In this paper, we examine the relationship between life satisfaction and empowerment in rural Bangladesh. We analyse this relationship across region, religion, gender and income categories using data from the BIHS 2012. This dataset has detailed socio-economic information on co-resident couples and also provides information on the empowerment of individuals within the household. We correct for endogeneity both by including a range of community and household fixed effects to capture the impact of omitted variables as well as by estimating an instrumental variable model in which the average participation rate in community activities is our identifying variable. Our results are robust and indicate a positive relationship between empowerment and life satisfaction. Analysing the sub-components of the empowerment index, we find that women draw less satisfaction from having a say in production decisions and use of borrowed money but gain more satisfaction from membership in groups. The puzzle of "contented women" (i.e. the gender gap in life satisfaction) therefore is partly explained by the fact that men and women differ in the way they draw satisfaction from different domains of empowerment.

The agricultural sector is highly vulnerable to climate change, particularly in drought-prone environments. An understanding of perceptions, adaptation strategies, and their determinants including a gender analysis can benefit vulnerable farmers and policy makers. Using a survey of 360 farming household heads and their spouses, this study identified the intra-household perceptions and their determinants, the major strategies adopted by the farmers to adapt to climate change, and the factors that affect their adaptation decision and choice of strategies including the role of intra-household decision making in a drought prone environment of Bangladesh. The adaptation methods identified include short-duration and drought-tolerant rice varieties, supplementary irrigation for crop production, non-rice winter and horticultural crops, and improved channels for irrigation and water harvesting. Discrete choice model results indicate that age, household size, membership in any organization, access to credit,

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is affecting 251 million lives globally and it causes 3.15 million deaths per year. More than 90% COPD-related deaths happen in low and middle-income countries. In India, three out of five leading causes of mortalities constitute noncommunicable diseases whereas COPD is the second biggest cause of death. The prevalence of COPD has increased by 29.2% by 2016 which is a serious public health concern. The clinicians require treating COPD as per the evidence-based guidelines and managing the comorbidities. To avert the cost of care, an integrated and highly efficient system is required which can promote healthier lifestyle and self-management of the symptoms through a team-based approach comprising different healthcare professionals for delivering planned care. Moreover, smoking and other risk factors should be controlled considering the future benefits of the nation. Also, air pollution and other environmental risk factors are deteriorating day by day in India that is evident in the recently published Environmental Performance Index in which India ranked fourth worst country in the world. To improve the burden of COPD, multifaceted strategies should be adopted to promote positive respiratory health in the individual and population level.

Poverty is a multi-faced problem in the developing world and it is much more complex in rural settings. Hence, policy formulation based on national level studies sometimes fails to find remedies of rural poverty. Thus, the present study aims to identify the determinants of poverty in rural Bangladesh using the nationally representative Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) 2010 data. The HIES follows a hierarchical structure hence, two-level random intercept binary logistic regression models were used to capture the unobserved heterogeneity between communities along with revealing important factors associated with poverty. The analyses found that 32% of the households were absolute poor and 19% were extremely poor in rural Bangladesh. The potential factors having significant association with poverty were found to be age and education of household head, division, household size, household types, number of dependents, per capita income, household own land, access to electricity, amount of cultivable land, engagement in livestock and farm forestry, household non-agricultural assets, number of male earner and number of female earner in the family. Significant community-level variations were observed in the analyses which emphasis the need for special attention on the poor performing communities. Specific policy recommendations have been suggested for the poverty alleviation of rural households in Bangladesh.

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