The higher grain production, the more social deprivation? A case study of Henan province in traditional agricultural areas of China

This paper examines the spatial-temporal dynamics of inequality from the perspective of social deprivation in the context of continuous growth of grain production using national census data from 2000 and 2010 for Henan province,China.Our analytical results show an overall level of social deprivation that is high and a widening social deprivation gap at the county level.The social deprivation shows great spatiotemporal heterogeneity,the higher deprived counties are mainly distributed in central and eastern Henan province,while counties with lower social deprivation are clustered in northwestern regions,formed a belt-shape spatial differential between the south(higher deprived counties clustered)and northwest(low deprived counties clustered)Henan in 2000,and changed toward a core-periphery semi annular spatial structure in 2010,the low deprived counties surrounded by high deprived counties.The social deprivation shows a"west low and east high"spatial pattern,similar to the grain production in Henan province.Socioeconomic development level was low in most counties in Yudong plain despite of keeping the continuous increase of grain production,meaning the higher grain output did not result in the more social development expected in Chinese traditional agricultural areas,and the regional disparity is expected to increase in the near future if development conditions are not changed,which could inspire more targeted rural governance options.

Diabetes and COVID-19:Diseases of racial,social and glucose intolerance

Diabetes and coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)are worldwide pandemics that have had a major impact on public health throughout the globe.Risk factors for developing diabetes and having adverse outcomes of COVID-19 appear to be similar;metabolic factors(such as obesity),non-White ethnicity and poorer socioeconomic status appear to be risk factors for both.Diabetes and COVID-19 have a significant effect on populations adversely affected by health inequality.Whilst we hope that COVID-19 will be mitigated by widespread use of vaccines,no such prospect exists for mitigating the pandemic of diabetes.In this brief opinion review,I compare risk factors for diabetes and adverse outcomes of COVID-19 and argue that tackling health and social inequality is likely to play a major role in solving the global diabetes pandemic and improve outcomes of COVID-19.

Syndemic aspects between COVID-19 pandemic and social inequalities

Although the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic has reached all over the world population,it has demonstrated a heterogeneous impact on different populations.The most vulnerable communities which coexist daily with the social inequalities like low access to hygiene and personal protection products,crowded residences,and higher levels of chronic diseases have a higher risk of contact and the spread of infection,beyond unfavorable clinical outcomes.The elevation of the risk of infection exposure can be related to gender due to the presence of a larger contingent of women in essential services,as well as frontline and cleaning professionals who regardless of gender have the greatest exposure to the virus.Such exposures can contribute to the development of fear of contaminating themselves or their family members associated also with the work stress,both of which are related to the emergence of mental disturbances in these populations.Furthermore,conditions of unsanitary living and low socioeconomic status,populations at war,pre-existing social barriers,and ethnicity have contributed to more impact of the pandemic both in the exposure to the virus and access to health services,COVID-19 management,and management of other pathologies.At the same time,factors such as the closing of non-essential services,the loss of jobs,and the increase in household spending aggravated the social vulnerabilities and impacted the family economy.Lastly,the COVID-19 pandemic contributed still more to the impact on women's health since it propitiated a favorable environment for increasing domestic violence rates,through the segregation of women from social life,and increasing the time of the victims with their aggressors.

Later-Life Marital Dissolution in Italy:An Emerging Phenomenon?

The phenomenon of marital dissolution in later life,also referred to as“gray divorce”,is described on the rise in contemporary Western societies.This article contributes to the study of marriage breakdown in older age,with a specific focus on Italian society.First,the temporal trends of this phenomenon are reconstructed using official statistics.The data reveal that,although still relatively rare,the dissolution of marriage in later life is expanding in Italy.The analysis of the period from 1974 to 2015 indicates a rise in the average age at separation,a higher percentage of spouses over 50 years on the total number of couples obtaining legal separation,and an increase in the proportion of Italian spouses separating after many years of marriage.Furthermore,data from the national survey“Family and Social Subjects”,conducted in 2016 by the Italian National Institute of Statistics,are utilized to explore the relationship between specific traits of those who separated and their tendency to dissolve marriages before or after the age of 50.The data suggest that individuals with characteristics such as lower educational attainment,residence in the South and Islands,and adherence to more traditional family models are more likely to experience separation in later life.

