female immigrants' access to training or employment and contribute to their low-income status. More detailed analysis is anticipated to detail the mobility challenges Hispanic female immigrants face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deciding whether to use private tutoring services is now a common choice many households are facing globally. This paper presents new evidence for Qatar's case to shed light on the demand for private tutoring. The household demand for private tutoring is estimated using the double hurdle model. A sample of 1132 parents of students in the 8th, 9th, 11th, and 12th grade from the 2012 Qatar Education Survey (QES) is used to establish correlates of the use of and expenditure on private tutoring. The Qatar Education Study is a nationally representative study of students, parents, teachers, and administrators. The findings indicate that demographic, socioeconomic, student and school characteristics affect the decision to participate in private tutoring and the amount households spend on private tutoring. Nevertheless, the effect of these characteristics on participation differs between Qataris and non-Qataris. Also, student grade is the only common factor that influences participation and expenditure decisions. Besides, male household heads and males students increase expenditure on private tutoring. These findings suggest the importance of socioeconomic factors, gender, and student grade policy interventions focusing on private tutoring. Relevant policies for different stakeholders in the education sector are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Individuals' choice between education and fertility can drive sustained growth. • Gender balance is important in depicting the real impact of quality-quantity trade-off. • A unique census-based French county level data is used for empirical analysis. • We find that higher education causes lower fertility and vice versa. • The effects of negative endowment almost disappear at a low level of fertility. • The results are robust to controls, endogeneity and distributional heterogeneity. Recent theoretical developments in growth models, triggered particularly by unified theories of growth, suggest that the child quantity-quality trade-off is a defining element in our explanation of a transition from Malthusian stagnation to a sustained growth path. This paper presents a model and derives a testable empirical framework to investigate the role of gender in the trade-off between education and fertility for 86 French counties during the 19th century. Endogeneity-mitigated mean- and median-based regressions offer robust empirical predictions for gender-empowered quantity-quality trade-off. In particular, we find the existence of a significant and negative association between education and fertility. Further, while gauging the differential effects of schooling on fertility, we find that the short-run differences between male and female are small whilst the long-run effects are large. From policy perspective, our results imply that for stable long-run growth it matters not just that parents educate their children, but specifically that they choose to educate girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we undertake an extensive review of the neoliberal conservation literature with the aim to explore and substantiate the principal ways in which conservation is neoliberalized in practice as well as who has studied these processes and through which collaborative patterns. Using descriptive statistics and thematic content analysis, we explore selected characteristics of the peer-reviewed scholarship, including most commonly used concepts, methods and topics, geographical and co-authorship patterns, critical readings of key processes of neoliberalization, including commodification, privatization, dispossession, governance rescaling, governmentalities, and its engagement with the economic crisis, austerity politics, and social struggles. Our analysis shows the breadth of the literature in unraveling the unequal social, spatial and environmental impacts of neoliberal conservation policies as well as a significant degree of novelty in terms of topics and theories. Nonetheless, it also unravels some key gaps, including a limited engagement with quantitative methods and community-engaged social sciences and humanities approaches, a lack of focus on urban areas and urbanization, some important gaps in the theorization of the commodification of nature, a domination of Global North scholarship that contradicts the clear empirical focus of the field on the Global South, a limited engagement with social movements and grassroots activism, and a conspicuous lack of attention to the dynamics of class, gender and race. We conclude by identifying key directions for future research to address current gaps in the literature, and initiate a shift towards a decolonial, interdisciplinary, intersectional, community-engaged approach and an in-depth encounter with everyday practices of resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The growing pandemic of loneliness has great relevance to aging populations, though assessments are limited by self-report approaches. This paper explores the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology to evaluate interviews on loneliness, notably, employing natural language processing (NLP) to quantify sentiment and features that indicate loneliness in transcribed speech text of older adults.Design: Participants completed semi-structured qualitative interviews regarding the experience of loneliness and a quantitative self-report scale (University of California Los Angeles or UCLA Loneliness scale) to assess loneliness. Lonely and non-lonely participants (based on qualitative and quantitative assessments) were compared.Setting: Independent living sector of a senior housing community in San Diego County.Participants: Eighty English-speaking older adults with age range 66-94 (mean 83 years).Measurements: Interviews were audiotaped and manually transcribed. Transcripts were examined using NLP approaches to quantify sentiment and expressed emotions.Results: Lonely individuals (by qualitative assessments) had longer responses with greater expression of sadness to direct questions about loneliness. Women were more likely to endorse feeling lonely during the qualitative interview. Men used more fearful and joyful words in their responses. Using linguistic features, machine learning models could predict qualitative loneliness with 94% precision (sensitivity = 0.90, specificity = 1.00) and quantitative loneliness with 76% precision (sensitivity = 0.57, specificity = 0.89).Conclusions: AI (e.g., NLP and machine learning approaches) can provide unique insights into how linguistic features of transcribed speech data may reflect loneliness. Eventually linguistic features could be used to assess loneliness of individuals, despite limitations of commercially developed natural language understanding programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-speaker spoken datasets enable the creation of text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) systems which can output several voice identities. The multi-speaker (MSPK) scenario also enables the use of fewer training samples per speaker. However, in the resulting acoustic model, not all speakers exhibit the same synthetic quality, and some of the voice identities cannot be used at all. In this paper we evaluate the influence of the recording conditions, speaker gender, and speaker particularities over the quality of the synthesised output of a deep neural TTS architecture, namely Tacotron2. The evaluation is possible due to the use of a large Romanian parallel spoken corpus containing over 81 hours of data. Within this setup, we also evaluate the influence of different types of text representations: orthographic, phonetic, and phonetic extended with syllable boundaries and lexical stress markings. We evaluate the results of the MSPK system using the objective measures of equal error rate (EER) and word error rate (WER), and also look into the distances between natural and synthesised t-SNE projections of the embeddings computed by an accurate speaker verification network. The results show that there is indeed a large correlation between the recording conditions and the speaker's synthetic voice quality. The speaker gender does not influence the output, and that extending the input text representation with syllable boundaries and lexical stress information does not equally enhance the generated audio across all speaker identities. The visualisation of the t-SNE projections of the natural and synthesised speaker embeddings show that the acoustic model shifts some of the speakers' neural representation, but not all of them. As a result, these speakers have lower performances of the output speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People search based on semantic attributes presents an important task for several surveillance applications. The aim is to locate a suspect or to find a missing person in public areas based on an appearance description provided by a witness. In this paper, we propose a novel people search method based on an appearance description provided in terms of semantic attributes under uncontrolled acquisition conditions (e.g. gender, worn bags, carried objects, and clothes pattern). To this end, we propose to learn a set of deep semantic attribute classifiers based on the convolutional neural network. Experimental evaluations, based on the confusion matrix and the statistical tests, prove the efficiency of our method compared to state-of-the-art CNN architectures. Further, a comparison with state-of-the-art attribute classification methods is also conducted and confirms the efficiency of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Traffic congestion has a greater negative effect on females' life and work-life balance satisfaction. • Females appear to pay a price off their wages, in order to avoid traffic congestion. • The policy implications are discussed. At equal distance, the impedance created by traffic congestion strongly affects the duration of commute. Extant literature indicates that commute impedance negatively affects wellbeing, distinctly from the distance and the duration of commute. These negative effects are reported to be larger for women. Consequently, workers, especially females, must be willing to accept lower wages if reaching the job location entails fewer traffic congestions and accommodates