Showing papers on "East Asia published in 1984"

Family planning program effort and birthrate decline in developing countries.

Abstract: Preliminary results from a study of family planning program effort in 93 developing countries indicate that family planning programs can contribute substantially to increased contraceptive usage and declines in fertility. Questionnaires were used to rate countries on 30 items grouped into 4 components: policy and stage-setting activities service and service-related activities recordkeeping and evaluation and availability and accessibility of services. The countries with the highest program effort scores out of a possible 120 for 1982 were China (101) Republic of Korea (96.9) Singapore (95.3) Taiwan (92.6) Indonesia (87.1) Colombia (85.3) Mauritius (84.6) Hong Kong (82.6) and Sri Lanka (81.6). 4 countries--Kampuchea Laos Libya and Mongolia--had scores of 0. Unweighted mean program effort scores by region were 55 for South and East Asia 46 for Latin America 24 for the Middle East and North Africa and 18 for Sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 9 countries that improved their program effort scores by 25% or more in 1972-82 7 are in South and East Asia or Latin America. 18 countries (including Brazil China Colombia Indonesia Thailand and Turkey) had declines in their crude birth rates of at least 25% in the 1965-80 period and an additional 16% had declines of 10% or more. However no significant fertility declines occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa or in most of the Arab and Muslim countries. Contraceptive prevalence in the 74 countries for which data were available ranged from 0-80% with an average of 26% of married women of reproductive age. The birth rate declines and contraceptive prevalence increases in an orderly manner as program effort and socioeconomic setting improve. The article concludes with case studies of countries representing each of 3 program effort categories: Colombia (strong) Malaysia (moderate) and Kenya (weak). It is suggested that the collection and analysis of program information can help program administrators government and private sector policy makers and donor agencies to improve program perforance. Final study results will be available in a forthcoming World Bank monograph. (summaries in ENG SPA FRE)

Asian labor migration to the Middle East.

Abstract: There are currently between two and three million Asian workers in the Middle East, a tenfold increase in fewer than ten years. Pakistan and India each have about 800,000 workers in the Middle East (Demery, 1983). The increase in labor migration from Asia to the Middle East accompanied a rapid expansion in the economic and social development plans of the oil-exporting countries in the Middle East subsequent to the 1973 oil embargo. The indigenous labor forces in the oil-exporting countries were relatively small and lacked the necessary technical skills to carry out these ambitious development plans (Minocha et al, 1983). Labor shortages were exacerbated by an aversion to manual labor on the part of workers in the oil-producing countries and by low labor force participation rates for women (Birks and Sinclair, 1979). To fill this gap, foreign workers were originally brought in from other countries in the Middle Eastern region. When the supply of qualified, cost-effective Arab workers became tight, however, the oil-ex? porting countries began to diversify their sources of labor, first drawing on workers from South Asia and more recently expanding their horizons to East and Southeast Asia. The major labor-exporting countries in Asia are, in general, highly favorable toward labor migration and they have taken steps to facilitate the flow of workers to the Middle East. Many of these countries have come to rely heavily on remittances from the Middle East (currently totaling about $6 bil? lion annually) for precious foreign exchange. Labor migration has also been viewed as providing a safety valve for widespread unemployment and underemployment in the sending countries. Only recently have some of the

Provincial variation of urbanization and urban primacy in China.

Abstract: Compared to other developing countries, China has a low urbanization level as a result of government policy to control urban development since 1949. However, there is much regional variation in urbanization and urban primacy among its 26 provinces. This paper attempts to analyze the provincial variation in urbanization and urban primacy of China in 1978 by factor analysis and regression techniques. In China, government policy does not only slow down the overall rate of urbanization but also has profound influence on provincial variation in urbanization and urban primacy. Low urban primacy in the eastern provinces is mainly the result of the urbanization policy of controlling the development of large cities that favours the development of small and medium cities. The spatial industrial policy of decentralizing industries from the coastal provinces to interior provinces encouraged high urbanization and urban primacy in the western interior provinces of China.

Migration of women to cities: the Asian situation in comparative perspective.

Abstract: Contrary to the popular notion that women migrate only as part of families and therefore the causes and consequences of their migration are those of their spouses or families studies of migration in some Asian countries have reported indications of increasing numbers of young women joining the migrant flow to the cities. Many of the women go on their own to find employment in the service manufacturing and informal sectors as factory and assembly line workers as in Southeast Asia. The Philippines has the highest level of female participation in rural-urban migration. However there is no consistent selectivity of 1 sex over the other in the migration process within subregions except perhaps in the South Asian countries such as India Pakistan and Sri Lanka which show male selectivity in migration to the cities. In East Asia women also form a majority among migrants to the cities in South Korea. Japan appears to have male dominant migrant streams while the pattern in Taiwan and Malaysia seem to be in transition toward increasing female migration. Female migration appears to be associated with: 1) female participation in agriculture; 2) availability of job opportunities for women in the cities; and 3) sociocultural restrictions on the mobility of women. In keeping with this typology by Boserup (1970) the present study finds a positive correlation between employment opportunities for women in the cities and female migration as in the case of Thailand the Philippines Malaysia and Taiwan. In Thailand and the Philippines women face a flexible attitude toward their roles and few cultural restrictions on their movement whereas in Taiwan and Malaysia benefits of development and monetary attractions have weakened previously strong traditional forces. Alternatively where cultural and religious constraints on freedom of movement continue to exist for women along with few economic opportunities as in the South Asian countries a relatively low level of female migration is observed. There is also much evidence that rural-urban migration of men as well as women is positively linked to schooling.

