Population Council Research that makes a difference

Poverty, Gender, and Youth Program Seminar Series

2011 schedule
Sponsored by the Population Council's Poverty, Gender, and Youth program

Seminars are held from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm at the Population Council, One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (on Second Avenue between 47th & 48th Streets), in the John D. Rockefeller seminar room (JDR-A) on the 9th floor. Please RSVP to pgy-seminar@popcouncil.org so that your name can be provided to security in the building lobby. Enter the building at the 48th Street entrance.

If you are unable to attend a seminar but would like to view a presentation online via WebEx, e-mail your request to pgy-seminar@popcouncil.org.

For further information on seminars or to be added to the seminar announcement mail list, please contact seminar organizer Sajeda Amin.

14 December 2011
Speaker: Robert McDonald, Senior Scientist, Sustainable Land Use, The Nature Conservancy
Title: "Getting freshwater to another 3 billion urbanites: Global urban growth and freshwater provision"

• Speaker bio
  Dr. Robert McDonald is senior scientist for sustainable land use for The Nature Conservancy. McDonald works for the Conservancy’s analysis unit on issues related to energy, agriculture, and ecosystem services. He recently led a National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis working group into how global urban growth and climate change will affect urban water availability and air quality. He also researches the effect of US energy policy on natural habitat and water use. Prior to joining the Conservancy, he was a Smith Conservation Biology Fellow at Harvard University where he studied the impact global urban growth will have on biodiversity and conservation. McDonald has also taught landscape ecology at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, helping architects and planners incorporate ecological principles into their projects. He earned his Ph.D. in ecology from Duke University.
• Abstract
  Nearly 3 billion additional urban dwellers are forecasted by 2050, an unprecedented wave of urban growth. While cities struggle to provide water to these new residents, they will also face equally unprecedented hydrologic changes due to global climate change. McDonald will present data from a detailed hydrologic model, demographic projections, and climate change scenarios that estimate per-capita water availability for major cities in the developing world, where urban growth is the fastest. In addition to a quantitative discussion of water quantity, he will also present proxy estimates of where water quality and water delivery challenges are most intense. Cities in certain regions will struggle to find enough water for the needs of their residents and will need significant investment if they are to secure adequate water supplies and safeguard functioning freshwater ecosystems for future generations.
  
  

11 October 2011
Speaker: Michaela Gulemetova, Senior Research Analyst, Research Department, National Education Association
Title: "Evaluating the impact of conditional cash transfer programs on adolescent decisions about marriage and fertility: The case of Oportunidades" (listen to a podcast of the seminar)

• Speaker bio
  Michaela Gulemetova is a senior researcher at the NEA and her current focus is on education policies about student achievement, teacher effectiveness, and school improvement. Prior to NEA, she has worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme on topics involving conditional cash transfers and Roma minorities from Eastern Europe. Her other research interests include program impacts on education outcomes and adolescents' transitions to adulthood.
• Abstract
  Michaela Gulemetova will present findings from an impact evaluation of Oportunidades, a nationwide antipoverty intervention in Mexico, on teenage girls' transitions to sexual activity, marriage and fertility by applying hazard analysis methods. The talk will focus on the advantages of using duration modeling to discern program effects when the outcome of interest is timing of multiple decisions of participants.
  
  

25 May 2011—SPECIAL TIME: 4:30–5:30 pm
Speaker: Esther Duflo, Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; founder and director, Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
Title: "Pak Sudarno’s big family: Some reflections on population policy in developing countries" (listen to a podcast of the seminar)

• Speaker bio
  

  Esther Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics in the Department of Economics at MIT and a founder and director of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research network specializing in randomized evaluations of social programs, which won the BBVA Foundation "Frontier of Knowledge" award in the development cooperation category. Duflo is an NBER research associate, serves on the board of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and is director of the Center of Economic Policy Research's development economics program. Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including household behavior, education, access to finance, health and policy evaluation.
  