a speedier commute. Using the Canadian General Social Survey of 2015 and the Census of 2016, the present paper assesses the wellbeing and wage consequences of commute impedance on men and women who drive to work. The study first demonstrates that the negative impact of commute impedance on wellbeing is greater for women. Second, consistent with the greater negative effect of traffic congestion on their wellbeing, women appear to pay a price off their wages, in order to avoid commute impedance. The policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the relative self-esteem level of spouses can lead to within-household competition for inputs and affect economic gender inequality in the home. Using data on smallholder farmer couples from Côte d'Ivoire, we examine the relationship between spouses' self-esteem and income-earning in agriculture. Although the link between own self-esteem and crop income-earning is positive, we find that one spouse's self-esteem is negatively related to the other's income-earning, particularly income-earning in higher-value export-oriented agriculture. Women's outcomes are more sensitive both to their own self-esteem (positively) and to their partners' (negatively) than men's. This negative relationship is driven by individuals during middle age, when self-esteem is considered most stable. A key channel through which self-esteem appears to matter is by increasing control over household land: a crucial input to agricultural production. In addition to confirming the importance of noncognitive skills for poverty reduction in rural settings, our findings highlight the importance of their impact on intra- and inter-household inequality, especially in the presence of interlocking market failures constraining the supply of inputs to production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scapegoating – attributing inordinate blame for a negative outcome to a target individual or group – is considered an important driver of discrimination by psychologists, but has received little attention by economists. This paper helps fill the gap by providing evidence for scapegoating in a natural setting. Using data on three million driving tests held in Israel, I find that an increase in the number of unrelated traffic accident fatalities leads driving testers to discriminate against out-group students. Scapegoating characterizes all groups of testers – Jewish and Arab, male and female – and works to increase ethnic in-group bias and decrease gender out-group bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While in many regions the conventional bicycle has already been regarded as an environmentally friendly and healthy alternative to the car for daily commuting, societal and policy agendas are also increasingly promoting e-bike adoption. Adding to recent research on e-bike safety, satisfaction with travel and behavioral change, this paper reports on the impact of weather circumstances on the use of the e-bike in daily commuting in an e-cycling incentive program in the province of Noord-Brabant, the Netherlands. The impact of this incentive program was analyzed using a longitudinal design, and it combined travel patterns that were derived from individuals' GPS data over nine months, hourly observed meteorological data, and questionnaires on intended behavior and sociodemographic characteristics. The findings suggest that the presence of snow and ice, total precipitation, and high windspeed negatively affected the choice of commuting to work by e-bike, in this decreasing order of impact. Although the overall impact of air temperature on e-cycling was positive, the likeliness to commute by e-bike decreased at higher air temperatures. E-cycling under specific weather conditions was more likely if participants' intention to e-cycle under such weather conditions was stronger. Our study indicates that the benefits of the e-bike in daily commuting are underestimated in relation to adverse weather conditions. Respondents from households with one car only, therefore, have fewer alternatives in poor weather conditions: for these individuals, only total precipitation and the presence of relatively low air temperature impact e-cycling. In addition, reported gender and high wind speeds might have been expected to influence participation in e-cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Little is known about tie loss and the role of dissimilarity regarding in relevant social dimensions (gender, age, ethnicity, and education). • We analysed the Survey on the Social Networks of the Dutch (SSND , 2006/2007, 2013/2014) containing data on 441 ego networks. • Event history analyses showed that dissimilar ties that were lost faster and mostly in the very early years of the relationship. • Meeting opportunities, preferences for similarity and network embeddedness were unable to explain tie loss. • Dissimilarity is a powerful driver of tie loss, and more research is needed to better understand the underlying mechanisms. Previous research finds that individuals tend to form ties with similar others much more often than with dissimilar others. However, we know relatively little about tie loss and to what extent this is driven by (dis)similarity. In this paper, we argue that ties to persons who are dissimilar with regard to gender, age, ethnicity, and education are lost faster than ties to similar persons – and we test three explanations for this faster decay of ties with dissimilar others: lack of meeting opportunities, preferences for similarity, and lower network embeddedness. To test these explanations, we analysed two waves of the Survey on the Social Networks of the Dutch (SSND , 2007, 2014). These SSND -waves contain comprehensive longitudinal panel data on ego networks of 441 respondents, who were interviewed about a wide range of relationships, their alters' sociodemographic characteristics, where and when they met their alters, as well as how and whether they maintain these relationships. We modelled tie loss by event history analyses. Results show that ties to persons who were dissimilar are more likely to be lost faster, and that tie loss occurs mostly in the early years of a relationship. However, meeting opportunities, preferences for similarity, and network embeddedness are unable to explain why ties to dissimilar others are lost faster. We conclude that dissimilarity is a powerful driver of tie loss, and that more arguments and research are needed to fully understand the underlying mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) has emerged as a treatment option for adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who continue to exhibit impairing symptoms following an adequate response to first line interventions. Currently, little is known about the predictors or moderators of dTMS outcome for OCD. This paper examined if several theoretically relevant variables may predict and moderate treatment effects including OCD symptom severity, functional impairment, co-occurring depressive symptoms, age, gender, age of OCD onset, and family history of OCD. As part of a previously reported study, 100 patients received 29 dTMS or sham stimulation treatments over 6 weeks. dTMS was administered using a Magstim Rapid2 TMS (The Magstim Co. Ltd., Whitland, Carmarthenshire, United Kingdom) stimulator equipped with a H shaped coil design, which was specifically designed to stimulate the dorsal mPFC-ACC bilaterally. Findings suggest older participants and those with lower OCD severity and disability respond faster to both dTMS and sham stimulation. dTMS of the dorsal mPFC/ACC appeared to have larger benefits for individuals with greater OCD severity, whereas the difference between treatment arms was minimal in those with lower severity. Implications of these findings for treatment of OCD are discussed. • Moderators of dTMS for OCD have not been reported. • Older adults and those with lower OCD severity responded faster to dTMS and Sham. • dTMS appeared to have larger benefits for individuals with greater OCD severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We examine impacts of Malawi's flagship cash transfer on youth multi-dimensional wellbeing across six domains. • Transfers improve education, physical health, emotional wellbeing and mental health, and sexual and reproductive health. • Limited or no impacts are found for two domains: HIV risk and time use. • Results highlight the potential of social protection to promote investments and wellbeing among at-risk youth. • More intentional gender- and youth-sensitive designs may facilitate further impacts on safe transitions to adulthood. As national social safety nets are expanding in Africa and globally, evidence on the impact of programs on youth transitions can help guide future investment and program design decisions. This paper examines the effects of Malawi's flagship cash transfer program on safe transitions to adulthood among youth living in households experiencing ultra-poverty. The evaluation was a cluster-randomized control trial implemented over three years using panel data on youth aged 13 to 19 at baseline. Household receipt of bi-monthly transfers led to improvements in four out of six outcome domains: 1) education, 2) physical health, 3) emotional wellbeing and mental health, and 4) sexual and reproductive health. There were limited or no impacts on outcomes related to HIV risk and time use. Results imply that similar programs in the region may also facilitate safe youth transitions. Nonetheless, more intentional gender- and youth-specific designs may have promise for more holistic impacts, and further evidence is needed on longer-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex differences are a robust finding in many areas of adult health, including cardiovascular disease, psychiatric disorders, and chronic pain. However, many sex differences are not consistently observed until after the onset of puberty. This has led to the hypothesis that hormones are primary contributors to sex differences in health outcomes, largely ignoring the relative contributions of early developmental influences, emerging psychosocial factors, gender, and the interaction between these variables. In this paper, we argue that a comprehensive understanding of sex and gender contributions to health outcomes should start as early as conception and take an iterative biopsychosocial-developmental perspective that considers intersecting social positions. We present a conceptual framework, informed by a review of the literature in basic, clinical, and