Imperialism in Transition: British Business and the Chinese Authorities, 1931–37

Abstract: According to current Chinese views, in 1949 China was liberated from three major evils: feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism. The present article takes a closer look at the relationship between the two last mentioned. The period chosen is the early and mid 1930s, which was marked by growing tensions between the powers in East Asia, by acute economic depression and subsequent recovery, and by the gradual extension of the Nanjing Government's control over the country. On the foreigner's side, the focus will be on the British experience at a time when Great Britain's political position in the Far East was being overshadowed by Japan's thrust towards hegemony. It will be argued, the widening gap between Britain's political and economic presence in China was partly bridged by increasingly close co-operation between British business and the Chinese ruling elite.

Developmental States in East Asia:Editorial Introduction

Abstract: For Friedrich List, concerned above all with how Germany could develop manufacturing industry at a time when British manufactures were sweeping all before them, the distinction between these two kinds of economics was vital. What we know as classical economics was, of course, List's 'cosmopolitical economy'. It operated on the Enlightenment assumption of citizens of the world as economic men, seeking competitive advantage in free international and internal trade. Marxian economics introduced class distinctions, but gave the division of citizens of the world into nations no more significance than it had in classical economics.

East Asian migration to the Middle East: causes, consequences and considerations.

Abstract: In 1983 possibly more than 1 million East Asians were working in the capital-rich labor-short countries of the Middle East. This article reviews the causes and consequences of this new migration flow and notes emerging political military and economic linkages between East Asia and the Middle-East. (EXCERPT)

Price, trade, and welfare effects of agricultural protection: The case of East Asia

Abstract: During the 1960's and 1970's, the extent of agricultural protection increased rapidly not only in Japan but also in South Korea and Taiwan By the early 1980's food prices in East Asia averaged two or three times international levels, rivalling those in Western Europe A multi-commodity stochastic simulation model measures the extent to which policies in East Asia have reduced the mean and increased the variance of international prices for grain and meat, reduced world trade in these products and affected economic welfare in East Asia and elsewhere The effects of continued growth in East Asia's protection through the 1980's (leading to rice export surpluses) are then compared with the effects of partial liberalization

World Regional Geography: A Question of Place

Abstract: Part 1 The human world remade: the human world remade the geography of development. Part 2 The technological world: Western Europe North America the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe Japan and Korea: the East Asian rim Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific world. Part 3 The developing world: Latin America China South Asia Southeast Asia the Middle East and North Africa Africa map scale topographic maps map projections urban mapping: Tokyo mapping water need - water-balance diagrams cartograms mapping with isolines mapping population remote sensing of the environment the beginnings of cartography map symbols list of geolabs: location theory: the Von Thnen model spatial diffusion formal regions - the use of Venn diagrams megalopolis - a coalescing of cities environmental perception elevation and environment culture regions: core, domain, and sphere central place theory the monsoon rural settlement patterns climographs of human comfort n

Korea's First Newspaper: The Japanese Chōsen shinpō

Abstract: In 1881, the Japanese introduced the newspaper as a means of public communication into Korea. Publication of the Chōsen shinpō in the open port of Pusan is related to the political and economic circumstances in which the Japanese found themselves there. Elsewhere in East Asia, a comparable role was played by Westerners. In addition to viewing the Chōsen shinpō in the context of Japanese efforts to influence Korea's modernization, the author suggests studying this newspaper as a component of the comparative history of the press in East Asia.

East Asia and the Pacific

Abstract: This region is a composite of two very different groups of countries in East Asia and the Pacific. The former has two of the world’s most populous states, China and Indonesia, the latter includes a number of the world’s smallest nation states. This makes for considerable difficulty in interpreting regional data. However, overall the region made significant progress at almost all levels of education during the 1990s. But while East Asia and the Pacific almost achieved universal primary education early in the decade, it is moving away from this goal. Commitments to international treaties and declarations2 by a significant number of countries will have to be fulfil led3 to achieve EFA. Regional Overview

The ability of South and East Asia to meet the labor demands of the Middle East and North Africa

Abstract: The ability of countries in Southern and Eastern Asia to meet the labor demands of the Middle East is investigated. The socioeconomic and political impact of international labor migration on the sending and receiving countries is discussed. The nature of the labor supply from Southern and Eastern Asia is examined with a focus on the case of Pakistan and the Republic of Korea. The effects of domestic policies and programs that encourage labor exports and of incentives or disincentives in the receiving countries are considered. (ANNOTATION)

The future of Soviet-North Korean relations

Abstract: : This report examines factors that have influenced the Soviet relationship with North Korea to the present time, and evaluates the prospects for this relationship over the next decade. It attempts, in particular, to isolate and weight those factors that could make for significant change, particularly those that could contribute to greater instability on the Korean peninsula. From the perspectives of both the Soviet Union and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea the bilateral relationship has for many years been difficult and cool. There is reason to believe that we are entering a rather fluid and dynamic period that might present Moscow and Pyongyang with both new dangers and new opportunities. From the North Korea perspective, the most volatile factor concerns perpetuation of the ruling regime. On the Soviet side, there are two factors that could impel the Soviet leadership to consider important changes in policy. One would be the possibility of obtaining concrete security benefits. The other factor would be a decision by the U.S. to use South Korea as a platform for long-range theater nuclear weapons directed at the Soviet Union.