Alaka Malwade Basu (born 1951 [1] ) is an Indian sociologist and demographer, [2] [3] a professor of development sociology at the Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. [4] Between 2002 and 2008, she was the director of the South Asia Program of Cornell University. [5] She is a senior fellow for public health at the United Nations Foundation and a member of the editorial boards of the Population and Development Review and the Asian Population Studies. [4] [5] [6] She is also a member of the Lancet-Guttmacher Commission on sexual and reproductive health and rights. [7] Basu has extensive publications in the fields of social demography, gender and development, and South Asian Studies. [5]
She was formerly a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and at the Harvard School of Public Health in Massachusetts, [8] [9] and the chairperson of the scientific committee on anthropological demography at the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) and member of committees on population projections and reproductive health at the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, United States. [9] She has also served in the governing boards of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. and the Population Association of America . [5] [7] [9]
Alaka Malwade Basu is married to the economist Kaushik Basu, who have one son, Karna Basu and one daughter, the writer and actor, Diksha Basu. [10]
India is the most populous country in the world with one-sixth of the world's population. According to UN estimates, India overtook China in having the largest population in the world with a population of 1,425,775,850 at the end of April 2023.
Sex-selective abortion is the practice of terminating a pregnancy based upon the predicted sex of the infant. The selective abortion of female fetuses is most common where male children are valued over female children, especially in parts of East Asia and South Asia, as well as in the Caucasus, Western Balkans, and to a lesser extent North America. Based on the third National Family and Health Survey, results showed that if both partners, mother and father, or just the father, preferred male children, sex-selective abortion was more common. In cases where only the mother prefers sons, this is likely to result in sex-selective neglect in which the child is not likely to survive past infancy.
In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates in societies with minimal technology, education and economic development, to low birth rates and low death rates in societies with advanced technology, education and economic development, as well as the stages between these two scenarios. In economic growth, the demographic transition has swept the world over the past two centuries, and the unprecedented population growth of the post-Malthusian period was reversed, reducing birth rates and population growth significantly in all regions of the world, and enabling economies to translate more of the gains of factor accumulation and technological progress into per capita income growth. The demographic transition strengthens economic growth process by three changes: (i) reduced dilution of capital and land stock, (ii) increased investment in human capital, and (iii) increased size of the labor force relative to the total population and changed age population distribution. Although this shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and model are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific social, political and economic factors affecting particular populations.
Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marital situation, career or work considerations, financial situations. If sexually active, family planning may involve the use of contraception and other techniques to control the timing of reproduction.
Kaushik Basu is an economist who was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2012 to 2016 and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India from 2009 to 2012. He is the C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics at Cornell University, and academic advisory board member of upcoming Plaksha University. He began a three-year term as President of the International Economic Association in June 2017. From 2009 to 2012, during the United Progressive Alliance's second term, Basu served as the Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India. Kaushik Basu is winner of the Humboldt Research Award 2021.
Amrita Basu is an American academic and political scientist. She currently is a professor at Amherst College where she holds affiliations in the departments of Political Science, Sexuality, Women's, & Gender Studies, Asian Languages & Civilizations, and Black Studies.
Marcia Claire Inhorn is a medical anthropologist and William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University where she is Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies. A specialist on Middle Eastern gender and health issues, Inhorn conducts research on the social impact of infertility and assisted reproductive technologies in Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, and Arab America. She has also completed a major study of egg freezing in the United States, described in her book Motherhood on Ice: The Mating Gap and Why Women Freeze Their Eggs. Inhorn has published 21 books and more than 200 articles and book chapters.
Katherine Jane Humphries, CBE FBA, is a Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford with the Title of Distinction of professor of economic history. Her research interest has been in economic growth and development and the industrial revolution. She is the former president of the Economic History Society and the current vice-president of the Economic History Association.
Carolyn Sargent is a medical anthropologist.
Jael Silliman is an author, scholar, and women’s right activist. She currently works as a consultant on gender and development, women of color and reproductive rights, and gender and environment issues. She lives in New York City and Calcutta. She is widely held in libraries worldwide.
Radhika Chandiramani is the founder of TARSHI, a New Delhi–based NGO that works on issues of sexual and reproductive health and rights. She is a clinical psychologist, writer and editor. Her published works on sexuality and human rights have been covered in media and scholarly reviews. Chandiramani received the MacArthur Fellowship in the year 1995 for leadership development. She is also the recipient of the 2003 Soros Reproductive Health and Rights Fellowship from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
Lucinda Ramberg is an American anthropologist whose work focuses on gender, sexuality, religion and health. She was awarded multiple prizes in 2015 for her first book, Given to the Goddess: South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion. Ramberg is associate professor in anthropology and director of graduate studies in the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Cornell University.
Dána-Ain Davis is a professor of urban studies at Queens College, City University of New York (CUNY) and the Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society.
Aparna Rao was a German anthropologist who performed studies on social groups in Afghanistan, France, and some regions of India. Her doctorate studies focused on anthropogeography, ethnology, and Islamic studies. Rao taught anthropology at the University of Cologne, serving for a brief time as chair of the Department of Ethnology at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, Germany.
Pascale Allotey is a Ghanaian public health researcher and the Director of the World Health Organization SRH/HRP. Her research focuses on addressing equity, human rights, and social justice as these relate to health and disease, health systems, and global health research. She has held various technical advisory positions for the World Health Organization. Allotey serves on the Paris Institute for Advanced Study World Pandemic Research Network to understand the societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governance of the World Health Summit and the international Advisory Board of the Lancet.
Diksha Basu is an American writer and actress. She is the author of the novel The Windfall which is under adaptation for a television series by Shonali Bose.
Jayasree Kalathil is an Indian writer, translator, mental health researcher and activist. She is known for her work in the area of mental health activism as well as for her translations of Malayalam works, The Diary of a Malayali Madman and Moustache, the former winning Crossword Book Award and the latter, the JCB Prize for Literature, both in 2020. Her latest work, Valli, A Novel was among the works shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2022.
Aparna Basu was an Indian historian, author, social worker and advocate for women’s rights. She was a professor of Modern Indian history and head of the History department at Delhi University. In her later career, she served as President of the All India Women's Conference (AIWC) and chairperson of the National Gandhi Museum in New Delhi.
Uma Lele is an agricultural economist, currently at the Institute of Economic Growth at the University of Delhi, India. She has spent much of her career working with the World Bank and other international organizations.
Professor P. B. Desai (1924–1994) was an Indian demographer and economist. He was director of the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) in New Delhi from 1974 to 1976. He headed the Population Research Center at the institute for many years.
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