social science that captures how critical developmental stages for both sex and gender can affect children's health and longer-term outcomes. The literature on pediatric chronic pain is used as a worked example of how the framework can be applied to understanding different chronic conditions. • Sex and gender influence health across the lifespan. • Differences in girls, boys, and gender-diverse youth are complex and biopsychosocial. • Development is critical for understanding for the interaction of sex, gender, and health. • Intersectionality impacts health outcomes beyond sex and gender alone. • Exploring sex and gender roles in health will inform inclusive, equitable clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Socio- cultural aspects should be considered for adequate prevention of femicide. • The cause of femicides is not to be attributed to mental disorder factors but to socio-culturally oriented aspects. • A shared definition of femicide will allow a further systematically homogeneous investigation of this phenomenon. • Further quantitative research is warranted to disentangle the root causes of femicide. • It is important create international policy strategies to contrast violence in relationships. A shared definition of femicide would help to distinguish it from the murder of a woman and understand its root causes favoring prevention. We conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to assess how (and if) femicide cases were related to mental disorders. Articles papers that explicitly define or discuss femicides or articles that, albeit not expressly mention femicides, thoroughly compare generic homicides and homicides with female victims. We analyse 3546 articles were retrieved from the databases, and 75 studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria and were included in the SLR. Many forms of femicide emerge worldwide as people's values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours evolve (intimate partner femicide, femicide-suicide, religious femicide, honour, revolt femicide) and state of vulnerability. A tiny percentage of femicides occur at the hands of subjects with diagnosed mental disorders, and controversies exist regarding the possible link between femicide and the use of drugs and/or alcohol and other factors. The complex problem of violence against women must be addressed with a transdisciplinary approach and targeted interventions for both the victims and the perpetrators. The present SLR shows that it is not possible to link femicides to mental disorders and that socio and cultural factors appear to be more relevant. Further quantitative research is warranted to disentangle the root causes of this heinous phenomenon plaguing our times. Our studies show that using the proposed definition of feminicide would help to delimit and adequately recognise violence in courtrooms, promote the culture of equality, and identify adequate policy strategies for prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key strategy in progressing towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is scaling innovations to improve livelihoods of marginalized populations globally. Consequently, there has been a heightened emphasis on Agriculture Research for Development (AR4D) innovation teams' ability to swiftly identify innovations that can be scaled for broad impact. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the equitable distribution of benefits among different demographic groups, leading to documented unintended consequences affecting some of the most marginalized communities. To effectively contribute to the SDGs and avoid harm to specific groups, AR4D innovation teams must conscientiously consider various dimensions of diversity, including gender and other relevant factors. Our objective is to introduce GenderUp, a new conversational method for responsible scaling, oriented to making scaling initiatives more inclusive and anticipatory of socially differentiated trade-offs. This new AR4D scaling tool seeks to ensure that scaling efforts not only contribute effectively to the SDGs but also consider and mitigate unintended consequences for marginalized communities. This paper describes a new socially responsible scaling tool. Starting with a defined innovation, GenderUp helps: i) identify relevant diversity and intersectionality among intended innovation users; and ii) re-direct scaling strategies to better anticipate and mitigate unintended consequences for specific social groups. Through a series of five stages, a GenderUp facilitator guides teams through discussions, learning activities, and practical integration to develop a socially responsible scaling strategy. We provide details about each stage and reflect on the results of two early pilot experiences. There is a need for increased recognition of the distribution of innovation benefits based on dimensions of diversity. GenderUp is proposed as a new method to systematically address social differentiation in the scaling of AR4D innovation. GenderUp supported two different innovation and scaling teams to rethink their scaling strategies. Both innovation teams identified at-risk intersectional profiles and made adjustments to their scaling strategies to ensure these groups were not harmed by the innovation or scaling activities. These promising examples suggest that GenderUp provides a simple ex-ante analysis that can reduce unintended consequences more broadly within AR4D. Although gender and social equity are prioritized globally there are very few experts, tools, and systems in place to achieve these cross-cutting goals. While GenderUp only addresses innovation at the scaling stage, it is a step towards systemizing responding to social differentiation within AR4D to at least do no harm, and at best improve social outcomes. [Display omitted] • Research for Development actors increasingly rely on achieving Sustainable Development Golas through scaling innovation. • Gender and social equity are global priorities, but tools for addressing social differentiation in scaling are lacking. • Based on Responsible Research and Gender studies, GenderUp is a method for more equitable agricultural innovation scaling. • GenderUp guides innovation teams through five stages emphasizing conversations, learning, reflexivity, and integration. • GenderUp fosters a socially responsible scaling strategy, helping to advance gender-positive and socially equitable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The milking unit (MU) is a key methodological and conceptual tool to illuminate the gendered nature of pastoralist resource access and food security. • Household-level factors like household size and herd size did not guarantee greater access to milk resources or food security for women within households. • Gendered, intra-household relations are just as (and sometimes more) important than grazing patterns and herd size in determining milk resources available to individuals within households. • Gender-disaggregated data is critical to understanding development challenges and opportunities for communities in the global South. This paper offers a methodological and conceptual framework for empirically demonstrating the importance of gendered, intra-household units in shaping pastoral livestock management and food security. While the focal point for understanding livestock management and pastoral production systems traditionally has been rangelands where livestock graze with male herders, this study demonstrates that as much livestock management happens within the home under the care of women. This project draws from long-term mixed methods research as well as an in-depth focal household study conducted over 10 months with Maasai pastoralists in Kenya to examine the highly gendered activities of herding and milking. In considering multiple spaces of livestock management inside and outside the pastoral home, this project introduces and utilizes the concept of the milking unit (a group of cows allotted to, and managed by, women for milking activities) alongside the more well-studied category of the grazing unit (a group of cattle pooled together by household members for grazing activities). Findings about the micro-decisions of livestock management, and the gendered politics shaping them, illustrate that gendered, intra-household relations are just as, if not more, important than grazing patterns or household assets such as herd size in determining milk resources for individuals within households, with significant outcomes for livestock productivity, food security, and wellbeing. These conclusions suggest that examining gendered, intra-household variation can be key for understanding livelihoods and human-environment interactions for pastoralists and other communities in the global South. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• I study a women's group-based health social and behavior change intervention implemented by CHWs in three unique sites. • I create a typology of volunteer CHW management 'styles' and use them to understand CHW empowerment and equity in each site. • Giving volunteers more responsibility leads to greater empowerment, yet demands more time, and excludes marginalized women from being CHWs. • Though payments are seen as 'solution' in volunteer sites and 'problem' in paying ones, I find they have little impact on CHW efficacy or motivation. • However, I find payments may allow more marginalized women to be CHWs and thereby make the program more effective and equitable. Community health workers (CHW) are individuals with no formal health training who perform various roles to address health disparities. There are long-sustained debates over how different forms of incentives shape CHW programs, which are often staffed with volunteer or minimally remunerated women. These debates are complicated by the diversity of CHW roles and contexts in which they work. Evidence is particularly scant around "change-agent" style CHWs, who shape health knowledge and norms within their community. This paper addresses this gap through an analysis of a change agent-staffed program that provided nutrition participatory education through women's groups in three eastern Indian sites. We examine how contextual factors across sites shaped change-agent management, and analyze the implications of each approach for efficacy, empowerment, and equity. Analyzing 68 interviews and 10 focus groups this study advances a typology of 'varieties' of voluntarism that we name laissez faire, active-cultivation, and