Sri Lanka has shown remarkable persistence in low female labor force participation rates—at 36 percent from 2015 to 2017, compared with 75 percent for same-aged men—despite overall economic growth and poverty reduction over the past decade. The trend stands in contrast to the country's achievements in human capital development that favor women, such as high levels of female education and low total fertility rates, as well as its status as an upper-middle-income country. This study intends ...

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com.Would it be possible to provide people with a basic income as a right? The idea has a long history. This book draws on two pilot schemes conducted in the Indian State of Madhya Pradesh, in which thousands of men, women and children were provided with an unconditional monthly cash payment. In a context in which the Indian government at nationa...

As India enters its seventy-fifth year of independence, conventional policy is unlikely to combat the breadth of its economic challenges. Across a range of areas-human capital, technology, agriculture, finance, trade, public service delivery and more-new ideas must now be on the table. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only cost India many lives and livelihoods, it has also exposed major structural weaknesses in the economy.A huge farm and jobs crisis, rising and massive inequalities, ...

Why does poverty persist? A critical, but so far ignored, part of the answer lies in the fact that poverty is regularly created. Large numbers of people are escaping poverty, but large numbers are concurrently falling into chronic poverty. This book presents the first large-scale examination of the reasons why people fall into poverty and how they escape it in diverse contexts. Drawing upon personal interviews with 35,000 households in different parts of India, Kenya, Uganda, Peru, and the...

The race against time has begun, and India is already alarmingly behind. With only fifteen years left of its demographic dividend, India is staring at a stark future – it may age into a poorer nation. Millions remain unemployed, underemployed or trapped in precarious work. India Out of Work is an acute and grave analysis of why the nation must urgently jumpstart its economy and what it will take for it to grow self-sufficient and rich before it grows old. From rural distress to th...

Bhutan has experienced extraordinary change since the 1960s when it opened itself to the world and started the process of planned development. It has transformed itself from a subsistence economy into a middle-income country with rising human development indicators. Yet progress comes with new challenges. These include differences in living conditions and opportunities between rural and urban areas that fuel rural-urban migration, labor shortages in agriculture, and unemployment. There are...

Sri Lanka has long been regarded as a model of a successful welfare state in a low-income setting, yet it has not succeeded in creating a suffi cient number of "good jobs" for the increasing number of young people. Hence, young Sri Lankans perceive their country as an unjust and unequal society, in which mainstream institutions have failed to address inequalities in the distribution of resources, as well as of benefi ts deriving from economic growth.Against this background, The Challenge of Y...

The Last Mile explores the gaps and dichotomy between drafted policies and their implementation, and the last mile challenges which often make public services inaccessible to the poorest and most vulnerable sections of society. It provides an in-depth overview of the dynamics between communities, research and consultation and the implementation of policies for development.Rich in empirical data and case studies from different government programmes and reports, this book ex...

Changing the Indian Economy: Renewal, Reform and Revival explores the fact that post-Modi India is witnessing unprecedented socioeconomic change, truly labeled as Modi's Mantra and his attempts to morph the Indian economic landscape. India is using an intelligent economic process for its renewal and growth, however, in a recent study by Nomura, 2016, The Japanese Financial Services firm, it is reported that there is downside risk to India's baseline forecast of 7.8 per cent GDP growth in 2...

This publication presents a gender equality diagnostic of education, energy, transport, and water and sanitation in Sri Lanka—four sectors which are the major areas of cooperation between ADB and the Government of Sri Lanka. The sector-focused chapters provide insights into the gender equality issues and considerations relevant to sector planning, related government policies and legal frameworks and commitments, and institutional structures for promoting gender equality actions. Each chapt...

Inclusive growth needs to be achieved to reduce poverty and other disparities and raise economic growth. This book develops a poverty profile for India in view of the ongoing national and global efforts toward ensuring inclusive growth and bringing poverty levels down. This poverty profile will enable academics and policy makers to reassess and improve on the existing methodologies in estimating poverty rates, evaluate the effectiveness of existing poverty programs, and suggest alternative...

This book explores the experiences of older women in post-war Japanese society through analysis of their family and housing histories. Three broad themes - family relations, welfare systems and housing - were chosen to highlight issues surrounding the changing role and position of women in the family and society. A qualitative approach is used to address a gap in the literature and to illustrate the real-life experiences of women in Japan. Many aspects of the book are comparable, or relate...