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Women's access to abortion has been facing challenges by the conservative sociopolitical agencies across the states for decades affecting women's right to health, particularly of reproductive health. Anti-abortion groups across the states in the United States supported by conservative legislators of the state assemblies have been proposing, passing, and enacting laws designed to restrict access to abortion care threatening women's empowerment, gender equality, health, and women's rights. Objectives of this study are to identify major indicators of social development and evaluate their effects on variations in abortion policies across the states in United States. Utilizing the social development perspective, this study measures the cumulative effect of sociopolitical and economic variables on abortion policy scores of the states using discriminant analysis and One-way ANOVA. Independent variables of this study are the state's 2020 presidential election outcome, teen (15-19) birth rate, prevalence of women (15-44) without health insurance, prevalence of female poverty, availability of abortion in the state, and enrollment of women in higher education. As hypothesized, the state's endorsement in the presidential election was identified as a predictor of the state's abortion policy attribute and the extent of abortion law being neutral, supportive, or restrictive. The study found all six independent variables statistically significant and influencing the dependent variable, abortion policy score of states placing them either in the restrictive, neutral, or supportive group. It is evident from the findings that without the support of liberal voters, change in the abortion policies through state legislatives would be difficult. Our result suggests continuing advocacy for reproductive rights particularly during the electoral campaigns to make abortion laws supportive across the states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social development is a concept with multiple definitions. Very few studies have attempted to locate the similarities and dissimilarities among these definitions. The purpose of this speech is to lay out a strategy that takes into account the various theories underlying the current definitions of social development. The definition of social development developed here not only offers a lucid description but also clearly outlines a strategy to measure and evaluate the success of social development programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to identify interrelationships between social development and reproductive health in developing countries. Growth in social development is expected to improve reproductive health over time. In addition, improvements in social development are anticipated from increases in reproductive health. Economic development is seen as a prime force influencing growth processes in both social development and reproductive health. While confirmatory factor analysis methods are used to develop a measure of reproductive health, latent growth curve and latent score difference modelling methods are used to estimate the reciprocal nature of the relationship betweensocial development and reproductive health. It is found that social development has a positive effect on reproductive health. Reproductive health gains over time were accompanied by strong and significant advances in social development levels. At high levels of social development, the rate of reproductive health changes declined. Social workers have for long depended on social development strategies to improve reproductive health in developing countries. The role of reproductive health in improving social development was either neglected or perceived as unimportant. The empirical evidence from this study suggests that strategies for programmes and policies for improving social development and reproductive health may be undertaken simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research on reproductive health in developing countries focuses mostly on the role of economic development on various components of reproductive health. Cross-sectional and empirical research studies in particular on the effects of non-economic factors such as reproductive rights remain few and far between. Objective: This study investigates the influence of two components of an empowerment strategy, gender equality, and reproductive rights on women's reproductive health in developing countries. The empowerment strategy for improving reproductive health is theoretically situated on a number of background factors such as economic and social development. Design: Cross-national socioeconomic and demographic data from a number of international organizations on 142 developing countries are used to test a model of reproductive rights and reproductive health. Results: The findings suggest that both economic and democratic development have significant positive effects on levels of gender equality. The level of social development plays a prominent role in promoting reproductive rights. It is found that reproductive rights channel the influences of social structural factors and gender equality on reproductive health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses articles in the issue on topics including assortment of topics of interest to social development workers and researchers; and social development theory should benefit from the inclusion of concepts from the transformative social protection model .

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including gathering of refugees' narratives for social development programs design, weaknesses in the social work profession practice, and effects of the student loan burden on wealth accumulation.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including scope and content of the social development concept; effect of population growth on economic development; and effect of environmental factors on teen fertility.

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including social development theory with relationship between human rights and environmental rights, gender role socialization and disaster in the Tohoku area of Japan.

The table of contents for the Volume 36, 2014 issue of "Social Development Issues" is presented.

The article announces that the International Consortium for Social Development has entered into a contract with MetaPress to publish the journal online.