Effects Of Household Structure Research Articles

Gendered predictors of the impact of COVID-19 on cross-border fish trade in Zambia and Malawi

PurposeWhile the literature has highlighted the impacts of COVID-19, there is limited evidence on the gendered determinants of the impact of COVID-19 among small-scale rural traders in developing and emerging economies.Design/methodology/approachCross-border fish traders who had operated before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were interviewed in a survey conducted in Zambia and Malawi. Logistic regressions among male and female traders were employed to assess the gendered predictors.FindingsHeterogeneous effects in geographical location, skills, and knowledge were reported among male cross-border traders. Effects of household structure and composition significantly influenced the impact of COVID-19 among female traders. Surprisingly, membership in trade associations was associated with the high impact of COVID-19.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the COVID-19 pandemic and the migratory nature of cross-border fish traders, the population of cross-border fish traders at the time of the study was unknown and difficult to establish, cross-border fish traders (CBFT) at the landing sites and market areas were targeted for the survey without bias.Originality/valueThis paper addresses a gap in the literature on understanding gendered predictors of the impacts of COVID-19 among small-scale cross-border traders.

Household structure and children’s nutritional status in Ethiopia

Child malnutrition is one of the major public health problems in Ethiopia. Although most of the previous studies have investigated the problem in relation to social, economic, and demographic variables, the difference in nutritional status across different household types is not explored. Hence, this study assessed the effects of household structure on children’s nutritional status in Ethiopia using data obtained from 8827 children sampled in the 2004 National Welfare Monitoring Survey. The results revealed that children in single parent nuclear households were more vulnerable to malnutrition than those in two-parent nuclear and extended households. The persistent disadvantageous position of single parent nuclear households that did not have access to high child caring capacity and welfare support unveiled that lack of resources (i.e. financial, material, and labour) within the household is associated with poor nutritional status of children. Children’s nutritional status improved with increase in the educational level of mothers. On the other hand, the likelihood of stunting increased with increase in the number of under-five siblings. Thus, household structure affects the nutritional status of children through the mediating effects of socio-economic and demographic factors, indicating the importance of socio-economic support to poor households to address problems of children’s malnutrition. Eshetu GURMU, Center for Population Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, P. O. Box 150055, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. E-mail: eshetugurmu@gmail.com. Dula ETANA, Center for Population Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, P. O. Box 150055, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. E-mail: etanad29@gmail.com.

Effects of household structure and accessibility on travel

The concept of accessibility has been widely used in the transportation field, commonly to evaluate transportation planning options. The fundamental hypothesis of many studies related to accessibility could be “greater accessibility leads to more travel”. However, several studies have shown inconsistent results given this common hypothesis, finding instead that accessibility is independent of the trip/tour frequency. In addition, empirical aggregate urban modeling applications commonly produce either non-significant or negative (wrong sign) relationships between accessibility and the trip/tour frequency. For this reason, many practitioners rarely incorporate a measure of accessibility into trip/tour generation models out of consideration of the induced demand. In this context, this study examined the effect of accessibility in urban and suburban residences on the maintenance and discretionary activity tour frequencies of the elderly and the non-elderly using household travel survey data collected in the Seoul Metropolitan Area of Korea. The major finding of this study is that a higher density of land use and better quality of transportation service do not always lead to more tours due to the presence of intra-household interactions, trip chaining, and different travel needs by activity type. This finding implies that accessibility-related studies should not unquestioningly accept the common hypothesis when they apply accessibility measures to evaluate their transportation planning options or incorporate them into their trip/tour generation models.

Welfare Reform, Living Arrangements, and Economic Well-Being: A Synthesis of Literature

A primary objective of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) is reducing single mothers' dependence on the welfare system. This objective is sought not only through increased work, but also through changes in household structure — particularly encouraging healthy marriages and the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. Indeed, moving from a one-parent to a two-parent family may have positive implications for the economic well-being of families with children.This literature review focuses on the relationships between welfare reform, household structure, economic well-being, and resource sharing. In particular, we address two questions:Have changes in welfare policies in the 1990s affected household structure? What are the effects of household structure on economic well-being and intra-household resource sharing? Studies examining these research questions have used qualitative and quantitative (both nonexperimental and experimental) methods. The qualitative studies reviewed are based on in-depth interviews with relatively few respondents; the nonexperimental quantitative studies are, for the most part, carried out with large-scale nationally representative data sets; and the experimental quantitative studies use both state administrative and welfare client survey data, and are based on random assignment designs. The effects of welfare reform on living arrangements have been examined using nonexperimental quantitative and experimental quantitative methods, while studies of the effects of living arrangements on economic well-being and resource sharing have used qualitative and nonexperimental quantitative methods.

