Impact of Women Empowerment on Fertility Preferences in Pakistan

Reproduction is an important aspect of a women's life, unfortunately in Pakistan fertility rates are quite high in comparison to other developing countries as well as in comparison to the other South Asian countries. Different studies have suggested that women empowerment can help reduce fertility rates. The present study has attempted to analyze the role of women empowerment along with other socioeconomic indicators on three different dimensions of the fertility behavior i.e. Number of children born (current fertility status), ideal number of children and birth intervals (future fertility status. Data of Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13 has been used. The analysis consists of two levels, at level one a descriptive analysis is carried out. As three different aspects of fertility are the count data. Therefore at the next stage models will be estimated by using poison regression technique and Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR) are reported. It has been found that women’s being empowered in financial matters, seeking health care and in household decision making are helpful in reducing fertility. Furthermore, participation in job by women, living in urban areas, having secondary or higher education, access to awareness created by the media, married at higher age are also significant factors in reducing fertility. However, women facing incidence of miscarriage or death of a child tends to increase the fertility. Study had found that wealth of the household, education of husband and having sons have very limited role on the fertility behavior.

Improving the Performance of Water- Saving Rice Production Systems by Boron Application

Studies on evaluating the potential of boron application in improving the performance of water saving rice cultivation were conducted in the Seed Science Laboratory, net house and Agronomic Research Area, Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan. In the lab and net house studies, rate of boron application as seed priming, foliar treatments, seed coating and soil application was optimized to improve the performance of rice cultivars Super basmati and Shaheen basmati following completely randomized design in factorial arrangement with five replications. In the field study, experiment was conducted in randomized complete block design with split plot arrangement having net plot size of 8 m x 2.2 m with three replications. Seed priming in 0.001 and 0.01% B solutions improved the time to 50% germination, germination energy, final germination percentage, mean germination time and germination index, leaf emergence and elongation and tiller appearance. Leaf chlorophyll contents were significantly improved by boron especially with 0.001% concentration. Similarly, water relations and different yield contributes of rice cultivars were also improved by boron priming. Boron seed coating also improved the leaf emergence and elongation, and tillering in both rice cultivars. Leaf chlorophyll contents were significantly improved by boron seed coating. Similarly, water relations, growth and yield contributing parameters of rice cultivars were also improved by seed coating with 2-3 g boron kg-1 seed. Soil and foliar applied boron also improved the growth, leaf elongation, tillering, leaf chlorophyll contents, water relations and yield related traits of both rice cultivars. However, soil application at 1 kg ha-1 and foliar application of 0.75 M boron were more effective. Pre-optimized boron treatments, including priming with 0.001% boron, soil application at 1 kg ha-1 and foliar application of 0.75 M boron solution, were applied to rice crop raised by conventional flooding, aerobic culture and alternate wetting and drying. Boron application methods improved water relations, chlorophyll pigments, leaf area index, leaf area duration, crop growth rate, net assimilation rate, different growth and yield related traits of both rice cultivars. Boron application also accelerated the phonological events of both rice cultivars. In addition to improvement in growth and yield, boron application also improved the kernel quality of tested rice cultivars. Normal kernels, kernel length and kernel water absorption ratio were improved by boron application. Similarly boron application substantially enhanced the net benefits and marginal rate of return. Boron application methods improved the efficiency of different production systems, however, soil application in flooded rice, foliar application in alternate wetting and drying and seed priming with boron were more effective.