honorarium-accountability, and uses comparative analysis to examine the equity and empowerment effects within selection, management, and payment. First, we find tensions in the community-based selection of volunteers because rather than selecting highly motivated women, groups selected women in the most favorable socioeconomic position to volunteer. Second, there is a tension around responsibility and expectations in that greater training and responsibility leads women to see more psychosocial empowerment (e.g., knowledge, confidence), but also may create more 'costs' to participation and leads to wider economic inequities in change-agent ranks. Third, we observe a misplaced focus on payments as central to change-agent motivation. While the two volunteer-only sites see payment as 'the answer' to motivation problems, the honorarium site sees payments as 'the problem' because they attract less intrinsically motivated individuals. We conclude that while payments may not make an unmotivated volunteer into a motivated one, this analysis suggests payments would potentially allow more marginalized women to participate, which may be key to making more equitable and efficacious impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We evaluate determinants of participation in conservancy land leases in the Maasai Mara and how they impact household wealth. • Land ownership primarily determines who can participate and benefit from conservancies and by how much. • Conservancy land leases reinforce unequal historical land distribution systems, limiting participation of women and the poor. • After matching households on their observed characteristics, conservancy participation has little impact on household wealth. Understanding the impact of conservation interventions on local communities is important in determining their effects on livelihoods and wellbeing. However, impacts are often not uniform and there are important equity dimensions when evaluating interventions. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate determinants of participation in conservation land leases in the Mara Conservancies in southern Kenya and its impact on household wealth. We find that land ownership determines who can participate in and benefit from conservancy land lease payments, and by how much. The design of the land lease payment scheme therefore has the potential to reinforce and, in cases, amplify existing inequities as it is built upon a legacy of unequal historical land distribution processes that limit the participation of women and poor landless households. We observed significantly higher incomes amongst participant households compared to non-participants, but these differences disappeared after propensity score matching. These results suggest that the differences were not caused by participation in conservancies. Our findings suggest that the design and outcomes of land-based conservation or payment for ecosystem services schemes should consider historic and existing land tenure systems if they are to reduce inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We assist in the diffusion of quantitative national research assessment exercises. • Such exercises could incentivize strategic behaviours, favouring quantity over impact or vice versa. • We investigated the quality for quantity trade-off in scientific publishing of almost 30,000 Italian professors. • Controlling for authors' individual characteristics, a negative effect of quantity over impact emerges. The rise of quantitative research evaluations has led researchers to adopt publication strategies that enable the pursuit of entry and career progression within institutions. Depending on the performance evaluation criteria adopted, researchers emphasize more on publication quantity, impact, prestige of hosting journals, or seek a combination. What we investigate in this paper is the nature of the impact for quantity trade-off with, in particular, control for the moderating role of the personal characteristics of authors. The dataset concerns approximately 29,000 Italian professors representing 200 scientific fields. As necessary, the analyses are field normalized. The evidence seems to support the presence of an impact for quantity trade-off. While single-variate analyses show a positive correlation between the two dimensions, a more complex econometric model, controlling for a range of individual characteristics of researchers, indicates a negative marginal effect of the size of a scholar's scientific output on average impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational decisions are affected by geographical accessibility, which may have far-reaching consequences for young people's future educational pathways. In this paper, we examine the extent to which geographical distance to educational institutions may moderate young people's applications to upper secondary education in terms of both the track and the gender-(a)typicality of vocational fields of study they apply to. Our study relies on rich register-based data of complete cohorts of 16-year-olds applying to Finnish upper secondary institutions, linked with geographical information on their closest educational alternatives. We find that travel time to the academic track is more decisive than the distance to vocational schools, with geographical accessibility being more significant for boys' rather than for girls' application patterns. Moreover, distance sensitivity varied by social origin, with daughters of low-educated parents and sons of medium-educated parents particularly likely to adjust their upper secondary application to the geographical accessibility of educational alternatives. However, we find some indications that particularly girls from lower-educated social backgrounds are more prepared to consider fields of study not typical for their gender if they are more geographically accessible than key alternatives. No such gender-atypical substitutions were evident among boys. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of explanatory approaches based on risk aversion and (gender) socialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the most biodiverse and productive ecosystem in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), coral reefs have supported coastal communities for millennia. Demands for improved management and conservation following rapid development in the 1970s have led to a dramatic growth in science seeking to document and describe the status of regional reefs; however, the role of women in this field remains understudied. Using an explanatory semi-sequential mixed-methods design, in which a systematic review preceded semi-structured interviews, we address this gap by investigating the prevalence and perspectives of women conducting reef science in the GCC. Of the 852 reef-related publications included in the review, the majority (53 %) were exclusively authored by men, with no female authors occurring in the literature until 1985. The six-fold increase in female-inclusive publications that occurred in the subsequent three decades did not eliminate the substantial gender divide in publication output and the senior authorship position. Moreover, over half of published female scientists were researchers from the Global North, while Khaleeji researchers (citizens of GCC nations) were a minority - a trend with implications for knowledge leaks and ineffective conservation efforts. Six themes emerged from the interviews (n = 47): 1) history of female contributions to reef science in the GCC, 2) success factors for scientific productivity, 3) barriers affecting professional practice, 4) author collaboration and credit, 5) growing presence of Khaleeji researchers, 6) parachute and neocolonial science. Our results highlight the need to sustain diverse gender and local voices in research shaping conservation efforts. Considering that the region remains densely populated in coastal zones and dependent on the surrounding marine provinces, member states must propagate greater inclusive and indigenous representation in science to support advancement of reef research and conservation. • First female author in GCC reef-related literature emerged in 1985 • Six-fold increase in female-inclusive papers; gap persists in output and senior roles. • Global North dominance raises concerns for GCC reef conservation. • Mixed-method study unveiled progress and persistent gender challenges in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Female driving offenders are more empathetic and impulsive than male offenders. • Male driving offenders are more self-compassionate and mindful than females. • Mindfulness predicts fewer risky driving behaviors and more prosocial ones. • Aggressive driving anger expression is a risk factor for both genders. • Impulsiveness predicts more distraction while driving only among females. Although driving risk taking appears to be mainly male, an increase in driving violations has been observed in recent years among French female drivers. The main objective of the present study was to explore the driving behaviors, psychological resources, and vulnerabilities of female and male driving offenders participating in a French driver rehabilitation program. The second aim was to examine to what extent females' and males' resources and vulnerabilities predicted their violations, engagement in distracting activities while driving, and prosocial driving behaviors. In the course of 110 rehabilitation programs, 1686 driving offenders (22.4% females) completed a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Compared to male offenders, females were more likely to have received a higher education, be divorced, or separated, and drive fewer annual kilometers. They also had had fewer demerit points than males in the last three years. They were more empathetic but also more impulsive than their male counterparts and less self-compassionate and mindful. Regression and moderation analyses revealed that, across genders, certain psychological resources such as mindfulness can be considered as protective factors for driving offenders as they tend to decrease dangerous behaviors and increase prosocial ones, while vulnerabilities such as aggressive driving anger expression seem to have the opposite effect. Our results provide a better understanding of driving offenders' behavior and the influence of personal dispositions. They also open new interesting research avenues in the prevention of dangerous behaviors among this high-risk population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• International