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Gender and geographical imbalance in production and impact levels is a pressing issue in global knowledge production. Within Health Sciences, while some studies found stark gender and geographical biases and inequalities, others found little empirical evidence of this marginalization. The purpose of the study is to clear the ambiguity concerning the topic.

Based on a comprehensive and systematic analysis of Health Sciences research data downloaded from the Scival (Scopus/Scimago) database from 2017 to 2020 (n = 7,990), this study first compares gender representation in research productivity, as well as differences in terms of citation per document, citations per document view and view per document scores according to geographical location. Additionally, the study clarifies whether there is a geographic bias in productivity and impact measures (i.e. citation per document, citations per document view and view per document) moderated by gender.

Results indicate that gender inequalities in productivity are systematic at the overall disciplinary, as well as the subfield levels. Findings also suggest statistically significant geographical differences in citation per document, citations per document view, and view per document scores, and interaction effect of gender over the relation between geography and (1) the number of citations per view and (2) the number of views per document.

This study contributes to scientometric studies in health sciences by providing insightful findings about the geographical and gender bias in productivity and impact across world regions.

The purpose of the paper is to examine the nature and extent of gender and spatial inequalities in educational attainment in Ghana.

The paper uses the education Gini coefficient, computed on the basis of years of schooling of individuals, to assess education inequality in Ghana.

The paper finds evidence of gender and spatial inequality in education in Ghana. In particular, the three northern regions have lower education attainment as well as higher education Gini coefficients compared to the rest of the country. The paper finds evidence of intra‐gender and intra‐spatial inequalities in education attainment in Ghana, with females contributing proportionately more to the within‐inequality component of the education Gini. The paper also finds a positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality.

The research finds a positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality but requires an econometric analysis to make inferences regarding causality.

The findings call for the design and implementation of policies not only to address between‐gender and spatial inequities in education in Ghana, but also to tackle within‐gender and within‐spatial inequalities. The positive correlation between poverty incidence and education inequality implies the need to create greater equity in educational opportunities across the country.

The need for changes in attitudes, values and cultural practices that put girls at a disadvantage when it comes to education.

One important and new finding of the paper is the existence of intra‐gender and intra‐spatial inequalities in education attainment in Ghana, with females contributing proportionately more to the within‐inequality component of the education Gini.

The paper aims to show that active labour market policies in Scotland over a nine‐year period have failed to meet key policy objectives.

The paper uses the UK national online manpower information system (NOMIS) to conduct a detailed statistical analysis of the spatial differentials in exits from and entry to unemployment across 72 Parliamentary constituencies. The analysis is conducted by reference to the concepts of convergence, NAIRU and hysterisis.

The findings suggest a presence of hysterisis and absence of spatial convergence such that some areas in Scotland have become worse off in terms of the risk of unemployment and despite active labour market intervention.

Future research needs to be undertaken at the micro‐spatial level to confirm these findings and to focus on the weaknesses in the design of active labour market policies.

Active labour market policies in Scotland do not work in terms of reducing the risk of unemployment. Policy needs to focus on creating demand for labour rather than an almost exclusive reliance on “promoting” the supply‐side.

The key contribution of this paper is that it is the first to provide a detailed analysis of the Government's own data on unemployment distribution – it should be of value to both academicians and policy makers in terms of both analytical approach and policy design.

This study introduces the concept of financial advice deserts (FADs), including financial advice received from personal financial advisors (PFAs) and Certified Financial Planners™ (CFP professionals) and investigates the association between living in these FAD states and the retirement planning activities of individuals.

This study uses merged data gathered from multiple sources including (1) available state-level information on CFP professionals from the CFP board website, (2) state-level information on PFAs from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and (3) individual levels of retirement planning behavior and other personal characteristics from the 2018 FINRA National Financial Capability Study. Using web data extraction tools and logistic regression analyses, this study examines the association between a series of individual retirement planning activities and living in the FAD states.

The study found that living in the FAD states was negatively associated with both having retirement accounts and contributing regularly to retirement accounts. Overall, the findings of this study underscore the need for providing greater access to financial advice and improving financial literacy among financially marginalized populations who are residing in FAD states in the United States of America.

This study makes unique contributions to the literature by raising the issue of geographic inequality in terms of access to financial advice and introducing the innovative notion of FADs. The findings provide fresh insights into the understanding of retirement planning and preparedness from the perspective of state-level inequality of financial advice through PFAs and CFP professionals, thereby expanding the previous knowledge that emphasizes only individual- and household-level differences. Significant implications for public policies and practitioners are also discussed.

“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

This chapter does three things. First, it estimates regional gross domestic product (GDP) for three different geographical levels in Switzerland (97 micro regions, 16 labor market basins, and 3 large regions). Second, it analyzes the evolution of regional inequality relying on a heuristic model inspired by Williamson (1965), which features an initial growth impulse in one or several core regions and subsequent diffusion. Third, it uses index number theory to decompose regional inequality into three different effects: sectoral structure, productivity, and comparative advantage.

The results can be summarized as follows: As a consequence of the existence of multiple core regions, Swiss regional inequality has been comparatively low at higher geographical levels. Spatial diffusion of economic growth occurred across different parts of the country and within different labor market regions. This resulted in a bell-shaped evolution of regional inequality at the micro regional level and convergence at higher geographical levels. In early and in late stages of the development process, productivity differentials were the main drivers of inequality, whereas economic structure was determinant between 1888 and 1941. The poorest regions suffered from comparative disadvantage, that is, they were specialized in the vary sector (agriculture), where their relative productivity was comparatively lowest.

The association between education and health is one of the most robust empiric findings over the past several decades. At each higher level of education, prevalence of most types of chronic disease decreases. However, understanding of the mechanisms through which education is related to chronic disease is limited. Specifically, the literature provides little evidence of the explanatory factors in the pathways linking education and health. Better scientific understanding of the pathways through which education influences health may help to explain the well-documented association between socioeconomic position (SEP) and health and could lead to improved intervention strategies for health disparities. We review the potential pathways through which education may influence health and the evidence that explicitly tests these hypothesized pathways and provide direction for future research in this field.

There is an on-going debate as to whether health is negatively affected by economic inequality. Still, we have limited knowledge of the mechanisms relating inequality to individual health and very little evidence comes from less-developed economies. We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test three hypotheses consistent with a negative correlation between income inequality and population health: the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (IIH). The results confirm that absolute income positively affects health. For the RIH we find sensitivity to the reference group used. Most interestingly, we find higher income inequality to robustly associate with better child health. The same pattern appears in a cross country regression. To explain the conflicting results in the literature we suggest examining potential mediators such as generosity, food sharing, trust and purchasing power.