Home Production Research Articles

The Marketization of Home Production: Does Production Time Transfer Between Home and Market?

We use the microeconomic theory that takes into account household production and human activity in the non-market sphere to analyze the phenomena of a macroeconomic nature. We check the activation of women in the labor market, a phenomenon observed in Western European countries and the United States, among others. The decision to become economically active reduces the opportunity to devote time to previously undertaken activities, including a reduction in the time spent on housework. This often involves a significant change in the structure of consumption, which, at the macroeconomic level, is associated with the creation of new jobs and a change in the structure of the economy. Structural change is understood as the transfer of economic activity between the three main sectors of the system, namely agriculture, industry and services. This study uses microeconomic data from two waves of the TUS in Poland. The so-called marketization hypothesis was tested separately for three groups of women aged 18–24, 25–44 and 45–59. When estimating the parameters of the models, characteristics such as having a partner, having children under six and educational attainment were taken into account. The calculations show that women aged 25–44 are relatively active in the labor market, but it is those aged 18–24 who fulfill all of the conditions that support the marketization hypothesis.

How emerging-market brands can overcome a weak country image

PurposeThis study offers a comprehensive analysis of the relative effectiveness of different strategies that emerging-market brands can use to mitigate a weak country image.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs discrete choice conjoint analysis to evaluate the relative effectiveness of store image, warranty duration, third-party certification and corporate engagement on US consumers’ perceptions of products from China and Cambodia. China, representing an advanced emerging market, and Cambodia, representing a less advanced market, were selected to provide a diverse context for comparison. The study examines electric scooters (relatively more hedonic) and refrigerators (relatively more utilitarian) to test the robustness of the findings across different product categories.FindingsThe study demonstrates that retail store image is the most influential factor in mitigating negative COO effects. An extensive warranty emerges as the second most effective mitigation strategy, followed closely by third-party certification. In contrast, corporate social engagement is found to be the least effective strategy across all studies. The study further explores moderating influences on these preferences. The findings are largely robust, with only minimal effects of age, gender, product home country and product type on the relative effectiveness of the identified mitigation strategies.Practical implicationsThe findings offer valuable insights for managers of emerging-market brands, suggesting a prioritization of marketing efforts.Originality/valueThe study enhances the theoretical understanding of COO effects, presenting a nuanced view of how various strategies can be deployed to mitigate negative perceptions of brands associated with emerging markets.

Utilizing Multimedia Data Transmission Technology for Interactive Design in Smart Home Products

In the actual production of smart home products, it is difficult to complete the matching design in specific stages. Therefore, the design workload at different stages will have a certain time gap. For the first time in this paper, user groups are divided into two categories, namely users, controllers, buyers and Experiencers. A new smart home system model is designed. Its innovation lies in the integrated system of Internet of things and smart home. Connect the home appliances to the network through the gateway, and communicate with mobile phones and computers. Through analyzing and comparing its characteristics, it is concluded that the controller is the most active response group of smart home products. The effectiveness of the protocol implementation is verified by writing corresponding simulation scenario scripts and general trace file processing scripts. The verification results show that the implementation of the protocol is effective. ZBR algorithm is the complementary advantage of the two routing algorithms.

The Industrial Application Potential of Sugar Beet Pulp Derived Monosaccharides d-Galacturonic Acid and l-Arabinose.

This review provides a perspective on the industrial application potential of sugar beet pulp (SBP) derived monosaccharides. The broad application of these monosaccharides could contribute to bio-based alternatives and sustainable practices, essential for the transition towards a more circular economy. This review focuses on the utilization and application of two SBP monosaccharides, d-galacturonic acid (d-GalA) and l-arabinose (l-Ara), derived from pectin and hemicellulose. These polysaccharides are major components of sugar beet pulp, an important side stream of sucrose production. d-GalA and l-Ara are therefore abundant in biomass and offer unique molecular structures amenable to selective chemical or enzymatic modifications. We review their application in various industrial applications such as the development and production of bioactive compounds, home and personal care products, and other industries.

Application of Single Chip Microcomputer in Smart Home Products

This article explores the application of Single Chip Microcomputers (SCMs) in smart home products. SCMs, compact computing devices integrating a processor, memory, and I/O peripherals, are ideal for IoT-enabled smart homes due to their real-time processing, energy efficiency, and affordability. Their core characteristics include low power consumption, real-time processing, compact size, affordability, versatility in communication, making them indispensable in smart home ecosystems. SCMs are widely used in smart lighting systems, thermostats, home security systems, smart appliances, and voice-controlled systems, enhancing user convenience, energy efficiency, and security. Technological enablers like IoT connectivity and sensor integration facilitate the integration of SCM-based smart devices. However, security concerns remain critical. Future trends include the integration of AI and Machine Learning and the adoption of 5G technology, enhancing the functionality and sophistication of smart home systems.