Persistent Poverty in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK

Using panel data for the Netherlands, Germany and the UK for seven years in the late 1980s and early 1990s the paper examines the comparative evidence on longitudinal income and persistent poverty for the three countries. Elaborating on the existing methodological literature of income dynamics, a panel regression model has been estimated to arrive at population wide estimates of the population in persitent and transitory poverty in a comparative perspective. What the model actually pursues is to disentangle income over time in a permanent and transitory part. The idea behind the approach is that what really matters for people’s welfare in the long run is their permanentincome. The basic assumption is that people have a kind of latent long-term income-toneeds level from which occasional departures are possible due to temporary income shortfalls or income surpluses associated with the occurrence of events such as(un)employment, disability or illness, overtime work or working time reductions. According to this framework, poverty can be seen as a state in which permanent income falls below a predefined threshold being the long-term poverty line. The approach can therefore be helpful in estimating the size of the population in persistent poverty. When appropriate variables are added to the empirical model, it is possible to monitor the effect of socio-economic events on the permanent income-to-needs level. Following Esping-Andersen’s seminal work on welfare-state regimes, one might perceive the UK as a liberal welfare state although in a less prototypical sense as it exists in the US. Germany should clearly be considered to belong to the corporatist prototype and the Netherlands to the social-democratic type. Then, presumably, the UK has the lowest permanent income-to-needs level, the highest persistent poverty incidence and the highest income mobility. The findings confirm the presumption that permanent income is lower in a liberal welfare state as the UK although not very much lower than in the other countries. Hence, the transitory part of income is slightly larger in this liberal type of welfare state. The results also show that permanent income is more unequally distributed in the UK than in the Netherlands and Germany and that income inequalities have a less permanent character in the Netherlands. Besides, transitory shocks in income have a less permanent effect in the Netherlands than in the two other countries. The inclusion of household composition or labour market variables does not alter the main results. Viewing the effect of labour market status variables, like living in a household with a not working head, it is shown that members of these households are more likely persistent poor, particularly when the head is female. The effects of household structure on persistent poverty appear quite large. Especially, lone-parents households seem prone to persistent poverty in all three welfare regimes but single elderly particularly in the UK.

Book Reviews

Sanders Korenman of City University of New York reviews “Against the Tide: Household Structure, Opportunities, and Outcomes among White and Minority Youth” by Carolyn J. Hill, Harry J. Holzer, Henry Chen,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Examines the effects of household structure on young adults and whether these effects contribute to the negative trends in employment and educational outcomes observed among minority youth. Discusses outcomes for young adults in two cohorts; household structure and young adult outcomes; and other correlates of household structure and their effects on outcomes. Hill is Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Holzer is Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Urban Institute. Chen is a Research Associate at Harvard Business School. Index.”

Effect of household structure on female reproductive strategies in a Caribbean village.

Household structure may have strong effects on reproduction. This study uses household demographic data for 59 women in a Caribbean village to test evolutionary hypotheses concerning variation in reproductive strategies. Father-absence during childhood, current household composition, and household economic status are predicted to influence age at first birth, number of mates, reproductive success, and pair-bond stability. Criterion variables did not associate in a manner indicative of r- and K-strategies. Father-absence in early childhood had little influence on subsequent reproduction. Household wealth and alloparenting were positively associated with age at first birth. Alloparenting was negatively associated with reproductive success. Women in long-term conjugal unions had higher reproductive success than did single women. Number of adult male kin resident in the household was negatively associated with women's number of mates.

Household Structure and Dietary Patterns in the Afro-Ecuadorian Highlands

Dietary patterns in contemporary societies have been a primary focus of nutritional and anthropological research. Class, occupation, income, and gender have been studied when analyzing dietary patterns and the roots of malnutrition and hunger; however, the effects of household structure have received less attention. The main purpose of our study was to obtain information on the diet of a highland Afro-Ecuadorian community and examine the relationship between household structure and dietary patterns. Survey questionnaires, in-depth questionnaires, and participant observation were utilized to examine how women in female-headed households compare with women in male-headed households in meeting the dietary needs of their families. There was no significant difference in food-acquisition patterns. Weekly expenditures for food in the two types of households were similar, despite different income levels. However, female-headed households had higher food-group scores and consumed more meals per day.

Effects of household structure and selected travel characteristics on trip chaining

This paper analyzes trip chaining, focusing on how households organize non-work travel. A trip chaining typology is developed using household survey data from Portland, Oregon. Households are organized according to demographic structure, allowing analysis of trip chaining differences among household types. A logit model of the propensity to link non-work trips to the work commute is estimated. A more general model of household allocation of non-work travel among three alternative chain types — work commutes, multi-stop non-work journeys, and unlinked trips — is also developed and estimated. Empirical results indicate that the likelihood of linking work and non-work travel, and the more general organization of non-work travel, varies with respect to household structure and other factors which previous studies have found to be important. The effects of two congestion indicators on trip chaining were mixed: workers who commuted in peak periods were found to have lower propensity to form work/non-work chains, while a more general congestion indicator had no effect on the allocation of non-work trips among alternative chains.

Race and Marital Status Differences in the Labor Force Behavior of Female Family Heads: The Effect of Household Structure

This study examines the effects of household structure on the labor force status of female heads of families with minor children. Previous research has produced mixed results; some studies report that an extended living arrangement facilitates the labor market activity of female heads while others find no relationship between these variables. Logistic regression analysis of the March 1985 US Current Population Survey suggests that these inconsistencies may have occurred because the impact of household structure depends on which racial and marital group of females heads is observed. Results of this study show that an extended family 1) has no effect on the labor force behavior of white previously married mothers 2) increases the likelihood of employed black and white never-married mothers 3) conditions the impact of preschool-aged children for black mothers only; the effect is negative for never-married black women and positive for formerly married blacks. Findings reported here suggest that models of labor force behavior are misspecified if females heads of families are not analyzed separately by race and marital status. (authors)