Italy has unusually low fertility by Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development standards, accompanied by unusually low female participation in paid work. This paper addresses the issue of the empirical relationship between fertility, female participation in the labor market and wages with these Italian "peculiarities" as a backcloth. A trivariate model of participation, fertility and wages has been constructed and estimated using three pooled cross-sections of Italian micro data, allowing for the identification of cohort effects. This model follows a "purist" approach: the participation and fertility decisions, as well as the wage equation, are modeled as completely joint. The cohort effects turn out to be significant: the point estimates do not appear to confirm actual trends, which are negative for fertility and positive for participation. The female wage is the most important variable influencing the propensity to have children and the propensity to participate in the labor market, casting doubt on suggestions that observed trends are the products of shifts in women's "tastes".

The author describes recent trends in mortality and morbidity in the successor states to the former Soviet Union. Separate consideration is given to mortality under late perestroika (1987-1991) and subsequent mortality trends. The author concludes that "the collapse of the USSR and the problems of the successor states have had severe adverse affects not only on macroeconomic indices but also on the mortality and morbidity of the population.... Since the collapse of the USSR, the mortality situation in the successor states has rapidly and significantly worsened. Between 1991 and 1993 the crude death rate in Russia rose by 26%. As a result, by 1993 the life expectancy at birth of Russian men had fallen to about 59, which is about 6 years below the level of 1987.... By 1993, male life expectancy at birth in Russia had fallen below the level of the medium income countries and had probably fallen to a level about that of Indonesia in the second half of the 1980s. Ukraine has also experienced an increase in mortality since the collapse of the USSR. In other successor states, experiencing serious military conflicts, such as Tadjikstan and Armenia, the proportionate increase in mortality was even larger than in Russia."

The author analyzes excess female mortality in nineteenth-century England. She concludes that such mortality was affected by the economic environment and that "much literary evidence points to unequal access to food and a resulting susceptibility to epidemic and respiratory diseases as the transmission mechanism converting dependence and discrimination into relatively high death rates." Women were also adversely affected by harsh labor conditions, in addition to the heavy duties involved in motherhood and housework.

This study examines aspects of sex differentials in mortality in India. "The general question of sex bias and excess female mortality is first discussed.... Subsequently the reasons for the regional contrast in sex ratios are explored.... We then focus on the interesting exception to the Indian trend and attempt an explanation for the unusual sexual profile that Kerala displays.... The paper ends...with an attempt to draw some tentative conclusions from the Kerala experience with an eye towards more general issues concerning women and the development process."