The Future of Smart Housekeeping in Multiple Scenarios

With the development of the social economy and the improvement of material living standards, multi-scenario intelligent housekeeper brings convenience and security to people's lives, improve the quality of the human living environment, and enable us to save more time and have higher efficiency. In this article, we introduce some background of smart home, there are also categories of smart homes on the market, but now in the market under the multi-scene intelligent butler is not very perfect, so in this work, we need to focus on the problems that have emerged, Including improper operation, execution of wrong commands, lack of compatibility, smart furniture privacy is not enough, expensive and other problems. We also studied the development trend of smart home products, including some functional development and future development of the research content. For example, voice recognition and voice response system, Bluetooth system, infrared temperature measurement module, monitoring, automatic sleep and other functions and some simple analysis of these functions are carried out. In my opinion, the future development of smart home in multiple scenarios is a process full of opportunities and challenges, and we need to continue to explore and innovate. Only in this way can we ensure the sustainable development and social acceptance of smart homes.

Understanding User Experience with Smart Home Products

ABSTRACT There has been a surge in the popularity of smart home products. Existing literature primarily focuses on the initial adoption of these products, with less attention given to the post-adoption stage. This has created a research gap in understanding user experience (UX) and the key dimensions of user satisfaction and dissatisfaction. This study aims to address this gap by examining both positive and negative user experiences with smart home products. Using robotic vacuum cleaners as a case study, we analyze key UX dimensions derived from their positive and negative reviews on Amazon.com that influence user satisfaction and dissatisfaction, respectively. Dimensions contributing to satisfaction include “functionality,” “smartness,” and “enhanced capacity (mopping feature).” In contrast, “insufficient smartness,” “poor customer service,” and “connectivity problems” are critical dimensions for user dissatisfaction. Notably, “smartness” serves as a double-edged sword, potentially leading to high satisfaction but also significant dissatisfaction if poorly implemented. Our analysis also includes a comparative examination of robotic vacuums with traditional vacuums, highlighting the different UX dimensions associated with each product type. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we further examine the configurations of these UX dimensions that contribute to satisfaction and dissatisfaction. To generalize our findings, we applied our framework to smart thermostats and proposed a UX model for smart home products. Our findings not only fill the research gap in smart home literature but also offer valuable insights for practitioners in designing smart home products and developing marketing strategies. Our research method can be applied to understand user experience with various types of smart home products and other innovative technologies.

Research and Analysis of Smart Home Products Based on the Emotional Needs of Generation Z Living Alone

Abstract: With the rapid transformation of Chinas economic structure, the concentration of industrial resources, and the widespread access to education, the young Generation Z has undergone a conceptual metamorphosis, flocking to first- and second-tier cities, resulting in a phenomenon of living alone. In a sense, these individuals drive social development through their own efforts; however, their collective psychological characteristics often clash with the heterogeneous and transient environment in which they reside. The issue of unmet emotional needs stemming from their solitude is becoming increasingly pronounced. This paper examines the living conditions and consumption characteristics of Generation Z living alone and, from the perspective of their emotional needs, explores their preferences and demands in the application of smart home products. The goal is to provide meaningful insights for improving the quality of life for young urban dwellers living alone and to contribute to the research and development direction of smart home product design.

Untying the Knot: How Child Support and Alimony Affect Couples’ Dynamic Decisions and Welfare

Abstract In many countries, divorce law mandates post-marital maintenance payments (child support and alimony) to insure the lower earner in married couples against financial losses upon divorce. This paper studies how maintenance payments affect couples’ intertemporal decisions and welfare. I develop a dynamic model of family labor supply, home production, savings, and divorce and estimate it using Danish register and survey data. The model captures the policy tradeoff between providing insurance to the lower earner and enabling couples to specialize efficiently, on the one hand, and maintaining labor supply incentives for divorcees, on the other hand. I use the estimated model to study various counterfactual policy scenarios. I find that alimony comes with more substantial labor supply disincentives compared to child support payments and is less efficient in providing consumption insurance. The welfare maximizing policy, within the status quo policy space, involves increasing child support and reducing alimony payments. My results show that Pareto improvements beyond this welfare maximizing policy are feasible, highlighting limitations of how child support and alimony policies are commonly implemented.

An Analysis of How Smart Home Product Attributes Influence Older Adults' Avoidance Psychology: The Sequential Mediation Role of Product Identity and Trust.