  Duflo has received numerous academic honors and prizes, including the John Bates Clark Medal (2010), a MacArthur Fellowship (2009), the American Economic Association's Elaine Bennett Prize for Research (2003), the "Best French Young Economist Prize" (Le Monde/Cercle des economistes, 2005), the Médaille de Bronze (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 2005), and the Prix Luc Durand-Reville (Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 2008). In 2008-2009 she was the inaugural holder of the international chair "Knowledge Against Poverty" at the College de France.  After being a co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics, she currently serves as the founding editor of the AEJ: Applied Economics.
• Abstract
  

  In this talk, based on a chapter devoted to the family in her recently released book with Abhijit Banerjee Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Fight Against Global Poverty (offsite link), Esther Duflo will share her perspective on the recent development economics literature on the cause and (individual) consequences of fertility in developing countries. Some troubling findings may prompt discussion on the need for a re-appraisal of how to best address population issues among the poor.

5 May 2011
Speaker: Terence H. Hull, John C. Caldwell Professor of Population, Health and Development, Australian National University
Title: "From cafeteria to street stall: Where the Indonesian family planning program went wrong"

• Speaker bio
  Terence H. Hull is the John C. Caldwell Professor of Population, Health and Development at the Australian National University. He has appointments in both the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute (ADSRI) and the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health (NCEPH). Since 1972 Terry and his wife Valerie Hull have carried out research on fertility and family planning across Asia, with a particular concentration on Indonesia. Together they have published many papers and books discussing the political, social, cultural, and demographic aspects of the Indonesian national family planning program, relying on data collected in village observational studies, social surveys, and official administrative data.
• Abstract
  Professor Hull will discuss the history and impact of the "village midwife" program in Indonesia from its inception in the late 1980s. It appears that the contraceptive mix has deteriorated over this period, largely because of the perverse incentives created by health and decentralization policies pursued by successive leaders. Comment also will be made on the problems of data validity and reliability in Indonesia. 
  
  

10 March 2011
Speaker: Suzanne M. Bianchi, Dorothy Meier Chair in Social Equities and Distinguished Professor of Sociology, UCLA; 2010–11 Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation
Title: "Gender, marital status, and intergenerational transfers of time later in the life course"

• Speaker bio
  Suzanne M. Bianchi is distinguished professor of sociology and Dorothy Meier Chair in Social Equities at UCLA.  She is currently a 2010–11 visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.  She is a past president of the Population Association of America and a former editor of the journal Demography. Her research focuses on the changing American family, time use, and gender equality, and she is currently working on projects investigating intergenerational caregiving: using vignettes to assess attitudes toward intergenerational co-residence, conducting research on the geographic proximity of adult children and aging parents, and, while at Russell Sage, writing a book on intergenerational ties later in life.
• Abstract
  The received wisdom on unpaid caregiving in the United States is that women do the bulk of it, with men only peripherally involved. Much of the research has concentrated on the childrearing years when women's and men's time allocation tends to be most differentiated. Professor Bianchi will discuss new research on the gender gap in (unpaid) caregiving and help to others later in the life course when adults are transitioning into their retirement years and when men's and women's time allocation may become more similar. She will focus on the United States and draw on evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) on men's and women's help to elderly parents, adult children, and friends and neighbors. Professor Bianchi will supplement this with data from the American Time Use Survey on care for adults and pay special attention to whether marital disruption alters the likelihood of giving help to kin and non-kin, and whether the effects are different for men than women.

 

28 January 2011
Speaker: Naila Kabeer, Professor of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University
Title: "Gender equality beyond the MDGs: Towards a transformative agenda"

• Speaker bio
  Naila Kabeer is professor of development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. She has worked extensively on gender, poverty, livelihoods and labor markets, social protection, and citizenship. Her recent publications include "Gender and social protection in the informal economy" (Commonwealth Secretariat/Routledge), "Do the MDGs provide a pathway to social justice? The challenge of intersecting inequalities" (UN Millennium Achievement Fund), and "Paid work, women's empowerment and gender justice: Critical pathways of social change" (Pathways Working Paper no. 3, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex). She was lead author of the 2009 World Survey of Women in Development (UN Division for the Advancement of Women).
• Abstract
  In this seminar Professor Kabeer will discuss the key gender-related MDGs to identify evidence of progress and shortfalls and analyze the factors behind both. Such analysis helps to point in the direction of approaches and interventions that might achieve more satisfactory results and constitute central elements of a post-MDG agenda.

 

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