multiple case study of boys and school mathematics in Finland, Australia and New Zealand. • Focuses on masculinity and boys who are on the margins of mathematics. • Uses the lens of gender monoglossia to compare and contrast masculinities in diverse settings. • Analyses the compatibility of rural, urban, and indigenous masculinities with school mathematics. Despite decades of attention to gender and school mathematics, gender inequalities in participation persist. This paper uses the lens of gender monoglossia to explore how accounts of gender and mathematics differ in three international contexts: Finland, Australia, and New Zealand. Drawing on data from completed studies, we examine normalised performances of masculinity in relation to location, race, and class, and who these constructions exclude from mathematics. In contrast to previous studies documenting masculine advantages, we note some boys 'on the margins' of mathematics in each context. We argue that masculine advantages in mathematics are not universal and that attention to contextual differences in gender monoglossia offers a way to 'open mathematics up' by exposing the constructed nature of gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this review was to systematically assess literature on differences between males and females in the physiological and biomechanical responses to load carriage during walking. PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Web of Science and the Cochrane library were searched. A total of 4637 records were identified and screened. Thirty-three papers were included in the review. Participant characteristics, load carriage conditions, study protocol, outcome measures and main findings were extracted and qualitatively synthesised. Absolute oxygen uptake and minute ventilation were consistently greater in males but there were limited sex-specific differences when these were expressed relative to physical characteristics. There is limited evidence of sex-specific differences in spatio-temporal variables, ground reaction forces (normalised to body mass) or sagittal plane joint angles with load. However, differences have been found in hip and pelvic motions in the frontal and horizontal planes, which might partly explain an economical advantage for females proposed by some authors. • Limited evidence for differences when VO 2 standardised to physical characteristics. • Earlier exercise end point for females with absolute load. • No evidence for sex differences in sagittal plane biomechanics during load carriage. • Some evidence of frontal and horizontal plane sex differences in loaded gait. • Pelvis width and rotation might offer females an economical advantage in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women make up most of the health sector workers. Women healthcare professionals are adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic because they have to ensure their own safety in hospitals and provide care to their family members at the same time. Therefore, it is vital to address their challenges as they juggle work and family. However, there is a few research on the impact of gender on the challenges of being a women healthcare professional. This paper investigated the experiences and gendered challenges of being a women healthcare professional in the COVID-19 quarantine ward of a hospital. This qualitative study adopted a descriptive phenomenological research design. Data were collected from thirteen women healthcare professionals working in the COVID-19 quarantine ward, through in-depth semi-structured individual interviews. All interviews were transcribed and thematically analyzed using Giorgi's four-step phenomenological method. The data revealed three main themes: (1) individual effects, (2) work life, and (3) gendered challenges. Participants stated that working in a COVID-19 quarantine ward adversely affected their mental and physical health, self-care, housework, and family and social lives. Participants also noted that although working at a COVID-19 quarantine ward was challenging and exhausting, it allowed them to get professional satisfaction and develop professional skills. Gender inequality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic had an adverse impact on women healthcare professionals. Therefore, the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic should also target gender inequality. • Women healthcare professionals' health, self-care, housework, family and social lives are adversely affected by pandemic. • Working at a COVID-19 quarantine ward was challenging and exhausting, but it allowed to get professional satisfaction. • Gender inequality exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic had an adverse impact on women healthcare professionals. • Politicians and managers should increase social support to women healthcare professionals in pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread male out-migration presents major challenges to the sustainability of existing collective irrigation systems. However, the effects of socio-spatial changes on collective resource governance systems remain unknown. This paper addresses this gap by building a synthesis of translocality and Feminist Political Ecology (FPE). Translocality examines the socio-spatial interconnectedness of rural societies in the context of out-migration. FPE explores how changing gender and social relations shape resource governance. A translocal Feminist Political Ecology framework (tFPE) contextualizes resource governance within translocal social flows, and captures (i) translocal resource governance, (ii) translocal social relations, and (iii) translocal aspirations. Drawing from qualitative interviews and participatory methods on two farmer-managed irrigation systems in Far Western Nepal, I illustrate the complexity, intersectionality and ambiguity of translocal social relations in collective resource governance. Translocal resource governance is shaped by changing household and labor relations marked by remittances, and translocal flows of social and human resources, ideas and knowledge, e.g. migrants' advice via phone on when and how to irrigate. Translocal social relations entail marginalized groups, i.e., women and elderly people, providing increased labor contributions and possibly receiving migrants' support in the form of advice and networks. However, authority and power relations are sustained in resource governance by mostly upper caste men. Translocal aspirations to the home village by both migrants and non-migrants is ambivalent and leads them to hope for frequent visits home, while aspirations and shame turn them away from agriculture towards earning higher incomes through migration. The tFPE framework emphasizes important but understudied translocal social relations and aspirations in collective resource governance, water, irrigation and migration research. By linking translocality and FPE, I show how translocal resource governance, social relations and aspirations change everyday practices and gender, caste and labor relations in irrigation, and how we may understand the water-migration nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to mitigate it on gender dynamics and power relations among men and women involved in cross border fish trade in Zambia and Malawi and the ensuing policy implications to support the fisheries value chain. The paper is based on qualitative and quantitative data collected in Zambia and Malawi in October and November 2021. We conducted quantitative surveys implemented the Cognitive Edge Sensemaker Tool and the Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis toolkit (EMMA to understand the dynamics of cross border fish trade before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A social relations approach, focusing on gender relations, was used to analyze the data. Findings suggest that women cross-border fish traders are caught up in a complex web of networks and relationships that are disempowering to them. Some measures put in place to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lacked an understanding of the historical perspective and dynamics of women in fish trading communities further marginalizing men and women cross border fish traders. Some measures exacerbated hidden violence against women and overt forms of violence against men. Since most of the violence occur across state boundaries, there is a need for inter-country coordination to ensure that the rights of women and men cross border fish traders are protected. Policy measures could include educating police officers for even-handedness when enforcing COVID-19 rules and providing mechanisms for reporting abusive practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the findings from qualitative interviews conducted as part of a cross-disciplinary pilot study into the efficacy of the Friendship Bench for promoting mental health amongst rural women living in Shurugwi District, Zimbabwe. Informed by UNICEF's nurturing care framework, the pilot study hypothesised that women's caring capabilities would be enhanced if a cost-effective intervention could be found for those suffering from common mental disorders (CMD), locally referred to as kufungisisa. Focusing on the women's accounts of their embodiment of kufungisisa, the paper further highlights the important role that gender plays in women's experience of common mental health disorders. More critically, it identifies the ways in which patriarchal social relations may be reinforced through the spaces of global health interventions such as the one reported on here. The paper concludes with a moment of self-reflection. Specifically, it poses the question that our paper, and the global health intervention it reports upon, would look very different if the women's experiences of kufungisisa were considered not only as they appear in the present but at the intersection of social and spatial relations that have much longer histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper relates work on global neoliberal gendered labor to geographies of care and it provides a tangible example of culturally specific dimensions of the relationship between health and place. The context is a temporary work migration pattern of Bulgarian women in Italy, who provide 24/7, live-in care to elderly, often dying patients. Through a longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork, this paper illustrates how mobile gendered landscapes are articulated and made meaningful