The New York Times reports that China is considering a move away from its one-child-per-couple policy, though any changes would be gradual and would not mean an end to family planning policies. China’s fertility rate is now very low, and the nation faces an aging population, especially in urban areas.

Vietnamese families prefer boys over girls, and the sex ratio at birth is 110 boys for every 100 girls, according to a new UN report (AP). This imbalance could lead to increased violence against women, trafficking, and a “marriage squeeze” in a region where brides are already scarce, the report says.

Citation: Sex-Ratio Imbalance in Asia: Trends, Consequences and Policy Responses (2007). UNFPA.

Providing information about public health and social services to poor populations may increase usage, according to a study conducted in India (Johns Hopkins Medicine press release).

Citation: Priyanka Pandey, Ashwini R. Sehgal, Michelle Riboud, et al. (2007). Informing resource-poor populations and the delivery of entitled health and social services in rural India: A cluster randomized controlled trial. JAMA 298:1867-1875. (Available online to the Penn State community)

The Council of Science Editors organized a Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development, in which science journals throughout the world simultaneously publish articles on this topic on October 22. 235 journals from developed and developing countries participated in the theme issue, including American Journal of Public Health, Health Education and Behavior, Journal of Adolescence, Reproductive Health Matters, and Science.

Penn State users can use the University Libraries Citation Linker to retrieve copies of individual articles.

The education budget of a single country like France, Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom outweighs education spending across the entire sub-Saharan African region, according to a new report from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. The Global Education Digest 2007 focuses on financing of education and includes the latest statistics on primary to tertiary education from more than 200 countries.

Data for the 2006 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey are now available. PRI researchers may request it from the Data Archivist

Vietnam’s intensely family-oriented society is going through a “quiet” sexual revolution as young people move in together, have more premarital sex, and talk about love and relationships (Reuters).

The UN Millennium Development Goals Report 2007 (PDF) says that, halfway to the 2015 deadline, progress has been made toward the goals but there is still much work to be done.

A UNFPA news feature looks at the fast-growing cities of Guangdong Province in China.

State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth and a youth supplement, Growing Up Urban, are available online from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The report predicts that more than half of the world’s population will live in towns and cities by next year, and urban growth will be particularly fast in Africa and Asia (New York Times).