Dirgha J Ghimire
Biographic Data
| ID | 115491 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dirgha J Ghimire |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dirgha J |
| FAMILY NAME | Ghimire |
| SIGNATURE | GHIMIRE D J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1747-9997 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 626 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
The role of sanitary pads in school achievement in low-income settings
Self-Rated Health, Frailty, and Tobacco Use in a Community Sample of Adults from Nepal
BACKGROUND: With increase in life expectancies in recent decades, older adults are increasingly represented in Nepal's demography. However, there has been limited research on the factors adversely impacting older adults' quality of life and overall morbidity. This study intended to examine the effects of cigarette smoking on frailty and self-rated generalized health in a sample of community-dwelling middle-aged and older adults from Nepal. METHOD…
Retrenchment under climate-driven risks in subsistence farming communities
Increasing climate risks introduce new sources of uncertainty to smallholder farmers’ livelihood decisions. While farmers in different development contexts tend to accurately perceive long-term climatic trends, livelihood diversification as a climate resilience strategy has generally lagged behind awareness of climate risks. In this study, we investigate potential mechanisms behind this lagged response through a survey of 500 farming households i…
Intergenerational associations of maternal depression with daughters' family formation
ObjectiveThis work investigates the potential associations between maternal major depressive disorder (MDD) and daughters' family formation behaviors, specifically the timing of marriage and first birth.BackgroundFamily and life course research has established the importance of intergenerational ties and linked lives for children's health, education, social life, and transition to adulthood more broadly. However, mothers' MDD has remained a relat…
Factors associated with depressive symptoms among returnee migrants and non-migrants working adults in Madi municipality in Nepal
The working Nepali adult male population in Nepal, including returning migrants, is at risk of depressive symptoms, but this association was lower in those in the higher income group, returnee migrants, those who were married, Hindus and those with no children. Our results highlight the need to monitor and develop national policies to ensure the mental health of the Nepali male adult population, including returnee migrants
The relevance of governance, external monitoring, and instructional quality to public-private school differences in student achievement in the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal
Parental depression and their children's marriage timing
Household Migration and Adolescent Marriage Choice in Settings with Changing Marriage Systems
This article examines the relationship between family experiences of migration and adolescents' preferences about who should make the decision about who to marry in two migrant-sending regions. Shifts in familial involvement in spouse choice, like other changes in marriage and family systems, are connected to broader social and economic changes that reduce the centrality of family relationships. Migrant household members may contribute to these c…
Pathways of association between husbands’ migration and mental health of their wives who stay behind
Labor migration practices among married men have brought changes in gender roles and expectations, creating both opportunities and barriers for their wives who stay behind. When husbands migrate, their wives can experience major life events within private and public spheres. Literature on mental health suggests that important life events can induce or prevent the emergence of common mental disorders. Therefore, we aim to identify the psychosocial…
Alcohol use and internal migration in Nepal
BACKGROUND: Alcohol use is a leading cause of disease. Although low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have lower per capita alcohol consumption, the alcohol-attributable disease burden is high in these settings with consumption increasing. LMICs are also experiencing unprecedented levels of internal migration, potentially increasing mental stress, changing social restrictions on drinking, and increasing alcohol availability. We assessed the re…
How Do Women Learn They Are Pregnant? The Introduction of Clinics and Pregnancy Awareness in Nepal
The earlier a woman learns about her pregnancy status, the sooner she can make decisions about her own and infant's health. This paper examines how women learn about their pregnancy status and measures how access to pregnancy tests affects earlier pregnancy knowledge. Using 10 years of individual‐level monthly panel data in Nepal, we find that, on average, women learn they are pregnant in their 4.6th month of pregnancy. Living approximately a mil…
Drought and migration
Women's employment and Children's education
Social change, out-migration, and exit from farming in Nepal
A Good Age to Marry? An Intergenerational Model of the Influence of Timing Attitudes on Entrance into Marriage
Husbands' migration
