Thesis (Ph. D.)-- State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Economics, 2009.

With the rising age of marriage and previous research failing to address a more detailed look at more descriptive measures of satisfaction, the current study examined the association between age of first marriage and marital stability, satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and frequency, effective communication, conflict, and problem areas. Results from a sample of 470 participants who completed the RELATE Questionnaire indicated that across the board, those who married from ages 20-24 had better marital outcomes than those who delayed marriage until their thirties and beyond. These results fit a possible theory of explanation that when it comes to age of marriage, a "balanced is better" approach may be more beneficial to couples when it comes to successful marriages.

Seventy years ago Erikson proposed successful identity formation in adolescence was the foundation for successful intimacy formation in young adulthood. With the extended period of identity exploration in emerging adulthood, it is unclear if intimacy formation continues to be connected to identity. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between identity in three domains of love, work, and worldview with long term views of intimacy using Marital Horizons Theory. Results from a sample of 777 college students in the Project READY dataset indicated that identity formation in love is positively associated with views of marriage, identity formation in work has no significant association with views of marriage, and identity formation in worldview is negatively associated with views of marriage. Implications for the transition into marriage and further identity research are discussed.

<p>The Swedish rules for marrying in Sweden are different for swedish citizens and foreigners. A swedish citizen has to have permission from"Länsstyrelsen"to marry before the age of 18 but a foreigner may marry without permission at an age of 15, unless a higher age is required by the foreign law. The main question in this essay is if the swedish international law concerning the age of marriage is compatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the Swedish Constitution. The comparison is based on mainly two questions: Primarily the Swedish international law is discussed concerning which marrying age is good for the child. Thereafter it is discussed whether it is discriminating to have different marrying ages for swedish and foreign citizens. The result is that 18 years is a suitable age for marrying after a comparison with other Swedish laws and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Different age limits for swedish and foreign citizens could not be considered to be discriminating according to the Swedish Constitution, but on the other hand it is discriminating according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.</p>

The Swedish rules for marrying in Sweden are different for swedish citizens and foreigners. A swedish citizen has to have permission from"Länsstyrelsen"to marry before the age of 18 but a foreigner may marry without permission at an age of 15, unless a higher age is required by the foreign law. The main question in this essay is if the swedish international law concerning the age of marriage is compatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the Swedish Constitution. The comparison is based on mainly two questions: Primarily the Swedish international law is discussed concerning which marrying age is good for the child. Thereafter it is discussed whether it is discriminating to have different marrying ages for swedish and foreign citizens. The result is that 18 years is a suitable age for marrying after a comparison with other Swedish laws and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Different age limits for swedish and foreign citizens could not be considered to be discriminating according to the Swedish Constitution, but on the other hand it is discriminating according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In this study we used the data from Afghanistan Health Survey 2006. For this study, 8278 households were randomly selected in which 8281 women aged 10-49 years were interviewed by survey teams using a structured questionnaire. The information was also collected for all children aged 5 years or less from all these households. The sample includes 7843 (13.8%) children under the age of 5 years old. Literacy of mothers (ability to read), age of mother at marriage, number of children, exposure to mass media (listening to radio or watching TV) were the independent variables and BCG vaccination, initiation of breastfeeding (within first hour of life or after first hour); and use of bed net (to protect a child from Malaria) were dependent variables. Chi square and Odd Ratio test was used to test significance of the associations. Logistic Regression test was used to control for the confounders. In this study we found that those listening to radio at least once a week were more likely to start breastfeeding during the first hour of life. Those watching TV at least once a week were more likely to vaccinate their children for BCG. These associations were significant after controlling for confounders (economic status of the family and distance to health facility). The fact that why the other independent variables did not have association with BCG vaccination, initiation of breastfeeding and use of bed net can be either due to limitation of the study or there are other reasons that require further investigations.

The theme of this thesis is to analyze the impact of policy interventions such as financing human development (HD), tax reform and conditional cash transfer programmes, under the framework of growth and sustainable development. These policy instruments are evaluated through the application of both partial and general equilibrium models, and the last paper concentrates on developing regional social accounting matrices (SAMs) as a core database for spatial general equilibrium modelling. Essay 1: Trade-offs in Achieving Human Development Goals for Bangladesh investigates the benefits and costs associated with alternative investment financing options for achieving HD goals by applying the MAMS (Maquette for Millennium Development Goals Studies) model. We find that full achievement of these goals would have led to a GDP loss that would have been significantly larger in the domestic borrowing scenario than in the tax scenario. The tax-financing alternative is thus the better option for financing large development programs. In terms of public spending composition, we find that, under some circumstances, a trade-off arises between overall Millennium Development Goal (MDG) progress and poverty reduction. Essay 2: Welfare impact of broadening VAT by exempting Small-Scale food markets: The case of Bangladesh analyses the welfare impacts of different VAT reforms. A general and uniform VAT on all commodities is preferred as it is more efficient and less administratively costly. However, due to equity concerns, food is normally exempted from VAT. On the other hand, exemptions on food mean that an implicit subsidy is provided to high-income households. Hence, we analyze a broad-based VAT regime with a high threshold that excludes small-scale operators (where the low-income households buy their products most, including food) and the simulation result shows that welfare improves for the low-income households. Essay 3: Effect of Girls’ Secondary School Stipend on Completed Schooling and Age at Marriage: Evidence from Bangladesh estimates the effect of a conditional cash transfer programme on education and age at marriage. We apply both difference in differences (DiD) and regression discontinuity methods to evaluate the impact of the policy instrument. Our estimation results show that the girls in the treatment group who were exposed to the programme had a higher average number of completed years of schooling and also delayed their first marriage compared to the girls in the control group. We also show that the DiD approach might produce a biased result as it does not consider the convergence effect. Essay 4: Estimation of Multiregional Social Accounting Matrices using Transport Data proposes a methodology for estimating multiregional SAMs from a national SAM by applying the cross-entropy method. The methodology makes possible the construction of regional SAMs that are consistent with official regional accounts and minimize deviations from transport data.