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The dimensions of women's autonomy and their relationship to maternal health care utilization were investigated in a probability sample of 300 women in Varanasi, India. We examined the determinants of women's autonomy in three areas: control over finances, decision-making power, and freedom of movement. After we control for age, education, household structure, and other factors, women with closer ties to natal kin were more likely to have greater autonomy in each of these three areas. Further analyses demonstrated that women with greater freedom of movement obtained higher levels of antenatal care and were more likely to use safe delivery care. The influence of women's autonomy on the use of health care appears to be as important as other known determinants such as education.

Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping change these incentives without more direct efforts by economic and social changes in China, India, and the the state and civil society to increase the flexibility of the Republic of Korea. The authors attribute this to their kinship system such that daughters and sons can be similar family systems, which generate strong perceived as being more equally valuable. Much can be disincentives to raise daughters while valuing adult done to this end through social movements, legislation, women's contributions to the household. Urbanization, and the mass media. female education, and employment can only slowly

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For years, sex ratios at birth kept rising in South Korea despite rapid development. We show that this was not an anomaly: underlying son preference fell with development, but the effect of son preference on sex ratios at birth rose until the mid-1990s as a result of improved sex-selection technology. Now South Korea leads Asia with a declining sex ratio at birth. We explore how son preference was affected by development and by public policy. Decomposition analysis indicates that development reduced son preference primarily through triggering normative changes across society-rather than just in individuals whose socioeconomic circumstances had changed. The cultural underpinnings of son preference in preindustrial Korea were unraveled by industrialization and urbanization even as public policies sought to uphold the patriarchal family system. Our results suggest that child sex ratios in China and India may decline before those countries reach South Korean levels of development, since the governments of both countries vigorously promote normative change to reduce son preference. Copyright 2007 The Population Council, Inc..

Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping change these incentives without more direct efforts by economic and social changes in China, India, and the the state and civil society to increase the flexibility of the Republic of Korea. The authors attribute this to their kinship system such that daughters and sons can be similar family systems, which generate strong perceived as being more equally valuable. Much can be disincentives to raise daughters while valuing adult done to this end through social movements, legislation, women's contributions to the household. Urbanization, and the mass media. female education, and employment can only slowly

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This paper examines how different patterns of kinship and inheritance affect intergenerational relationships and the ramifications of gender inequality. Peasant societies of pre-industrial Northern Europe are contrasted with those of contemporary South Asia to illuminate some of these relationships. While Northern European kinship and inheritance systems made for high status in youth and a loss of power and status as people aged, South Asian systems make for lower power and status in youth and a rise as people age.From this follow more conflict-ridden relationships between the generations and a stronger conjugal bond in Northern Europe, while in South Asia intergenerational ties are strong and the conjugal bond is weak. This in turn leads to a greater potential for marginalizing women in South Asia, although gender inequality exists in both settings. The convergence of low autonomy due to youth as well as sex amongst young married women in South Asia means that women are at the lowest point in their life cycle in terms of autonomy during their peak childbearing years. As shown in this paper, this has considerable implications for demographic and health outcomes: in terms of poorer child survival, slower fertility decline, and poorer reproductive health.In recent decades, a great deal has been written in the social sciences on the subject of female status and autonomy in both developed and developing country settings. A subset of this literature has specifically pointed out some of the negative demographic consequences of low female autonomy. In particular, low levels of female education and autonomy have been perceived to be barriers to improving child survival and reducing fertility.Much of this literature focuses on the low status of women relative to that of males. Yet there is also a large body of evidence, especially in the anthropological literature, that a woman's status rises and falls over her life cycle. Several studies highlight the fact that in some societies, women have higher status when they are younger, while in others it is when they are older (Bart 1969;Foner 1984;Vatuk 1987;Yanagisako and Collier 1987). Bart views this as an intertemporal 'zero-sum game', in that status being high at one point of the life cycle is dependent on its being lower at another point. This statement can, of course, be extended to men. Both men and women spend part of their life cycle in a position inferior to that of others of their own sex. This is quite independent of the question of gender inequality, in which it is common for women to have less power and autonomy than men at any given point in their life cycle. Thus in many