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Demographic debates in the decades following the 1960s have shaped much of the discourse on population ageing across the world. This paper traces these discourses and research agendas that led to the understanding of demographic transitions in the developed and developing world. The policies were mostly articulated by demographers from the US and ageing was seen more as a challenge for the West. The questions addressed in this paper are that apart from the predictable and unchanging vulnerabilities of ageing voiced earlier by anthropologists and social workers in the 1940–1950s, what were the new risks being articulated by development experts? Once a diffused 'world' agenda was articulated and largely left adrift without resources, what were its afterlives? How did experts in various parts of the world redeploy the global ageing agenda and plan to assert various other alignments? Where did China and India figure in this? The paper locates the debates on India and China in the afterlives of the World Assembly on Ageing held in Vienna in 1982. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban transition is generally imagined as a large-scale permanent migration of people from villages to cities. The formation of new cities is also theorized as occurring through the migration of people. However, recent scholarship implies that parts of India may be witnessing an urbanization process that depends on natural population growth rather than in-migration. This claim carries significant implications for urban theory, but it has never been tested empirically. This article addresses that gap by examining migration patterns in India alongside urbanization—measured in terms of densification of population and built-up area and an economic transition away from agriculture. I find that certain parts of the country, notably the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain, are exhibiting all the trends constitutive of urbanization even as they experience negative net migration—a phenomenon I term "urbanization from within." My analysis also highlights that these same regions see high rates of temporary out-migration—suggesting that human mobilities may play a role in the in situ urbanization of rural settlements, but not in the ways that foundational urban and development theories would predict. I discuss the inequalities of India's economic transition and its spatial regime of social welfare as possible causal underpinnings of the trends I observe. The article's findings suggest that urban social scientists should reevaluate long-held assumptions about the relationship between urbanization and migration in the context of 21st-century urban transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing population, poverty and low status of socio-economic development have put more pressure on available resources in India. It has also posed several policy implications, in which the basic need of healthcare provision is one of the prime administrative tasks for the respective state governments in India. Higher proportion of child and elderly population in total, and the resultant higher dependency ratio in a particular area/region, will necessitate a commensurate increase in public healthcare facilities and hence higher monetary allocation. If a province has comparatively higher fertility rate it would necessitate higher allocation for maternal and child healthcare services. In this paper an attempt is made to examine the relationship between dependency ratio and healthcare expenditure (medical, public health and family welfare), as well as the proportion of healthcare expenditure in the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) in select four southern states of India. The analysis is based on available secondary data for various years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses sex preference for children in Manipur under the assumption that couples satisfied with sex composition of children resort to contraceptive practice to discontinue childbearing. The study is based on primary data on sex composition of living children and contraceptive use collected from a representative sample of currently married women spread over all the districts in the state of Manipur. The analysis reveals that there is moderate son preference invariant of residence and socioeconomic background, but not at the cost of balance sex composition of a boy and a girl. Not all women are satisfied with ‘only daughters’ though ‘only sons’ in the family is acceptable. Son preference is stronger among illiterate and non- working women and women above 30 years of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recognizing the need for good quality, scientific and reliable information for strengthening mental health policies and programmes, the National Mental Health Survey (NMHS) of India was implemented by National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, in the year 2015–2016. Aim: To estimate the prevalence, socio-demographic correlates and treatment gap of mental morbidity in a representative population of India. Methods: NMHS was conducted across 12 Indian states where trained field investigators completed 34,802 interviews using tablet-assisted personal interviews. Eligible study subjects (18+ years) in households were selected by a multi-stage, stratified, random cluster sampling technique. Mental morbidity was assessed using MINI 6. Three-tier data monitoring system was adopted for quality assurance. Weighted and specific prevalence estimates were derived (current and lifetime) for different mental disorders. Mental morbidity was defined as those disorders as per the International Statistical Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision Diagnostic Criteria for Research (ICD-10 DCR). Multivariate logistic regression was conducted to examine risk for mental morbidity by different socio-demographic factors. Survey was approved by central and state-level institutional ethical committees. Results: The weighted lifetime prevalence of 'any mental morbidity' was estimated at 13.67% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 13.61, 13.73) and current prevalence was 10.56% (95% CI = 10.51, 10.61). Mental and behavioural problems due to psychoactive substance use (F10–F19; 22.44%), mood disorders (F30–F39; 5.61%) and neurotic and stress-related disorders (F40–F48; 3.70%) were the most commonly prevalent mental morbidity