As an effective method of improving the quality of life of older adults, smart home products have seen significant development and increased popularity in recent years. However, studies on the anti-consumption behaviors of older adults regarding these products remain relatively limited. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the avoidance behavior of older adults toward smart home products by investigating product attributes. The study proposes a theoretical model, "product attributes-product Identity-trust-avoidance behavior", to explore the underlying mechanisms of avoidance behavior from both the psychological and the behavioral perspectives. Based on data from 506 valid questionnaires, the findings reveal that product attributes, product identity, and trust can significantly and negatively impact the avoidance behavior toward smart home products. In addition, product identity and trust play significant mediating and serial mediating roles between product attributes and smart home product avoidance behaviors. These findings provide valuable insights for smart home product manufacturers seeking to understand the avoidance behavior of older adults concerning their products. They also offer valuable guidance on design concepts, marketing strategies, and market formulation, providing new theoretical and practical recommendations for expanding the smart home market for older adults.

Assessing environmental exposure to phyto-pharmaceutical products in a wine-growing area of Alsace, France: Combined indoor and outdoor air and dust sampling

This study assessed the contamination of ambient air and dust with phyto-pharmaceutical products (PPPs) in homes near agricultural areas, particularly those close to vineyards, to determine the link between local agricultural activities and exposure risks. Residents in such areas face a higher likelihood of PPPs exposure, making it critical to evaluate the impact of agriculture on air quality.From March 2018 to December 2019, systematic sampling was conducted in nine houses, including a reference house near vineyards, in an Alsatian village in Bas-Rhin, France. The study monitored 38 molecules in 347 passive air samples and 127 dust samples, using Pressurized Liquid Extraction (PLE), Thermal Desorption (TD), and GC/MSMS for quantification.The results showed the presence of various PPPs in air and dust, including several compounds typically used in field crops. The six most frequently detected molecules were cyprodinil (fungicide), diflufenican (herbicide), fenpropidin (fungicide), metamitron (herbicide), and prosulfocarb (herbicide). Metamitron, found in over 50% of both indoor and outdoor air samples and 70% of dust samples, was especially prevalent.The study concluded that passive air sampling is an effective method for monitoring PPP contamination, while dust sampling provides valuable complementary data. Regular, frequent sampling is essential to understanding contamination patterns and seasonal variations, emphasizing the need for continuous monitoring in residential areas near agricultural fields.

Problematic issues of the impact of microplastics on the human body and the environment: A review

Currently, the widespread use of plastic has become a serious problem for the environment and human health. Microplastics, being an artificial polymer created by man, are highly resistant to external influences and their decomposition requires a significant amount of time. The article provides information on the distribution of microplastics and their impact on the environment and the human body, issues of detecting microplastics in the blood, heart, lungs, placenta and meconium, in breast milk, hypothetical mechanisms by which microplastics penetrate into human tissues and the metabolism of plasticizers in children with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In the modern world, plastic has become an integral part of our daily lives, the presence of microplastics in plastic bags for storing breast milk, in baby formula and polypropylene bottles has been demonstrated, the relationship between microplastics and postpartum depression, the relationship between fecal microplastics and the status of inflammatory bowel diseases has been described. Making the decision to limit the use of plastic products in your home is an important step that can play a key role in reducing environmental pollution and protecting the health of future generations.

Job loss, consumption insurance, and household time allocation

This study examines how married households respond to negative income shocks resulting from the husband’s job loss, focusing on both monetary insurance channels and changes in the time use of husbands and wives. Using a unique Japanese panel dataset, the empirical analysis shows that the husband’s involuntary job loss leads to significant and persistent declines in his labor earnings. However, the impact on household consumption expenditure is considerably smaller, with only about one-fifth of the income shock transmitted to consumption, suggesting that a substantial amount of monetary insurance is at work. In the short run, unemployment benefits play a crucial role in mitigating the shock, while the wife’s labor supply becomes important in the long run, especially for households where the wife was not employed full-time before the job loss. Additionally, husbands significantly increase their time spent on home production following job loss, and this effect persists for at least three years.

Home production and time use in an epidemic

AbstractThis paper examines the role of home production in gender‐based responses of time use to the COVID‐19 pandemic. We develop a tractable model featuring time allocation choices and susceptible‐infected‐susceptible epidemiological dynamics. The model economy has two steady states, and an outbreak can trigger a transition from a disease‐free steady state to an epidemic steady state, accompanied by a shift in economic activity toward the home. Our parameterized model well reproduces pandemic‐driven variations in time allocation in the US. This stems largely from the combination of three key features of home production: the high substitutability between market goods and home goods, the asymmetric immunity of home production to the epidemic and the comparative advantage of women in household work. Our decomposition analysis finds that elevated home production accounts for a sizable share of changes in market work and its gender gap during the pandemic. Remote work limits fluctuations in time use but worsens gender inequality in market work.

