Gender Bias in China,South Korea and India 1920–1990: Effects of War,Famine and Fertility Decline

How has the history of the twentieth century affected the extent of female disadvantage in child survival in China, South Korea and India, and how has this in turn shaped spousal availability and marriage payments? These three countries have similar kinship systems which generate discrimination against girls, and they show the highest levels of excess female child mortality in the world. This article explores how the extent of excess female child mortality was influenced by historical events in these countries in the period 1920–90, and discusses some of the substantial social ramifications of resulting changes in sex ratios. The authors hypothesize that these changes encouraged the retention of brideprice in China while dowry became the norm in India, and illustrate how these demographic changes have influenced the extent and manifestations of violence against women.     

Child and Adolescent Obesity and Employment Sector in Urban China

Despite its importance as a part of the economic reform in China, sectoral employment has been overlooked as a potential determinant of child and adolescent obesity (CAO). Using large-scale longitudinal data from surveys conducted from 1989 to 2006, this paper examines the relationship between the sector in which a parent is employed and CAO, with the sector being based on ownership and categorised as either state or non-state. Analyses of over 1700 children and adolescents show that children and adolescents whose parents work in the state sector are less likely to be obese. Patterns of sectoral employment's effect are robust across time periods, in fixed-effects models, and across multiple measures of obesity. Additionally, the paper shows that socioeconomic characteristics of the parent, such as income, education, and occupation, typically thought to be important predictors of CAO, are not as important when the parental working sector is included in the models.     

Independent Child Migration and Education in Ghana

Drawing on interviews with young migrants who have moved from rural, farming households in northeastern Ghana to rural and urban households in central and southern Ghana, this article explores the inter‐connections between children's migration and children's access to formal and non‐formal education. In contrast to the positive light in which education is usually presented, the findings of the research suggest a more ambiguous and complex picture, and illuminate both positive and negative aspects of the linkages between education and children's independent migration.     

Women,Gender and Migration along a Mediterranean Frontier: Pre‐Colonial Tunisia,c.1815–1870

This paper investigates gendered mechanisms for regulating migrants and migration in a pre‐colonial Muslim state, Tunisia, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the eve of colonialism. Trans‐Mediterranean migration to, and permanent settlement in, nineteenth‐century Tunis, the capital city, constituted a major stimulus for political, cultural and social transformations that endured into the colonial period. Employing diverse documentation, the case study analyses this Mediterranean migratory current of ordinary women and men to test the theoretical literature based primarily on trans‐Atlantic movements, which has emphasised the ‘diversity of social positioning’ for women migrants. The paper argues that for pre‐colonial Tunisia, a state that was both an Ottoman province and a part of the larger Mediterranean world, the system of diplomatic protection represented a critical form of positioning. Moreover, Mediterranean states, both European and Muslim, had a long tradition of controlling the movements of women in port cities. Two distinct historical moments in the settlement of women from the Mediterranean islands in pre‐colonial Tunisia are compared. This approach not only enables an assessment of whether women's movements across international borders can attenuate, if only momentarily, patriarchal authority, but also encourages reflection on how gender explains historical variations in global migratory displacements as well as to what extent colonialism serves as an satisfactory explanatory framework for the gendering of communal boundaries.     

Pocketing the Difference: Gender and Pockets in Nineteenth–Century Britain

This study situates pockets as significant gendered objects in the dress and lives of men and women in the period from the 1790s to 1914. Using surviving examples and a diverse range of visual and documentary sources, it examines the role of pockets in the consumption of personal possessions and money, and explores how pockets occupied a special place in relation to the body and its gestures. By revealing differences in the way men and women used their pockets, the study concludes that pockets embodied change and complexity within the consumption of fashion and the construction of gender.     

Female Migration and Urban Labour Markets in Tianjin

The spontaneous, large-scale population movement from the countryside to the cities witnessed in China since the early 1980s has drawn increasing attention in academic circles. However, research has tended to focus on quantitative macro-level data collection and interpretation rather than on the experiences of those involved in the migratory process. Using qualitative research methods, this article presents the experiences and perceptions of the Chinese rural female migrants as narrated by themselves. It attempts to identify by this means the major forces behind rural women's out-migration and the institutional changes and structural barriers that have shaped women's lives and experiences in the migratory process. The author argues that women are actors and agents in this unprecedented economic and social transformation. Through their active engagement in the urban labour market, female migrants have challenged both the traditionally defined gender roles and the spatial and socio-economic boundaries that have been structurally designated to them. Their actions may catalyse a radical rearrangement of the social, political and sexual orders.     

Employment Opportunities,Wages and International Migration in Sweden 1970–1989

In this study I focus on the impact of aggregate labor turnover and regional labor market conditions on gross in- and out-migration within the framework of a neoclassical flexible-wage (equilibrium) model and a fixed-wage (labor-market disequilibrium) model. Using annual panel data on internal gross migration flows in Sweden from 1970 to 1989, I find that regional differences in employment opportunities have the expected effects on migration. The empirical relationship between real wages and gross migration flows is found to be less congruent with theory implications, indicating that compensated regional income prospects are equalized primarily via the interaction between employment opportunities and gross migration flows. Cyclical changes in hirings are shown to have a robust and strongly significant positive scale effect on migration.     

Structural Change and Regional Disparities in Xinjiang,China

The paper by a noted American geographer and a specialist based in Germany examines and analyzes recent economic growth and structural change in the strategically significant and resource-rich (including oil and gas deposits) region of Xinjiang. The authors identify regional variation in the trajectory of economic development at the urban and county levels, employing conceptual approaches related to structural shifts in economic sectors and focusing on shifts in employment from agriculture to activities in the secondary and tertiary sectors. They also investigate the role of the tertiary sector using a labor transition model, examining its functioning in the context of the industrial sector's absorption of labor in the transitional economy of China. Calculations are based on the most recent official statistical data released by national and regional governments and available at present (mid-2006). Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J21, J24, O18, R11. 9 figures, 4 tables, 45 references.