in India. The overall prevalence was estimated to be higher among males, middle-aged individuals, in urban-metros, among less educated and in households with lower income. Treatment gap for overall mental morbidity was 84.5%. Conclusion: NMHS is the largest reported survey of mental morbidity in India. Survey estimated that nearly 150 million individuals suffer from one or the other mental morbidity in India. This information is to be used for planning, delivery and evaluating mental health programming in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of an extensive literature study on the challenges and perspectives of social security in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), the authors of this article have been able to determine a set of 20 common challenges to the BRIC countries. The challenges focused on are the lack of social security paradigm, the coverage of all the (working) population, demography, changing family patterns and internal migration, interaction between economic development and social security, the diversity of economic and social realities within one country, the lack of transparency of the social security system, poverty alleviation and basic needs, the lack of solidarity and interaction between social assistance and social insurance, the weak interconnection between social security actors, the place of private actors in social security, pensions and other income replacement, the access to a qualitative health care and care, inflation and the validity of commitments for the future, identification and information technology–related issues, globalization and worldwide competition and the need for a sustainable financial and economic basis. On the basis of an analysis of each of these challenges, the article aims to give an insight into where the BRIC countries stand today and what their future plans are both on a governmental level and on a nongovernmental level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Even though personality disorders are common among psychiatric populations, the data from India on their prevalence and demography are sparse.Aim: To profile the prevalence and demography of personality disorders in North India.Methods: The retrospective study was based on patients attending the outpatient of a general hospital psychiatric centre in North India between June 1996 and June 2006. The specified data were collected from the case records of those receiving a primary or comorbid ICD-10 diagnosis of a personality disorder.Results: Personality disorders had a prevalence of 1.07%, with a preponderance of those aged 21–40 years (69.4%), men (64.9%), employed and students (37.3% and 32.8% respectively), unmarried (56%), graduates and undergraduates (27.6% each), and referred by the family (68.7%). The most common personality disorders were anxious-avoidant and borderline. Compared with the anxious-avoidant group, the borderline group was younger (mean age 24.44 vs 29.66 years) and had a preponderance of females (60% vs 27.1%).Conclusion: The prevalence of personality disorders among the psychiatric outpatients was low compared to most of the research literature reporting clinically diagnosed personality disorders. The differences between the borderline and anxious-avoidant personality disorder subjects were largely explained by interrelated demographic variables. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Limited data is available for family burden in anxiety disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), particularly from the developing world where families are the primary source of support for patients. Aim: To compare family burden in patients with OCD and schizophrenia in an Indian setting and to examine the influence of caregivers' demographics, patients' illness severity and disability on family burden. Method: This comparative cross-sectional study assessed family burden in key relatives of patients with OCD (n = 50) and schizophrenia (n = 30) respectively. Results: Indian families experience signifi cant degrees of burden in the care of their relatives with OCD and schizophrenia. Key relatives' demographic characteristics did not influence burden severity. Illness severity and patients' disability had a direct positive relationship with perceived family burden. Conclusion: Indian families of patients with OCD experience burden comparable to that of families of patients with schizophrenia. There is a need to develop local needs-based support programmes for families of patients with psychiatric disorders in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory study is an attempt to appraise concern for environmental pollution in India, in a local context. Taking into account a possible East-West difference in conceptualizing environmental concern, it attempts to understand the role of different sociodemographic variables in predicting 'environmental concern' in an Indian context. The much exercised HEP-NEP distinction developed in the West seems inappropriate in the Indian context due to wide differences in traditions and the dominant worldviews. Collecting data from a purposive household survey of 375 respondents, an understanding of major sociodemographic determinants of environmental concern using correlation and multivariate regression analysis has been attempted. The findings are also compared with results from other studies in the West on the whole along with the Health of the Planet (HOP) Survey, 1993 findings on 'Willingness to Pay' for India, in particular. The study exhibits a significant positive association of environmental concern with residence, education and income, supporting social class analysis based on a postmaterialism thesis. While age fails to show any significant influence, 'caste', a traditional Indian institution, reflects a positive association supporting the elitist bias hypothesis of environmental concern. The study emphasizes the need for further empirical explorations in this regard in order to examine environmental concern in India in a more effective way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the projected population explosion in Kerala, India. The author points out the misconception to regard population control programs as purely a medical problem. The article provides an excerpt from J.K. Galbraith's book "The Culture of Contentment," which describes how American society has changed from one in which the economically and socially fortunate were a minority.