Structural hallmarks of language can be explained in terms of adaptation, by language, to pressures arising during its cultural transmission. Here I present a model which explains the compositional structure of language as an adaptation in response to pressures arising from the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners and the biases of language learners themselves.

This article describes the lives of poverty in the context of a specific culture, the Philippines. The goal of this article is to study what it means to be poor and to understand the cultural factors that contribute to this human experience. Two case studies will be presented; one of a Filipino who was born poor and has become materially successful, and another of a Filipino who was born poor a...

This paper presents new evidence on the proportion of women in poverty in ten developing countries. It compares poverty measures for males and females and maleand female-headed households, and investigates the sensitivity of these measures to the use of per-capita and per-adult equivalent units and different definitions of the poverty line. While poverty measures are higher for female-headed ho...

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expresse...

The significance of social development and human wellbeing for all was recognized in the Copenhagen Declaration under the United Nations; hence, the first priorities of the twenty-first century are to achieve social development and to improve human wellbeing. Poverty, in particular, represents the core issue of social development and the urgent need to address a profound social problem that aff...

Researchers’ and practitioners’ recognition of the importance of community social and cultural relations ( “social capital”) to effective implementation of poverty reduction projects and differences in social capital across communities suggest that such projects should be tailored to the types of social capital present in a given community. Drawing upon a data set collected by the Northwest Are...

Structural hallmarks of language can be explained in terms of adaptation, by language, to pressures arising during its cultural transmission. Here I present a model which explains the compositional structure of language as an adaptation in response to pressures arising from the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners and the biases of language learners themselves.

Poverty, cultural belief and refusal to use condoms are some of the factors that contribute to the spread of HIV infection among African communities. There is a dire need to pursue research into the development, provision and the use of microbicides for African women. This review paper provides information and recommendations on the possible use of microbicides to prevent HIV infection among Af...

Several studies have identified associations between poverty and development of self-regulation during childhood, which is broadly defined as those skills involved in cognitive, emotional, and stress self-regulation. These skills are influenced by different individual and contextual factors at multiple levels of analysis (i.e., individual, family, social, and cultural). Available evidence sugge...