Labor supply effects of a universal cash transfer

I investigate the labor supply effects of the introduction of an exceptionally large unconditional cash benefit. I exploit the unique design of the child benefit program in Poland to identify the effects of the monthly transfer in a difference-in-differences design. The transfer had no short-term effects but caused sizable negative medium-term effects on household labor supply. In the medium run, population estimates indicate that for every extra 100 dollars in monthly child benefit transfers households received, they reduced their after-tax earnings by 25 dollars, spent 32 dollars on consumption, and saved 43 dollars. These negative labor supply effects are much larger and much more precisely estimated among households with low socioeconomic status. Additional evidence shows that the program had a positive impact on investments in human capital and home production efficiency.

Design of an Energy-Saving System for Smart Home Decoration Based on Situational Awareness

This article analyzes the specific energy-saving requirements for smart home decoration in the current market to determine the overall plan of the entire smart home decoration energy-saving system. Based on situational analysis combined with grounded theory, organize and summarize the original data, and use factor analysis for dimensionality reduction analysis. Combining the multi-level analysis method, experts evaluated and scored the user experience evaluation indicators, obtained the weight assignment of each influencing factor, and constructed a user experience evaluation model for smart home products based on situational theory. After extensive testing, it was found that the ZigBee based smart home network implemented in this article has low energy consumption, overcomes many shortcomings of smart home networks, and has high application value.

Income or leisure? On the hidden benefits of (un)employment

Do unemployed people benefit from more free time, while consumption is the sole motive for employed people to accept a life with less available time? Does this apply equally to men and women? To inform ongoing policy debates on how to address the problem of unemployment, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the traditionally assumed trade-off between income and leisure in labor supply decisions, which has been contested for a variety of reasons. Using rich German panel data, we compare non-employed individuals after plant closures with employed individuals regarding their subjective well-being obtained from time use and income. We find that increased non-working time through unemployment translates into higher free-time satisfaction, while also improving satisfaction with family life, as a possible hidden benefit of being unemployed when having more time for home production. Meanwhile, there is a strong decline in satisfaction with household income, especially among unemployed men, which cannot be explained solely by a lower level of income. We inspect the role of social norms in this context and argue that individuals obtain identity utility through having a job that ensures being self-sufficient, as a hidden benefit of employment. Based on studying unemployed workers transitions into retirement and a separately conducted survey experiment, we provide strong evidence on the importance of the social norm of earning a living from work. Our experiment also shows that home production is a way of mitigating the pressure to comply with this norm, which is true for men and women alike.

Gender differences in the added (home) worker effect

This study combines the literature on home production and on the added worker effect as households’ self-insurance mechanisms against unemployment. Exploiting Dutch panel data with detailed information on time use categories and subjective job loss expectations, we estimate the causal effect of an unforeseen job loss on spouses’ time use decisions regarding paid work and home production. In the analysis we explicitly differentiate between males and females who experience sudden unemployment. We find no effect on the intensive or extensive margins of spousal labor supply or on spousal time in home production.

Analysis of the Moderating Effect of Korea's Collectivistic Organizational Climate on Managers' Perception of Work from Home and Work Productivity Changes

Analysis of the Moderating Effect of Korea's Collectivistic Organizational Climate on Managers' Perception of Work from Home and Work Productivity Changes

The earned income tax credit (EITC) and time spent helping and caring for adults

AbstractThis is the first study to examine the effect of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on unpaid caregiving for adults, which could operate through the credit’s effects on labor supply and household income. Using a sample of unmarried mothers and data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I employ a simulated benefit approach to generate causal estimates of the effect of EITC generosity on time use. I find that increases in average EITC benefits have differential effects on assisting adults by both the age of the EITC recipient and the relationship between the EITC recipient and the care recipient. No effect is estimated for the youngest group of unmarried mothers (ages 25–34), who increase employment without reducing time spent assisting adults. In contrast, the oldest group of unmarried mothers (ages 45–54) responds by increasing their propensity to assist their parents while maintaining their labor supply. Unmarried mothers aged 35–44 both increase their labor supply and spend more time assisting adult family members on the intensive margin, even as they are less likely to assist parents on the extensive margin, especially with chore help. Results for other types of time use (home production, leisure, childcare, education, sleep), as well as probability of multigenerational co-residence, help explain these shifts. For example, for the oldest group of unmarried mothers, increased co-residence with parents is estimated to occur and may facilitate this labor-caregiving balance. These results add to a growing body of evidence that the EITC affects recipients’ time allocation beyond paid work and that the effects of the EITC span across generations and households.