International Students’ Feeling of Shame in the Higher Education: An Intersectional Analysis of Their Racialised, Gendered and Classed Experiences in the UK Universities

The literature on international students’ experiences frequently depicts them within a ‘deficient’ framework, highlighting their perceived lack of essential skills for managing their studies. Moreover, international students’ emotional experiences are often construed as personal and psychological attributes, with their emotions viewed as transient and pathological phases that they will eventually overcome to assimilate into the local context. However, there exists a dearth of literature investigating international students’ experiences from a sociological perspective, particularly concerning their emotional experiences within the broader social and political milieu. Utilizing a longitudinal research design to monitor 25 Chinese international postgraduates from multiple universities in London and Glasgow over the course of one year, this study illuminates the racialised, classed, and gendered dimensions of international students’ experiences in UK higher education through an exploration of their feelings of shame. Drawing on the research findings, it is evident that power relations operate insidiously and covertly to systematically frame international students’ experiences as personal or cultural ‘deficiency’. This process represents a form of misrecognition, which manifests in racialised, gendered, and classed feelings of shame, experienced at the personal level as insecurity, ‘stupidity’, exclusion, and self-doubt. Consequently, social and cultural inequalities within higher education are often situated at the individual level.

Feminism Demystified-history and Beyond

The study explores Feminism by focusing broadly on its history and further examining using Marxism and critical discourses by other feminists.Feminism refers to the idea that women and men ought to have equal rights.In 1734,the Swedish Civil Code gave women more rights,most notably prohibiting husbands from selling their wives’possessions without their approval.In her 1790 essay“On the equality of the sexes,”American women’s rights campaigner Judith Sargent Murray claimed that women are just as bright as men.British author Mary Wollstonecraft responded to philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and other 18th-century Enlightenment intellectuals who did not extend their concepts of freedom to women in her 1792 book A Vindication of the Rights of Women.She challenges the idea that women are less logical than males and opposes the injustice.“Who made man the exclusive judge?”she demands.However,Frenchman Charles Fourier coined the term“feminisme”in 1837,marking the beginning of the concept of feminism.The Victorian Social Convention exalted and imposed the domestic roles of wife and mother on most married middle-class women in 19th-century Britain.Career aspirations were restricted because they were not allowed to receive an education on par with that of males.In The Communist Manifesto,German philosophers and revolutionary political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels contend that a bourgeois man regards his wife as nothing more than an apparatus of production.According to Engles,the family is at the core of the violence and oppression that women experience.Marxist feminists saw capitalism and patriarchy as the two fundamental systems that supported the subjugation of women.The British writer and social theorist Harriet Taylor Mill underlined that a lady who could support the family financially and had a good education would be respected by her husband and treated as a partner.However,men utilize rape as a means of controlling women,as seen by the social inequities that still affect women today.It’s shocking to learn that rape was a taboo topic until 1975 when Susan Brownmiller authored Against Our Will:Men,Women,and Rape.There was a notion that said women’s sexuality encourages rape,hence the guilt was frequently placed on the female victims.Nonetheless,postcolonial feminists such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty contend that regardless of their status as powerful or marginal,wealthy or not,women residing in non-Western nations are presumed to be impoverished,uninformed,uneducated,sexually restricted,tradition-bound,and victims.FGM(female genital cutting)has been a custom for at least 2,500 years,still practiced in thirty countries,mostly in Africa,Indonesia,and the Middle East.It is not connected to chastity and purity,guaranteeing that women remain virgins until marriage and remain faithful afterward.In this essay,Finally,I have looked at how women have faced discrimination in a variety of settings,including the home and the workplace,for millennia due to their gender.

Gender inequalities in physical activity among adolescents from 64 Global South countries

Purpose:The aims of this study were to(a)describe gender inequalities in physical activity(PA)among adolescents from Global South countries,and(b)investigate the relationship between gender inequalities in PA and contextual factors,such as geographic region,human development index,gender inequality index,and unemployment rates.Methods:We analyzed cross-sectional data from the Global School-Based Student Health Survey conducted in Global South countries between 2010 and 2020 among 13-to 17-year-old adolescents.Country-context variables were retrieved from secondary data sources(World Health Organization,World Bank,and Human Development Reports).PA was assessed by a self-administered questionnaire querying the number of days in the past week in which participants were physically active for a total of at least 60 min.PA absolute gender inequalities were evaluated by the differences in the prevalence between boys and girls,95%confidence intervals(95%CIs)were estimated using the bootstrap method.Relative inequalities were obtained through Poisson regression.Meta-analyses with random effects were used to calculate pooled estimates of absolute and relative inequalities.Results:Based on 64 Global South countries/surveys,the prevalence of PA was 6.7 percentage points(p.p.)higher in boys than in girls,ranging from 0.5 p.p.in Afghanistan to 15.6 p.p.in Laos(I^(2)=85.1%).The pooled ratio for all countries showed that boys presented a PA prevalence 1.58 times higher than girls(95%CI:1.47-1.70)on average.The highest absolute and relative inequalities were observed in high income countries.Countries with higher Human Development Index rankings and lower Gender Inequality Index rankings also presented greater gender differences.Conclusion:Given that girls are overall less active than boys across the globe,the findings of this study reinforce that macro-and micro-level changes should be actively sought if we aim to increase population levels of PA in adolescents and promote equity in PA.

