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Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2018)

This dissertation presents three chapters on female labor supply and marital stability in developing countries. The first two chapters focus on female labor supply in India. In the first chapter, I study the relationship between husband's earning and female labor supply of married women in India. Despite economic growth, fertility reductions, and improvement in education, female labor force participation in India declined from 35% to 27% between 1999 and 2012. This chapter examines the degree to which the decline can be attributed to an increase in the earnings of married males. Using two datasets and three sources of variation in married male earnings, I find a robust and negative elasticity of married female labor supply with respect to married male earnings. Subgroup and robustness analyses indicate the presence of a household-level income effect. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that this relationship can account for over 40% of the above decline in married female labor supply. Continuing with this investigation in the second chapter, I study the role of other spatial and individual characteristics behind the changes in female labor supply in India during the same period. Based on the decomposition analysis of changes in labor supply for paid versus unpaid work in rural areas, I find that geographical characteristics, such as the capital intensity of agriculture, are important drivers of changes in married female labor force participation in paid jobs but not in unpaid jobs. Individual-level variables, such as age, education, caste, and religion, are significant determinants of both paid and unpaid labor jobs of married women in rural India. In the third chapter, we study the effect of fertility challenges faced by couples on divorce in developing countries. Using the Demographic and Health Surveys from 66 countries over 23 years, we find that, infertility, the first-born child being a daughter, and death of the first-born child significantly increase the likelihood of divorce in a marriage. These findings lend support for the implications of theoretical analysis by Becker (1977), which says that unanticipated shocks increase marital instability by generating greater differences between the expected and actual utility from a union.

    Cover page: Essays in Female Labor Supply and Marriage in Developing Countries
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC San Francisco Previously Published Works (2013)

    Background

    Previous studies have demonstrated alterations in the peripheral cholinergic system in Alzheimer's disease (AD), though results have been inconsistent and not linked to in vivo biomarkers of pathology. We examined the relationship between amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques and plasma cholinesterase activity in a heterogeneous dementia population.

    Methods

    29 participants with clinical AD and 35 with non-AD diagnoses underwent positron emission tomography (PET) with the amyloid ligand [11C] PIB and plasma measurements of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) activity. Multi-linear regression was used to evaluate the relationship between AChE or BChE activity and PIB binding (adjusted for age, sex, apolipoprotein E4 and vascular risk), applying voxel-wise and region of interest (ROI) approaches. AChE activity was further adjusted for cholinesterase inhibitor (ChE-I) use. Global amyloid load was measured using a PIB Index, representing mean tracer binding in frontal, parietal, lateral temporal and cingulate cortex.

    Results

    AChE activity was correlated with PIB Index (β=0.39, p < 0.001) and with regional PIB binding in frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital lobes, precuneus and posterior cingulate on both voxel-wise (p < 0.001 uncorrected) and ROI (β=0.26-0.41, p < 0.005) analysis. Correlations remained significant after covarying clinical diagnosis (β=0.42, p=0.001), and among participants naive to ChE-I (β=0.51, p=0.005). No correlation was found between BChE activity and PIB. Among AD participants, disease severity was not correlated with AChE, BChE or PIB Index.

    Conclusion

    AChE activity in plasma is correlated with brain Aβ load. Activation of the 'anti-inflammatory cholinergic pathway' may provide the link between Aβ plaques and peripheral cholinergic measures.
      Cover page: Plasma acetylcholinesterase activity correlates with intracerebral β-amyloid load.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC San Francisco Previously Published Works (2013)
      Genetically hard-wired neural mechanisms must enforce behavioral reproductive isolation because interspecies courtship is rare even in sexually naïve animals of most species. We find that the chemoreceptor Gr32a inhibits male D. melanogaster from courting diverse fruit fly species. Gr32a recognizes nonvolatile aversive cues present on these reproductively dead-end targets, and activity of Gr32a neurons is necessary and sufficient to inhibit interspecies courtship. Male-specific Fruitless (Fru(M)), a master regulator of courtship, also inhibits interspecies courtship. Gr32a and Fru(M) are not coexpressed, but Fru(M) neurons contact Gr32a neurons, suggesting that these genes influence a shared neural circuit that inhibits interspecies courtship. Gr32a and Fru(M) also suppress within-species intermale courtship, but we show that distinct mechanisms preclude sexual displays toward conspecific males and other species. Although this chemosensory pathway does not inhibit interspecies mating in D. melanogaster females, similar mechanisms appear to inhibit this behavior in many other male drosophilids.
        Cover page: Genetic and Neural Mechanisms that Inhibit Drosophila from Mating with Other Species
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