Migration of men has important influences on reshaping family and gender roles in left-behind wives. However, it is unclear whether husbands' out-migration increases the burden on or creates autonomy for left-behind wives. Using new data from Nepal, we examine the associations of husband's out-migration and remittance status with the work burden and autonomy of left-behind wives'. Results of our multi-level multivariate analyses show that the num…
The Child PTSD Symptom Scale
Study of migration and later life health in Nepal
This research provides important insight to individuals lured by potential short-term economic prospects in destination places, as well as to scholars and policy makers from migrant-sending settings that are grappling with skyrocketing medical expenses, rapid population aging, and old age security services
Parents’ Marital Quality and Children’s Transition to Adulthood
Unique longitudinal measures from Nepal allow us to link both mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their marital relationships with a subsequent long-term record of their children’s behaviors. We focus on children’s educational attainment and marriage timing because these two dimensions of the transition to adulthood have wide-ranging, long-lasting consequences. We find that children whose parents report strong marital affection and less spousal conf…
The Reliability and Stability of Measures of Individuals' Values and Beliefs Concerning Developmental Idealism in Nepal
This paper examines the reliability and stability of developmental idealism (DI) measures in Nepal. DI is a set of cultural schemas that contains beliefs and values favoring modern societies and families over traditional ones and that views modern families as causes and effects of modern societies. It also views the world as dynamic, with change from traditionality toward modernity. Earlier studies have shown that DI has been disseminated widely …
Maternal employment and child health in Nepal
Strategies for origin-based surveying of international migrants
This paper addresses methodological challenges of investigations of international migration, including difficulties in obtaining information about representative samples of migrants and both their origin and destination location. Our project used an origin-based sample with a destination focused survey and interviewed 91% of migrants from a community in Nepal to any destination and shares techniques employed. Our procedures and high response rate…
Postmarital Living Arrangements in Historically Patrilocal Settings
This study integrates theory and research on household fission (or partition) and migration to better understand living arrangements following marriage, especially in historically patrilocal and primarily agricultural settings. Using panel data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study to analyze the sequential decision-making process that influences men’s living arrangements subsequent to first marriage, we demonstrate the importance of distinguishin…
Emotional Variation and Fertility Behavior
Emotional influences on fertility behaviors are an understudied topic that may offer a clear explanation of why many couples choose to have children even when childbearing is not economically rational. With setting-specific measures of the husband-wife emotional bond appropriate for large-scale population research matched with data from a long-term panel study, we have the empirical tools to provide a test of the influence of emotional factors on…
Early Women, Late Men
Around the world, women marry earlier than men, but it is not well understood why this gender gap exists. Using panel data collected in Nepal, the authors investigate whether attitudes about marital timing held by unmarried youth and their parents account for women marrying earlier than men. They also examine whether the influence of timing attitudes differs by gender. On average, unmarried youth and their parents viewed 20 to 25 as acceptable ag…
Social Change, Premarital Nonfamily Experience, and Spouse Choice in an Arranged Marriage Society
This article examines the influences of nonfamily experiences on participation in the selection of a first spouse in an arranged marriage society. The authors developed a theoretical framework to explain how a broad array of nonfamily experiences may translate into greater participation in the choice of a spouse. Analyses show that premarital nonfamily experiences, in general, and media exposure and participation in youth clubs, in particular, ha…
Innovations in Life History Calendar Applications
Environmental change and out-migration
The Neighborhood History Calendar
This paper presents a new data collection method, called the Neighborhood History Calendar, designed to collect event histories of community-level changes over time. We discuss the need for and the uses of this method. We describe issues related to the design of instruments, collection of data, and data entry. We provide detailed examples from an application of this method to the study of marriage, contraception, and fertility in rural Nepal. The…
The Effect of Parents' Attitudes on Sons' Marriage Timing
Theories of family stability and change, demographic processes, and social psychological influences on behavior all posit that parental attitudes and beliefs are a key influence on their children's behavior. We have evidence of these effects in Western populations, but little information regarding this social mechanism in non-Western contexts. Furthermore, comparisons of mothers' and fathers' independent roles in these crucial intergenerational m…