by the research participants, offering a different reading of global care regimes. I argue that this articulation is a way of thinking with care cultures and showing how these are (re-)imagined by women who care in less than caring institutional/economic/familial landscapes. The paper contributes the concept 'care cultures' as a productive lens, through which to account for how place, people, ethics and care practices grow, merge and (mis-)align in attempts to construct and maintain meaningful lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surgical specialties struggle to recruit women. In this study, the authors performed a systematic review to describe progress of women in neurosurgery and highlight areas where further research is needed. PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were queried with "women in neurosurgery" OR "female neurosurgeon," and publications with empiric research were included. Bias was assessed on the basis of study designs. We found 127 papers, and 36 met inclusion criteria. Much of this research is recent—85% has been published within the past 3 years. These papers detail differences between genders and examine possible causes, but they do not test interventions to remedy inequities. The authors designed an intervention focusing on medical students' perceptions of gender issues within neurosurgery. A seminar was designed with 2 objectives: inform medical students about changes within neurosurgery and introduce them to a female neurosurgery attending who could serve as a potential future mentor. Student attitudes were assessed before and after the seminar by survey. Fourteen students completed both surveys: 10 females and 4 males. The 1-hour seminar significantly reduced the mean perceived difficulty to enter neurosurgery from 4.4 to 4.1 (P = 0.014); additionally, the mean perceived additional difficulty for career advancement faced by women in neurosurgery decreased from 3.6 to 2.8 (P = 0.026). Much research has gone into documenting the advancement and potential impediments for women in neurosurgery. Less research has tested solutions. Our pilot was small and susceptible to bias, but given that some results achieved significance, it merits more rigorous study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• It is critical to theorize equity in the context of equitable resilience. • Predefined visions of equity and transformative change hide contextual and intersectional agencies and experiences of risk. • In Jumla, Nepal, state-led interventions define equity as "equal distribution" that do not acknowledge social differences such as caste and gender. • Yet, focusing on caste and gender as indicators of marginalization also overlook contextual and dynamic influences on risk. • Equitable resilience requires recognizing intersectional inequalities and local agency, not predefined indicators of risk and vulnerability. Equitable resilience is an increasing focus of development policy, but there is still insufficient attention to how the framings of equity itself shape what, and who, is targeted through development efforts. Universalistic assumptions about climate risk or social marginalization can define equity in ways that hide dynamic and intersectional influences on what constitutes risk to whom under different circumstances. This paper investigates the implications of two different equity framings for resilience in Jumla District, western Nepal. Drawing on more than one hundred household surveys plus in-depth qualitative interviews in six villages, we find that state-led efforts to present post-civil war development as the "equal distribution" of roads and infrastructure, agricultural commercialization, and protection against systemic climate risk fail to reflect local experiences of risk, which are often expressed in terms of social exclusion rather than vulnerability to climate change. Yet, simultaneously, other efforts at building resilience that use caste and gender as indicators of social marginalization overlook how transitions in livelihoods and individual agency have changed vulnerability contexts for many people, or the increasing vulnerability to climate change of more landed farmers. The paper urges more critical attention to how normative framings of equity shape what, and for whom is considered equitable resilience, including assumptions about transformative change from analysts themselves. Representing risks and vulnerability in terms of socially marginalized groups alone might deny the dynamic, intersectional, and contextual interconnection of risks and social agency; and might impose unhelpful subjectivities of their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relational vulnerability embraces place-specific social relations as critical determinants of vulnerability, countering the traditional conceptualization of vulnerability as scale neutral and a static feature of an individual or a social group. This paper adopts a relational approach to examine how vulnerabilities are experienced by two groups of women in southwestern Bangladesh. The first group remained in their villages while their husbands migrated to the city for better livelihoods after cyclone Aila in 2009. The second group relocated with their husbands from the coastal villages to the nearby regional urban center, typically in the aftermath of major coastal cyclones during 2007–2013. A qualitative examination of these women's experiences in the origin and destination highlights how gender identity shapes forms of social relations, minimizing or reinforcing existing vulnerabilities and, on some occasions, creating new vulnerabilities. The findings debunk some of the popular misconceptions about post-cyclone mobilities in coastal Bangladesh. Migration to cities is typically seen as a rational adaptation response to minimize climate vulnerabilities; however, the paper shows how migration also redistributes and triggers new forms of non-climatic vulnerabilities to women in those migrant families. Similarly, non-migration is often perceived as an actor's inability to avoid risks. However, our findings suggest that immobility enables left-alone housewives to devise creative in-situ responses and resist vulnerabilities. The findings reinforce the importance of examining the differential vulnerabilities and responses reproduced in the intersections of gender, (im)mobility, and social relations, warranting just scales of intervention to support gender-specific needs temporally, socially and spatially. • Vulnerabilities and responses are neither static nor scale neutral but relational. • Gender identities minimise and reinforce pre-existing vulnerabilities. • Migration triggers new forms of non-climatic vulnerabilities in the origin and destination. • Non-migration enables women to resist vulnerabilities through creative in-situ adaptation responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women appears to be endemic even in those societies where women have formal and equal citizenship. The influential theorist of citizenship, T.H. Marshall, found the status of women, or at least married women to be ‘in some important respects peculiar’. Women in social democratic societies seem to have overcome those peculiarities and achieved full citizenship. And yet women's rights as citizens continue to be undermined by violence, specifically gender-based violence. In order to address the question about the apparent failure of citizenship rights to protect women from persistent violence this paper will suggest that the state is integral to our understandings as well as to any useful strategies for change. Based on the argument that citizenship is defined and practiced in terms of the sexual politics of contested gender relations, the paper argues that the state connects citizenship and violence. The persistence of violence against women is implicated in the sexual politics of citizenship. Hence, the challenge of violence against women is recognised as an issue for the state, citizenship and the whole community. Campaigns to recognise this challenge are becoming valuable sources of agency and activism as can be seen in recent campaigns and heightened media attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One goal of critical educators is to challenge and destabilize textual narratives of the traditional literary canon because they can affirm cultural narratives of heterosexuality and masculinity. A concern arises, however, when critical efforts are only applied during moments of textual analysis and not considered across the broader classroom context. Using different methods of discourse analysis, this paper explores the ways in which a teacher’s pedagogy constructs and performs a type of gender reification, in this case, of heterosexual masculinity. The paper argues that the canon constitutes more than just a list of books—that discourses and pedagogy may reinforce canonical ideologies or narratives similar to the way in which a novel can or does. