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<p>The study focuses on primary and secondary education rather than tertiary education as primary schools enrol the largest number of Rwandan students and absorb the major share of public spending on education.</p>

Economists today agree that growth is fundamental in reducing poverty. But the strength of the relationship between the two has been debated, and there is a lack of satisfactory explanations to why the growth elasticity of poverty differs between countries. Solid democratic institutions have been mentioned as a means to ensure that growth is shared by the poor, but this proposition has not been assessed empirically. Using a data set including 157 intervals from 57 developing countries I estimate the elasticity of poverty to growth. I also use two different democracy indices to test the hypothesis that growth in democracies is more poverty-reducing than in non-democracies. Several other macroeconomic variables are also included in the model to analyze the determinants of the growth elasticity of poverty. Using several measures of growth and poverty, I find strong support that poverty is reduced by economic growth, with the elasticity estimated to be around -2. I do not, however, find any robustly significant determinants of the impact of growth on poverty. The results give some indication that the growth elasticity of poverty is higher in partly free countries than in nonfree countries. However, contrary to the hypothesis, there is stronger evidence that growth in fully democratic countries reduces poverty less than it does in partly free countries. None of the other macroeconomic variables are found to have a significant impact on how poverty responds to growth.

In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered a geographic concentration of Type 2 Diabetes patients in 11 Southeastern states in the United States. Since its acknowledgement by the public health community, little has been done to address the rising rates of diabetes onset and resulting mortality. This thesis provides a medical anthropology analysis to the 'Belt' by critiquing secondary sources in order to construct a productive discussion on socio-medical contributors to Type 2 Diabetes. My thesis documents the numerous social, economic, political, historical, and medical barriers to health equality in the Southern United States and their influence in determining individual, community and population health. Additionally my thesis provides policy recommendations that if enacted, would dramatically equalize the United States health care system. By addressing a current public health crisis in the United States, my thesis provides necessary scholarship on health inequality in the 21st century.

<p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2010. Felaktigt angivet år på spikbladet</p>

The <i>Hukou</i> system has been a basic institution in Chinese society for several decades. My thesis explores whether, after nearly 30 years of reform and opening up in China, this system still plays a role in individuals lives and if so, what is this role? This study uses qualitative data from policy documents and quantitative data from the China General Social Survey 2003 to examine differences in income and access to welfare services among rural and urban <i>Hukou</i> holders and in <i>Hukou</i> status conversion both before and since the reform era and point out that the <i>Hukou</i> system contributes to inequality in individuals life chances in two dimensions: resource allocation and <i>Hukou</i> status conversion. The findings show that urban residents are advantaged in resource allocation before and in the reform era; the control mechanism of quota and policy for <i>Hukou</i> status conversion from rural to urban in the pre-reform era was replaced by the locally defined but nationally enforced entry conditions or requirements in reform era. The talented people, the CCP members, the people who have permanent jobs in urban areas, and the people whose family members hold urban Hukou are more likely now to overcome the <i>Hukou</i>-based control. The <i>Hukou</i>-based migration control continues on a localized basis and excludes the majority of rural residents from access to the rights enjoyed by urban residents. The findings of this thesis indicate that the consequences of the Hukou system continue today and additional reform still needs to be introduced.

This thesis provides an integrated overview on the historical and contemporary literature dedicated to the study of within-country income inequality in Latin America. The central hypothesis of this report is that there are underlying factors that drive the persistent levels of high within-country inequality experienced by Latin American countries. We study two countries, Brazil and Bolivia, through the process of reform and growth, and note the effects on the labor markets. Using all available statistics and the wealth of knowledge compiled since the early 1980s, this study identifies those trends, and the factors that cause them to reappear in numerous cases across South America. Focusing on periods of recession and post-stabilization growth in countries with rising or consistently unequal distributions of wealth, this report identifies viable trends in unemployment, linking them to external events and the social climate of Latin America. Employing case-study methodology (see Chapters 6 and 7) this thesis builds a framework with which to study national and regional inequality, then applies it to two cases: Brazil and Bolivia. This thesis’ main findings are that the political and economic reforms and restructurings during the crisis in the 1980s, and the post-1980 era of stabilization and growth, generally perpetuated or worsened the levels of income inequality for countries in Latin America. Further analysis concludes that unsustainable external debt, boom-and-bust cycles, more deeper-seated cultural factors cannot be overlooked. Low government spending on social and educational development is the unfortunate consequence of copious external debt and public interest payments in Latin America; instead of promoting long-term growth, Latin American regimes are instead forced to focus on high interest rates and protecting wildly volatile currencies. Ethnic composition, entrenched class-structure, and cultural norms each play significant roles in income disparity, the extent of which varies by case. The limitations of this research are firstly, that regression analysis is inconclusive; no strong correlation between growth and inequality can be observed, even within the highly unequal region of Latin America.. Further, tax data, which provides the basis for measurements of income inequality, varies from country to country, making cross-country statistical meta-analysis difficult. Lastly, data was not collectible until the early 1980s, and has missing observations, further complicating the task of statistical analysis. Thus, this study bases its findings on empirical evidence, data, and basic economic theory, in explaining the factors and causes of inequality.

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This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on women with endometriosis, a gynecological condition in which tissue similar to the endometrium, or lining of the uterus which is shed during menses, grows elsewhere in the body. Despite a growing understanding of the disease in medical literature, it is still not well known by the general population or fully understood by the medical community. The paper incorporates a biomedical understanding with Emma Whelan’s idea of these women as an epistemological community, autoethnography, and narratives of sufferers in order to understand how women discuss, experience, and form communities around it. It draws upon individual interviews, a focus group, and readings of medical and social science literature and found that women of dissimilar socioeconomic backgrounds approached and discussed the disease distinctively from one another with three phases of coping with the illness: the discovery, quest, and revelation.

This thesis aims to investigate if there are differences between men and women in rural and urban areas on perception of women empowerment. The focus is on girls’ education and development in a post – colonial country. Semi structured, qualitative interviews were conducted in Babati district, Tanzania in February 2011. In order to obtain as much useful information and data as possible several research questions were focused on during the fieldwork. These were: What is the perception on empowerment of women, according to local men and women in rural and urban Babati? , How does a gender gap in school affect development, according to local men and women in rural and urban Babati? , Is the patriarchal heritage an obstacle for development and gender equality, according to local men and women in rural and urban Babati? , Why are urban areas more equal than rural areas, according to local men and women in rural and urban Babati? The conclusion is that people in rural and urban areas are very similar in their opinions’ of empowerment of women and education for girls. The traditional social and cultural structures are often obstacles for development.