A Micro-Level Event-Centered Approach to Investigating Armed Conflict and Population Responses
In this article, we construct and test a micro-level event-centered approach to the study of armed conflict and behavioral responses in the general population. Event-centered approaches have been successfully used in the macro-political study of armed conflict but have not yet been adopted in micro-behavioral studies. The micro-level event-centered approach that we advocate here includes decomposition of a conflict into discrete political and vio…
International Fertility Change
Many scholars have offered structural and ideational explanations for the fertility changes occurring around the world. This paper focuses on the influence of developmental idealism—a schema or set of beliefs endorsing development, fertility change, and causal connections between development and fertility. Developmental idealism is argued to be an important force affecting both population policy and the fertility behavior of ordinary people. We p…
Determinants of marital quality in an arranged marriage society
Community Context, Land Use, and First Birth
This paper examines the influence of community context and land use on the monthly odds of first birth in a society in the midst of dramatic fertility transition. The theoretical framework guiding our work predicts that proximity to non-family services should delay first births by creating opportunities for competing non-family activities and spreading new ideas that change expectations about family life. On the other hand, living in agricultural…
Social change, premarital nonfamily experiences, and marital dynamics
We investigate the effects of nonfamily experiences on marital relationships in a setting characterized by high levels of arranged marriage until recently. Drawing on theoretical frameworks for the study of families and social change, we argue that the expansion of opportunities for nonfamily experiences will increase the likelihood of marital relationships based on an emotional bond between husbands and wives. Using data from 3,724 individuals i…
Social Organization, Population, and Land Use
A new approach to investigation of human influences on the environment identifies social organization as an influence independent of population size, affluence, and technology. The framework also identifies population events, such as births, that influence the environment. The authors use longitudinal, multilevel, mixed-method measures of local land use changes, population dynamics, and social organization to test this framework. These tests reve…
Community Services and Out‐Migration
This paper investigates the relationship between changing community context and out-migration in one of today's poor countries, seeking to document the various mechanisms by which infrastructure affects the migratory behavior. We focus on the expansion of social and physical facilities and services near to rural people's homes, including transportation, new markets, employment, schools, health clinics, and mass media outlets such as movie halls. …
Husbands' migration
Migration of men has important influences on reshaping family and gender roles in left-behind wives. However, it is unclear whether husbands' out-migration increases the burden on or creates autonomy for left-behind wives. Using new data from Nepal, we examine the associations of husband's out-migration and remittance status with the work burden and autonomy of left-behind wives'. Results of our multi-level multivariate analyses show that the num…
Early Women, Late Men
Around the world, women marry earlier than men, but it is not well understood why this gender gap exists. Using panel data collected in Nepal, the authors investigate whether attitudes about marital timing held by unmarried youth and their parents account for women marrying earlier than men. They also examine whether the influence of timing attitudes differs by gender. On average, unmarried youth and their parents viewed 20 to 25 as acceptable ag…
Rural Agricultural Change and Individual Out-migration
We investigate the impact of household use of labor-saving farm technologies on first-time out-migration after the household agriculture and consumption survey was conducted in 1996. Building on the labor substitution framework, we hypothesize that household use of labor-saving technologies (e.g., tractors, farm implements, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides) increases individual out-migration. To estimate the effects of the use of labor-saving…
Farming Systems and Rural Out-Migration in Nang Rong, Thailand, and Chitwan Valley, Nepal
Using data from two postfrontier rural settings, Nang Rong, Thailand (N = 2,538), and Chitwan Valley, Nepal (N = 876), this article examines agricultural push factors determining the out-migration of young people age 15 to 19. We focus on different dimensions of migration, including distance and duration. Our study examines a wide array of agricultural determinants, each with its own potential effect on migration. These determinants include land …
Knowledge and beliefs about national development and developmental hierarchies
Environmentalism and Contraceptive Use
Land use and first birth timing in an agricultural setting
Maternal employment and child health in Nepal
The measurement and prevalence of an ideational model of family and economic development in Nepal