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex security environments are characterized by violence (including, but not limited to “armed conflict” in the legal sense), poverty, environmental disasters and poor governance. Violence directly affecting health service delivery in complex security environments includes attacks on individuals (e.g. doctors, nurses, administrators, security guards, ambulance drivers and translators), obstructions (e.g. ambulances being stopped at checkpoints), discrimination (e.g. staff being pressured to treat one patient instead of another), attacks on and misappropriation of health facilities and property (e.g. vandalism, theft and ambulance theft by armed groups), and the criminalization of health workers. This paper examines the challenges associated with researching the context, scope and nature of violence directly affecting health service delivery in these environments. With a focus on data collection, it considers how these challenges affect researchers’ ability to analyze the drivers of violence and impact of violence. This paper presents key findings from two research workshops organized in 2014 and 2015 which convened researchers and practitioners in the fields of health and humanitarian aid delivery and policy, and draws upon an analysis of organizational efforts to address violence affecting healthcare delivery and eleven in-depth interviews with representatives of organizations working in complex security environments. Despite the urgency and impact of violence affecting healthcare delivery, there is an overall lack of research that is of health-specific, publically accessible and comparable, as well as a lack of gender-disaggregated data, data on perpetrator motives and an assessment of the ‘knock-on’ effects of violence. These gaps limit analysis and, by extension, the ability of organizations operating in complex security environments to effectively manage the security of their staff and facilities and to deliver health services. Increased research collaboration among aid organizations, researchers and multilateral organizations, such as the WHO, is needed to address these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to broaden economic discourse by importing insights into human behavior not just from psychology, but also from sociology and anthropology. Whereas in standard economics the concept of the decision-maker is the rational actor , and in early work in behavioral economics it is the quasi-rational actor influenced by the context of the moment of decision, in some recent work in behavioral economics, the decision-maker could be called the enculturated actor . This actor's preferences, perception, and cognition are subject to two deep social influences: (a) the social contexts to which he has become exposed and, especially, accustomed; and (b) the cultural mental models —including categories, identities, narratives, and worldviews—that he uses to process information. The paper traces how these factors shape behavior through the endogenous determination of preferences and the lenses through which individuals see the world—their perception and interpretation of situations. The paper offers a tentative taxonomy of the social determinants of behavior and describes the results of controlled and natural experiments that only a broader view of these determinants can plausibly explain. The perspective suggests more realistic models of human behavior for explaining outcomes and designing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the multiple processes that shape the use of agrochemicals and wastewater irrigation in Ghanaian urban agriculture. It further explores whether and how these processes present bodily health challenges for women and men farmers. Qualitative fieldwork was conducted in Ashaiman, a municipal area located about 30 km north-east of Accra, Ghana’s capital. Methods of data collection involved in-depth interviews, focus groups and participatory risk ranking and scoring. Conceptually, the paper brings political ecologies of health into closer conversation with scholarship on embodiment and gender. Overall, the findings demonstrate how specific urban agricultural practices are socially produced, how these practices come to affect the human body, and the long-term gendered consequences. One of the contributions of the paper is to draw attention to the nature and cost of urban agriculture in Ghana, a cost not in financial or environmental sense, but in the realm of embodied experiences of exposure to agrochemicals. The paper argues that the current problem confronting urban agriculture in Ashaiman, Ghana, cannot be adequately addressed unless understood as socially produced and historically determined. Further, the health impact of urban agriculture is not only a full bodily experience, but is also gendered. In the end, a case is made as to why gendered bodies demand more critical analysis in scholarship involving political ecologies of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite impressive global investment in reproductive health programs in West Africa, maternal mortality remains unacceptably high and obstetric care is often inadequate. Fertility is among the highest in the world, while contraceptive prevalence remains among the lowest. This paper explores the social and technical dimensions of this situation. We argue that effective reproductive health programs require analyzing the interfaces between technical programs and the social logics and behaviors of health professionals and client populations. Significant gaps between health programs’ goals and the behaviors of patients and health care professionals have been observed. While public health projects aim to manage reproduction, sexuality, fertility, and professional practices are regulated socially. Such projects may target technical practices, but access to care is greatly influenced by social norms and ethics. This paper shows how an empirical anthropology that investigates the social and technical interfaces of reproduction can contribute to improved global health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joint Venture schemes based on the floppy irrigation technology are being promoted in the post-Apartheid South Africa's Limpopo Province. Access to land and water resources in South Africa are largely viewed as a mechanism for re-dressing the Apartheid injustices. This research was part of a broader applied research to help inform irrigation practise in the Limpopo Province. The research used literature review, key informant interviews and a questionnaire survey. The overall research question sought to understand how the Joint Venture Schemes had benefited the smallholder farmers. This paper argues that the joint venture partnership created a new injustice. Firstly, the Joint Venture Scheme design is fundamentally a bad idea which disempower farmers not only to water access but also land as well. The choice of the ‘efficient’ floppy irrigation technology was made by the state and entailed that land had to be managed as a single unit. In order to make more effective use of this highly sophisticated new technology, the smallholder farmers also needed to go into a joint venture partnership with a white commercial farmer. By virtue of signing the Joint Venture agreement the farmers were also forfeiting their land and water rights to be used for crop production. The smallholder farmers lost access to their water and land resources and were largely relegated to sharing profits – when they exist - with hardly any skills development despite what was initially envisaged in the Joint Venture partnership. Secondly, the implementation of the JVS has been skewed from the start which explains the bad results. This paper further shows how the negative outcomes affected women in particular. As the smallholder farmers argue the technological options chosen by the state have excluded both male and female farmers from accessing and utilising their land and water resources in order to improve their livelihoods; it has entrenched the role of the state and the private interests at the expense of the smallholder male and female farmers in whose name the irrigation funding was justified. The paper concludes by offering recommendations on how joint venture schemes can be genuinely participatory and meaningfully address the rural livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green economy is widely promoted as a 21st century solution to sustainable development. The role of cities in pursuing this agenda is increasingly recognised. Yet, the informal economy, which so many urban dwellers and workers in low- and middle-income countries depend upon, is seldom considered. This paper examines the opportunities and barriers that the urban informal economy pose for making economies greener, and the risks that such attempts pose for vulnerable informal dwellers and workers. In contemplating how this group can be included in the transition to a greener economy, the different schools of thought on informality are reviewed, with a focus on recent thinking that relates urban informality to conflicting processes of inclusion and exclusion. The paper then considers a set of action areas aimed at leveraging the positive contributions that informal dwellers and workers can make in the transition to an economy that is not only greener, but also more inclusive. Leveraging these contributions will require recognising and supporting women's unpaid reproductive work (including community organising and strategizing around environmental improvements) and applying the principles of inclusive urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drivers are estimated to contribute an overwhelming proportion to the burden of traffic crashes, as factors that increase crash risk are frequently due to unsafe driving behaviours. The relationship between risk perceptions and people’s risky driving behaviours is still not well understood. This paper aims to further analyse the potential effect of risky driving behaviours on drivers’ perceptions of crash risk and differences in perceptions among drivers. Crash risk perceptions in an inter-city, two-way road context of 492 drivers were measured by using a Stated Preference (SP) ranking survey. Rank-ordered logit models were used to evaluate the impact on risk perception of five unsafe driving behaviours and to identify differences in drivers’ risk perceptions. The five unsafe driving behaviours considered in the analysis were respectively related to whether or not the driver follows the speed limits, the rules of passing another car and the safe distance, whether or not the driver is distracted, and whether or not she/he is driving under optimal personal conditions. All risky driving behaviours showed a significant potential effect ( p < 0.001) on crash risk perceptions, and model’s results allowed to differentiate more important from less important unsafe driving behaviours based on their weight on perceived crash risk. Additionally, this paper further analyses the potential differences in risk perception of these traffic violations between drivers of different characteristics, such as driving experience, household size, income and gender. The SP technique could be applied to further analyse differences in perceptions of risky driving behaviours among drivers. Future research should consider the potential effect of driving skill on perceptions of risky driving behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to contribute to the understanding of gendered migration strategies through presenting the findings of a study on the interpretation of the rural and rurality offered by young women and men living in an economically backward, predominantly rural region of Hungary (Észak-Alföld) in connection with their migration plans. The paper also aims to compare the discourses of rural residents and academics on the rural. Both 17- to 19-year old male and female secondary school pupils and 20- to 42-year-old women living in rural settlements unanimously emphasised the lack of paid jobs as a