Educational Opportunities and Dimensions in Rich and Poor Nations＂ Rethinking Global Access and the Inequity Question

This paper presents some important facts about educational opportunities and students＇ access worldwide. Specific facts and scenarios are exhibited and provided to compare education opportunities in rich and poor areas in developed and developing countries. Particularly, this paper surveys and compares forces on educational happening in Nigeria and United States. It argues that despite the much acclaimed democratization of access to education, glaring inequalities can be identified in the way educators and how our students are treated. In regards to quantities and quality of educational resources, education is not equally accessed by all students in our today＇s world. This paper, therefore, recommends that human beings should be given equal access and opportunities to education at all levels; and should be treated with respect and dignity in spite of color, religion, or race wherever they find themselves. This becomes an imperative if mankind is to achieve success in the task of propelling students and Educators to greater achievements. As well, this paper recommends that cultural, institutional, and political powers should be deployed to bring about a more equitable world order.

The Risk of Romantic Sensibility--An analysis of Marianne's Sensibility in Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen is one of the outstanding women writers in the modern history of the U.K. She displayed what the society of England looked like between the end of the 18 th century and the first of the 19 th century with her unique style and particular materials. She also combined her view on value and love in her novels harmoniously. Sense and Sensibility(SS) is one of the masterpieces of Jane Austen. Although it drew fierce debate, its literary value cannot be overlooked. The paper focuses the comments on sensibility of the heroine Marianne, and analyzes the misery and frustration she experiences. Putting Marianne as well as other women in the society where they lived in, the paper uncovers the mask of inequality hidden behind the sensibility and analyzes the reasons why the females stand always in an inferior position. Sensibility is pure. We cannot degenerate our recognition about it because of some unfavorable factors. Obviously, it's significant to establish such ideas in today's society.

Assessing intersectional gender analysis in Nepal’s health management information system:a case study on tuberculosis for inclusive health systems

Background Tuberculosis(TB)remains a major public health problem in Nepal,high in settings marked by prevalent gender and social inequities.Various social stratifiers intersect,either privileging or oppressing individuals based on their characteristics and contexts,thereby increasing risks,vulnerabilities and marganilisation associated with TB.This study aimed to assess the inclusiveness of gender and other social stratifiers in key health related national policies and the Health Management Information System(HMIS)of National Tuberculosis Programme(NTP)by conducting an intersectional analysis of TB cases recorded via HMIS.Methods A desk review of key policies and the NTP’s HMIS was conducted.Retrospective intersectional analysis utilized two secondary data sources:annual NTP report(2017-2021)and records of 628 TB cases via HMIS 6.5 from two TB centres(2017/18-2018/19).Chi-square test and multi-variate analysis was used to assess the association between social stratifers and types of TB,registration category and treatment outcome.Results Gender,social inclusion and concept of intersectionality are incorporated into various health policies and strategies but lack effective implementation.NTP has initiated the collection of age,sex,ethnicity and location data since 2014/15 through the HMIS.However,only age and sex disaggregated data are routinely reported,leaving recorded social stratifiers of TB patients static without analysis and dissemination.Furthermore,findings from the intersectional analysis using TB secondary data,showed that male more than 25 years exhibited higher odds[adjusted odds ratio(a OR)=4.95,95%confidence interval(CI):1.60-19.06,P=0.01]of successful outcome compared to male TB patients less than 25 years.Similarly,sex was significantly associated with types of TB(P<0.05)whereas both age(P<0.05)and sex(P<0.05)were significantly associated with patient registration category(old/new cases).Conclusions The results highlight inadequacy in the availability of social stratifiers in the routine HMIS.This limitation hampers the NTP’s ability to conduct intersectional analyses,crucial for unveiling the roles of other social determinants of TB.Such limitation underscores the need for more disaggregated data in routine NTP to better inform policies and plans contributing to the development of a more responsive and equitable TB programme and effectively addressing disparities.