Local Administrative Areas Research Articles

Trends in selective abortions of girls in India: analysis of nationally representative birth histories from 1990 to 2005 and census data from 1991 to 2011

India's 2011 census revealed a growing imbalance between the numbers of girls and boys aged 0-6 years, which we postulate is due to increased prenatal sex determination with subsequent selective abortion of female fetuses. We aimed to establish the trends in sex ratio by birth order from 1990 to 2005 with three nationally representative surveys and to quantify the totals of selective abortions of girls with census cohort data.We assessed sex ratios by birth order in 0·25 million births in three rounds of the nationally representative National Family Health Survey covering the period from 1990 to 2005. We estimated totals of selective abortion of girls by assessing the birth cohorts of children aged 0-6 years in the 1991, 2001, and 2011 censuses. Our main statistic was the conditional sex ratio of second-order births after a firstborn girl and we used 3-year rolling weighted averages to test for trends, with differences between trends compared by linear regression.The conditional sex ratio for second-order births when the firstborn was a girl fell from 906 per 1000 boys (99% CI 798-1013) in 1990 to 836 (733-939) in 2005; an annual decline of 0·52% (p for trend=0·002). Declines were much greater in mothers with 10 or more years of education than in mothers with no education, and in wealthier households compared with poorer households. By contrast, we did not detect any significant declines in the sex ratio for second-order births if the firstborn was a boy, or for firstborns. Between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, more than twice the number of Indian districts (local administrative areas) showed declines in the child sex ratio as districts with no change or increases. After adjusting for excess mortality rates in girls, our estimates of number of selective abortions of girls rose from 0-2·0 million in the 1980s, to 1·2-4·1 million in the 1990s, and to 3·1-6·0 million in the 2000s. Each 1% decline in child sex ratio at ages 0-6 years implied 1·2-3·6 million more selective abortions of girls. Selective abortions of girls totalled about 4·2-12·1 million from 1980-2010, with a greater rate of increase in the 1990s than in the 2000s.Selective abortion of girls, especially for pregnancies after a firstborn girl, has increased substantially in India. Most of India's population now live in states where selective abortion of girls is common.US National Institutes of Health, Canadian Institute of Health Research, International Development Research Centre, and Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute.

Regional Disparity of Social Welfare Services in Local Administrative Areas: Focused on Welfare Facilities

Regional Disparity of Social Welfare Services in Local Administrative Areas: Focused on Welfare Facilities

Village renewal in spatial plans of the community: Example of the SP of Subotica community

Spatial plans of communities, returned to legal framework in 2003 and imposed as obligation for all local communities in Serbia, present a strategic document for development, organization and protection of the whole territory of the community. The base for integral observation and treatment of the urban and rural settlements, within the local administrative area, has been set thereby. The current function of villages has been significantly changed regarding traditional organization and the essential role, that they used to have in the past. First of all, it is a consequence of an intensive deagrarization and industrialization/ urbanization, as a result of official (state) strategy in the middle of the 20. century. As a rule, these processes were painful for villages, leaving them depopulized, with varied age structure of the population and with new relation to agriculture, which led to economic stagnation, social fallow and unclear development perspectives as a consequence. The reconstruction of these areas is, therefore, of enormous interest for development of the whole territory of a community, as well as even intra-communal and broader, intra-regional and intra-national development.

Migration distances: An international comparison

Comparing the level or amount of migration within different countries has been a longstanding problem because the local administrative areas commonly used as the basis for measuring migration vary greatly in size and significance within and between countries. Distance moved is a critical aspect of most concepts of migration, and measuring it would facilitate cross-national comparisons. Apparently only the United States, Great Britain, and Sweden have measured migration distances for the country as a whole, and this information is used as the basis for comparative analysis of spatial mobility.

Local Variations of Fertility in Taiwan

Abstract Taiwan has attracted a considerable amount of demographic interest in recent years because of a marked decline of fertility since 1956. In this paper the authors utilize data from the household registration system to analyse variations of fertility among 292 local administrative areas in 1961. The study reveals a strong negative correlation between total fertility and a series of indicators of social development and communication. Most of the variation in fertility is accounted for by differences in the fertility of married women aged over 30 and in the age at marriage. The decline of total fertility is accounted for primarily by a reduction of the marital fertility of women over 30. The adoption of family limitation was by no means confined to urban centres, but apparently originated there and spread rapidly to small towns and rural areas.