characteristic feature of the rural. Their contextualised representations of the rural confirm the relevance of political economic approaches, which dominate Hungarian academic discourses. The image that students presented reflects actual gendered inequalities in the rural areas of the Észak-Alföld in respect of the labour market and public services and the values and expectations that local communities communicate. In the case of young adult women, the lack of jobs, impaired real property and economic underdevelopment are features that homogenise the otherwise varied picture of the rural. The paper points out the importance of studying the rural places facing economic and social problems and the advantages both of adopting a critical feminist perspective and of applying a political economic approach focussing on economic problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares three groups of gestational mothers who relied on gametes from donors they did not know. The three groups are women who have conceived with donor sperm and their own eggs, women who have conceived with donor eggs and a partner's sperm, and women who have conceived with embryos composed of both donor eggs and donor sperm. The paper explores three issues. First, it considers whether intending parents select sperm and egg donors for different attributes both when they are chosen as the only donor and when they are chosen as donors contributing to an entire embryo. Second, it examines how women imagine the donor. Finally, it looks at how women conceptualize the donor as an individual who contributes to their child's characteristics. Two significant findings emerged in this analysis of survey data. First, the data show that gametes are gendered with different attributes both when those gametes are separate and even more so when seen as complementary parts of a whole. Second, the data show that women minimize the impact of the egg donor (both when a sole contribution and especially when part of the complementary whole) and thus ignore the influence or impact of the egg donor relative to how they make sense of the influence or impact of the sperm donor. The data for this study comes from an online survey developed by the authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change and variability continue to adversely impact the livelihoods of many agriculture-dependent households in dryland sub-Saharan Africa. Climate vulnerability is shaped by institutions and socioeconomic processes including land tenure arrangements and infrastructural development. This paper employs a participatory mixed-method approach including household questionnaire surveys, key informant interviews, oral narratives and focus group discussions to understand the dynamics of livelihood challenges in 6 dryland farming communities of different vulnerability status in Ghana. Acknowledging the importance of agronomic practices as well as economic and environmental processes in influencing climate vulnerability in dryland farming systems, this paper demonstrates how the complex land tenure system is implicitly involved in shaping the vulnerability of two groups of farmers (migrant farmers in the Ejura Sekyedumase district and female farmers in the Bongo district) by limiting the adaptation options available to these groups. Our results suggest that women's rights regarding land ownership should be formalized in land policy in order to reduce cultural discriminations against them. Opportunities for women to own and formalize land registration titles should be pursued by the Government of Ghana. This will help women to secure property rights over land and land use via mechanisms such as collateral to access credit, which could be used to implement climate adaptation practices. The rights of migrant workers should also be recognized in Ghana’s land policy to provide them with opportunities for adaptation in a similar manner to non-migrants. Climate change adaptation policies should also consider the broader socioeconomic and environmental factors that hinder smallholder farmers' ability to implement adaptation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synopsis This research aims to re-examine interpretations of data collected from second-time mothers about their experiences of becoming a mother to a second child using lenses of ‘rhetoric of choice’ and ‘choice feminism’. The interpretations are reconsidered to identify ways in which tensions between maternal status and researcher positionality have influenced the ways they were reached. The paper describes two studies, each conducted by one of the authors, and the interpretations of the data made at the time the research was carried out. It discusses alternative interpretations and how they challenge both the researcher role and theoretical explanations of gender inequity and attachment. The paper concludes that feminist research can be strengthened by attending to the intersections between maternal status, and positioning as feminist, woman and researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Bipolar II disorder (BP II) is a chronic, frequently co-morbid, and complex disorder with similar rates of attempted suicide to BP I. However, case identification for BP II studies that is based on clinician diagnosis alone is prone to error. This paper reports on differences between clinical and research diagnoses and then describes the clinical characteristics of a carefully defined BP II cohort. Methods A cohort of rigorously defined BP II cases were recruited from a range of primary and secondary health services in the North of England to participate in a programme of cross-sectional and prospective studies. Case identification, and rapid cycling, comorbidities and functioning were examined. Results Of 355 probable clinical cases of BP II disorder, 176 (∼50%) met rigorous diagnostic criteria. The sample mean age was ∼44 years, with a mean duration of mood disorder of ∼18 years. Two thirds of the cohort were female ( n =116), but only 40% were in paid employment. Current and past year functioning was more impaired in females and those with rapid cycling. Limitations This paper describes only the preliminary assessments of the cohort, so it was not possible to examine additional factors that may contribute to the explained variance in functioning. Conclusions This carefully ascertained cohort of BP II cases show few gender differences, except for levels of functional impairment. Interestingly, the most common problem identified with using case note diagnoses of BP II arose because of failure to record prior episodes of mania, not failure to identify hypomania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Regression models for daily mobility, commute distance, time and car use. • Traditional gender roles and relations remain operative in contemporary households. • Lower distances and time are due to women's job status and lower car access. • Evidence for the suitability of the gender interaction terms in our econometric models. • Working men and working women do not have the same sensitivity to mobility determinants. Gender is commonly identified as a key explanatory factor for travel behaviour. Since women's role in societal structure has changed in the past few decades, the question arises as to whether the "gender" factor still plays a decisive role in differences in mobility within the working population. The aim of this paper is to extend the research on gendered differences in mobility by providing an in-depth analysis of how the main determinants of daily mobility affect male and female workers differently. Unlike previous research, our econometric models included terms that express the interactions between the explanatory variables (socioeconomic variables and transport mode access) and a dichotomous gender variable, to accurately identify the marginal impact of gender on mobility indicators. Based on the Rhône-Alpes regional household travel survey (2012–2015), which includes France's second largest urban area, the results show that even if gender differences in employment status and access to the private car are eliminated, differences in travel patterns between men and women would still be observed because the two genders do not have identical factor sensitivities. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that authorities have to adopt a gender perspective to ensure that in the future urban mobility policies provide gender equity in the context of the sustainable development of transport networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Meta-analytic reviews concerning predictors of PTSD in children and adolescents have predominantly identified evidence relating to pre- and post-trauma risk factors; however, there is little evidence regarding peritraumatic risk factors. This paper comprised a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies exploring psychological peritraumatic risk factors for PTSD in youth.Methods: Thirty-two studies were identified. Random effects meta-analyses were undertaken, with meta-regressions to explore the moderating role of study characteristics (gender, sex, timing of assessment after trauma, study quality, design and trauma type) on the size of effect of predictive factors.Results: Peritraumatic subjective threat (k = 28; r = 0.37, 95% CI=0.31-0.42) yielded a medium effect size estimate, while dissociation (k = 5; r = 0.17, 95% CI=0.03-0.29) and data-driven processing (feeling muddled or confused during the trauma) (k = 2; r = 0.29, 95% CI=0.14-0.43) yielded smaller population effect size estimates for the relationship with PTSD symptoms. Perceived life threat yielded a medium sized effect (k = 12; r = 0.37, 95% CI=0.32-0.41). The relationship between subjective threat and PTSD symptoms was moderated by the percentage of female participants. Estimates of heterogeneity were high in studies assessing perceived threat and fear (I2 = 95%), but moderate and low within studies assessing dissociation and data-driven processing (I2 = 57% and 0%, respectively).Limitations: Peritraumatic psychological processes were commonly assessed using single-item measures. Studies primarily concerned single-incident traumas, limiting generalisability.Conclusions: Peritraumatic experiences, particularly relating to subjective threat, are important correlates of subsequent PTSD, which implicates timely assessment of these experiences in youth to inform identification of at-risk groups and implementation and design of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]