Developmental idealism (DI) is a system of beliefs and values that endorses modern societies and families and sees them as occurring together, with modern families as causes and consequences of societal development. This study was motivated by the belief that the population of Nepal has absorbed these ideas and that the ideas affect their family behaviour. We use data collected in Nepal in 2003 to show that Nepalis discuss ideas about development…
Impact of the spread of mass education on married women's experience with domestic violence
Emotional Variation and Fertility Behavior
Emotional influences on fertility behaviors are an understudied topic that may offer a clear explanation of why many couples choose to have children even when childbearing is not economically rational. With setting-specific measures of the husband-wife emotional bond appropriate for large-scale population research matched with data from a long-term panel study, we have the empirical tools to provide a test of the influence of emotional factors on…
Influences on the knowledge and beliefs of ordinary people about developmental hierarchies
This article is motivated by the idea that development and developmental hierarchies have been constructed and embraced for centuries by scholars and policy makers and have been disseminated among ordinary people. Recent research shows that most people have constructions of development hierarchies that are similar across countries. In this article, we extend this research by examining how basic social factors influence ordinary people’s beliefs a…
Household energy consumption
The Neighborhood History Calendar
This paper presents a new data collection method, called the Neighborhood History Calendar, designed to collect event histories of community-level changes over time. We discuss the need for and the uses of this method. We describe issues related to the design of instruments, collection of data, and data entry. We provide detailed examples from an application of this method to the study of marriage, contraception, and fertility in rural Nepal. The…
Innovations in Life History Calendar Applications
Social change, premarital nonfamily experiences, and marital dynamics
We investigate the effects of nonfamily experiences on marital relationships in a setting characterized by high levels of arranged marriage until recently. Drawing on theoretical frameworks for the study of families and social change, we argue that the expansion of opportunities for nonfamily experiences will increase the likelihood of marital relationships based on an emotional bond between husbands and wives. Using data from 3,724 individuals i…
Environmentalism and Contraceptive Use
Social Change, Premarital Nonfamily Experience, and Spouse Choice in an Arranged Marriage Society
This article examines the influences of nonfamily experiences on participation in the selection of a first spouse in an arranged marriage society. The authors developed a theoretical framework to explain how a broad array of nonfamily experiences may translate into greater participation in the choice of a spouse. Analyses show that premarital nonfamily experiences, in general, and media exposure and participation in youth clubs, in particular, ha…
Land use and first birth timing in an agricultural setting
Community Services and Out‐Migration
This paper investigates the relationship between changing community context and out-migration in one of today's poor countries, seeking to document the various mechanisms by which infrastructure affects the migratory behavior. We focus on the expansion of social and physical facilities and services near to rural people's homes, including transportation, new markets, employment, schools, health clinics, and mass media outlets such as movie halls. …
Environmental change and out-migration
Community Context, Land Use, and First Birth
This paper examines the influence of community context and land use on the monthly odds of first birth in a society in the midst of dramatic fertility transition. The theoretical framework guiding our work predicts that proximity to non-family services should delay first births by creating opportunities for competing non-family activities and spreading new ideas that change expectations about family life. On the other hand, living in agricultural…
Social Organization, Population, and Land Use
A new approach to investigation of human influences on the environment identifies social organization as an influence independent of population size, affluence, and technology. The framework also identifies population events, such as births, that influence the environment. The authors use longitudinal, multilevel, mixed-method measures of local land use changes, population dynamics, and social organization to test this framework. These tests reve…
International Fertility Change
Many scholars have offered structural and ideational explanations for the fertility changes occurring around the world. This paper focuses on the influence of developmental idealism—a schema or set of beliefs endorsing development, fertility change, and causal connections between development and fertility. Developmental idealism is argued to be an important force affecting both population policy and the fertility behavior of ordinary people. We p…
A Micro-Level Event-Centered Approach to Investigating Armed Conflict and Population Responses
