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Objective: This article examines the relationship between the exposure of men as children to gender‐equitable parental decision making and the potential for subsequent later life engagement in intimate partner violence (IPV) in Bangladesh. Background: Although researchers have recently begun to explore multilevel influences on IPV perpetration, no studies have examined how decision making between parents at home and within the community relates to IPV perpetration in low‐income settings. Drawing on a theoretical framework of gendered social learning, gender‐equitable parental decision making may be an important protective factor against IPV. Method: This study uses a random probability sample of 1,499 married men in Bangladesh. The main outcome is physical IPV perpetration in adulthood, whereas two exposure variables measure the equity of parental decision making in the man's childhood home and his current community. A series of two‐level negative binomial models, controlling for pertinent individual‐ and community‐level factors, are estimated. Results: Exposure in childhood to more equitable decision making between parents is negatively associated with a man's physical IPV perpetration in adulthood. Gender‐equitable parental decision making within one's current community is not significantly associated with IPV. Conclusion: Boys who grow up exposed to more equitable decision making between parents in the home may be less likely to engage in physical IPV perpetration as an adult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low birthweight increases the risk of infant mortality, morbidity and poor development. Maternal nutrition and stress influence birth size, but their combined effect is not known. We hypothesised that an early‐invitation time to start a prenatal food supplementation programme could reduce the negative influence of prenatal maternal stress on birth size, and that effect would differ by infant sex. A cohort of 1041 pregnant women, who had delivered an infant, June 2003–March 2004, was sampled from among 3267 in the randomised controlled trial, Maternal Infant Nutritional Interventions Matlab, conducted in Matlab, Bangladesh. At 8 weeks gestation, women were randomly assigned an invitation to start food supplements (2.5 MJ d−1; 6 days a week) either early (∼9 weeks gestation; early‐invitation group) or at usual start time for the governmental programme (∼20 weeks gestation; usual‐invitation group). Morning concentration of cortisol was measured from one saliva sample/woman at 28–32 weeks gestation to assess stress. Birth‐size measurements for 90% of infants were collected within 4 days of birth. In a general linear model, there was an interaction between invitation time to start the food supplementation programme and cortisol with birthweight, length and head circumference of male infants, but not female infants. Among the usual‐invitation group only, male infants whose mothers had higher prenatal cortisol weighed less than those whose mothers had lower prenatal cortisol. Prenatal food supplementation programmes that begin first trimester may support greater birth size of male infants despite high maternal stress where low birthweight is a public health concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 8,320 husbands'self reports for the 2006 Urban Health Survey, this article examines the prevalence of physical and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrated by husbands against their wives in Bangladesh and identifies risk markers associated with such violence. Of the men included in the sample for this study, 55 percent reported perpetrating physical IPV against their wives at some point in their married lives, 23 percent reported perpetrating physical IPV in the past year, 20 percent reported ever perpetrating sexual IPV, and 60 percent reported ever perpetrating physical or sexual IPV. Bivariate analyses revealed that men residing in slums had a greater likelihood than those residing in nonslum areas and in district municipalities of perpetrating lifetime and past-year physical IPV, and any lifetime (physical or sexual) IPV. Lifetime sexual IPV prevalence, by contrast, was highest in district municipalities (26 percent), followed by slum (20 percent) and nonslum (17 percent) areas. Net of other factors, low socioeconomic levels were associated with men's increased likelihood of perpetrating IPV. Alcohol and drug use, sexually transmitted disease infection, poor mental health, and holding attitudes supportive of wife beating were predictive of IPV perpetration. These results suggest that IPV-prevention programs targeting men should consider spousal abuse, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors as social and public health problems and should also consider the sociocultural context within which men who abuse their partners are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined the implications of work for the early socialization of young Bangladeshi women. Use of data from a study on garment-factory workers in Bangladesh; How the Bangladeshi society was characterized traditionally; Characteristics girls develop during adolescence; Examination of how opportunities for labor-force participation in the garment manufacturing industry, provide a social setting in which young women experience adolescence.