Educational software in the form of games or so called “computer assisted intervention” for young children has become increasingly common receiving a growing interest and support. Currently there are, for instance, more than 1000 iPad apps tagged for preschool. Thus it has become increasingly important to empirically investigate whether these kinds of software actually provide educational benef...

OBJECTIVE To explore trends in socioeconomic disparities and under-five mortality rates in rural parts of the United Republic of Tanzania between 2000 and 2011. METHODS We used longitudinal data on births, deaths, migrations, maternal educational attainment and household characteristics from the Ifakara and Rufiji health and demographic surveillance systems. We estimated hazard ratios (HR) fo...

OBJECTIVE This paper examines gender, caste and economic differentials in child mortality in the context of a cluster-randomized trial of vitamin A distribution, in order to determine whether or not the intervention narrowed these differentials. DESIGN The study involved secondary analysis of data from a placebo-controlled randomized field trial of vitamin A supplements. The study took place ...

A s family is important to the socialization of children , it plays an important role in the development of children's intellect and personality. In order to control the country's population, the People's Republic of China has implemented the one child's policy for the last two decade. Today, over 90% of all urban children, and over 60% of rural children have no brothers or sisters. What is the...

A colleague going on a surgical mission to rural Guatemala asked the author if she could obtain a handheld instrument for the trip. She went one better and provided the hands to operate it, and in return learned new skills along with some unforgettable life lessons.

Sex Ratios and Crime: Evidence from China’s One-Child Policy Sex ratios (males to females) rose markedly in China in the last two decades, and crime rates nearly doubled. This paper examines whether the two are causally linked. High sex ratios imply fewer married men, and marriage has been conjectured to be a socializing force. Our paper exploits the quasi-natural experiment generated by the Ch...

The XO computer is a rugged, low power, low cost laptop intended for educating children aged 6-12 in developing countries. One Laptop per Child, a non-profit programme originally created at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America, distributes them to governments of developing countries that are committed to funding and supporting its programme to enable learning through collaboration, ...

This paper investigates the influence the decline in the family size on household size through a Chinese family planning policy, the One-Child Policy (OCP). I find the evidence of the negative effect at the micro level using Chinese household survey data. I also study the aggregated effect using Chinese provincial level data. With the concern of endogeneity, I use a two-stage least square regre...

Genomics data, including full sequences of the golden orb-weaver (Nephila clavipes) and other species, are revolutionizing our understanding of spider evolution. These data are also revealing the molecular complexities of spider venom and their silk, which companies have long sought to commercialize—with little success so far. See pages 288 and 293. Photo: Westend61 GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo FEATURES

Objectives: The parent-child relationship is one of the strongest predictors of a child’s adjustment during adulthood. Many hearing-impaired children have normal hearing families, and this issue adversely affects the parent-child relationship; however, studies on interventions have focused on high-risk clinical specimens. Methods: The effect of the Faranak parent-child program (Persian v...