In this article, we construct and test a micro-level event-centered approach to the study of armed conflict and behavioral responses in the general population. Event-centered approaches have been successfully used in the macro-political study of armed conflict but have not yet been adopted in micro-behavioral studies. The micro-level event-centered approach that we advocate here includes decomposition of a conflict into discrete political and vio…
Household energy consumption
The Effect of Parents' Attitudes on Sons' Marriage Timing
Theories of family stability and change, demographic processes, and social psychological influences on behavior all posit that parental attitudes and beliefs are a key influence on their children's behavior. We have evidence of these effects in Western populations, but little information regarding this social mechanism in non-Western contexts. Furthermore, comparisons of mothers' and fathers' independent roles in these crucial intergenerational m…
The measurement and prevalence of an ideational model of family and economic development in Nepal
Developmental idealism (DI) is a system of beliefs and values that endorses modern societies and families and sees them as occurring together, with modern families as causes and consequences of societal development. This study was motivated by the belief that the population of Nepal has absorbed these ideas and that the ideas affect their family behaviour. We use data collected in Nepal in 2003 to show that Nepalis discuss ideas about development…
Knowledge and beliefs about national development and developmental hierarchies
Marital Processes, Arranged Marriage, and Contraception to Limit Fertility
An international transition away from familially arranged marriages toward participation in spouse choice has endured for decades and continues to spread through rural Asia today. Although we know that this transformation has important consequences for childbearing early in marriage, we know much less about longer-term consequences of this marital revolution. Drawing on theories of family and fertility change and a rural Asian panel study designe…
Influences on the knowledge and beliefs of ordinary people about developmental hierarchies
This article is motivated by the idea that development and developmental hierarchies have been constructed and embraced for centuries by scholars and policy makers and have been disseminated among ordinary people. Recent research shows that most people have constructions of development hierarchies that are similar across countries. In this article, we extend this research by examining how basic social factors influence ordinary people’s beliefs a…
Gender, Traumatic Events, and Mental Health Disorders in a Rural Asian Setting
Research shows a strong association between traumatic life experience and mental health and important gender differences in that relationship in the western European Diaspora; but much less is known about these relationships in other settings. We investigate these relationships in a poor rural Asian setting that recently experienced a decade-long armed conflict. We use data from 400 adult interviews in rural Nepal. The measures come from World Me…
Rural Agricultural Change and Fertility Transition in Nepal
Using longitudinal panel data from the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal, this study examines the impact of the use of modern farm technologies on fertility transition-specifically, the number of births in a farm household. Previous explanations for the slow pace of fertility transition in rural agricultural settings often argued that the demand for farm labor is the primary driver of high fertility. If this argument holds true, the use of modern f…
Farming Systems and Rural Out-Migration in Nang Rong, Thailand, and Chitwan Valley, Nepal
Using data from two postfrontier rural settings, Nang Rong, Thailand (N = 2,538), and Chitwan Valley, Nepal (N = 876), this article examines agricultural push factors determining the out-migration of young people age 15 to 19. We focus on different dimensions of migration, including distance and duration. Our study examines a wide array of agricultural determinants, each with its own potential effect on migration. These determinants include land …
Determinants of marital quality in an arranged marriage society
Coupled human and natural systems approach to wildlife research and conservation
Carter, N. H., A. Viña, V. Hull, W. J. McConnell, W. Axinn, D. Ghimire, and J. Liu. 2014. Coupled human and natural systems approach to wildlife research and conservation. Ecology and Society 19(3): 43. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06881-190343
Wives’ and Husbands’ Nonfamily Experiences and First-Birth Timing
This paper investigates the impact of wives’, husbands’, and couples’ experiences on first-birth timing in an arranged marriage society undergoing dramatic social change. Though previous research has emphasized that the transition away from arranged marriage may speed first births via mechanisms such as increased coital frequency, the nonfamily experiences closely associated with lower likelihoods of arranged marriage may delay first births throu…
Impact of the spread of mass education on married women's experience with domestic violence
Sociology (36 works) · Psychology (30 works) · Economics (27 works) · Demography (26 works) · Geography (21 works) · Population (21 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (20 works) · Demographic economics (18 works) · Demography (18 works) · Political science (18 works)