Household-level Data Research Articles

Does property ownership by women reduce domestic violence? A case of Latin America

ABSTRACT It is widely believed that empowering women via various material means increases women’s outside options and, thereby, makes them less vulnerable to intimate partner violence. However, the effect of such empowerment on domestic violence could be subtle particularly in countries with pre-existing high tolerance to violence, weak law enforcement and male institutional domination. Using cross-sectional household-level survey data for Latin American countries, we test the effect of property ownership by women on domestic violence. The results show that a woman’s sole property ownership is not associated with less domestic violence against her; sometimes the correlation is even positive. However, married women who co-own the property are less likely to face domestic abuse by husbands.

Household air pollution and associated risk factors before and during COVID-19 Hard Lockdown in South Africa

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Household air pollution (HAP) is associated with adverse human health impacts. During COVID-19 Hard Lockdown Level 5, South Africans remained at home, potentially increasing their exposure risk to HAP. This study was conducted to investigate changes in fuel use behaviours / patterns affecting HAP exposure and associated HAP-related health outcomes during the COVID-19 Hard Lockdown that started 23 March, 2020. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional online and telephonic survey of participants from an existing database. HAP exposure indicators were considered before and during Hard Lockdown. Participants were also asked about HAP and COVID-19 symptoms/tests before and during this lockdown. Logistic regression and McNemar’s test were used to analyse household-level data. RESULTS:Among 2,505 participants, while electricity was the main energy source for cooking and heating before and during Hard Lockdown, some households used less electricity during Hard Lockdown. A majority of households reported cooking more, cleaning more, and spending more time indoors during the lockdown. Age (older), gender (male), and number of people (an increase) living in the dwelling affected the presence of HAP-related health outcomes. For fuel type used for heating, paraffin had the highest significant odds ratio (1.89 p = 0.015, CI 1.13 - 3.16) compared to electricity (applied as reference category) as the heating fuel type used in a household that reported COVID-19-related health symptoms and / or confirmed COVID-19 cases (combined analysis). CONCLUSIONS:This study showed that increased number of people living in a dwelling and using paraffin for heating increased the odds of those households having HAP-related health outcomes. Several of these are similar to COVID-19 symptoms. Should South Africa return to Hard Lockdown Level 5, awareness raising about the risks associated with HAP as well as messaging information for prevention of exposure to HAP and adverse health impacts will be necessary to inform the public. KEYWORDS: dirty fuels, environmental health, fuel patterns, household air quality, respiratory health

Impact of Peste des petits ruminants for sub-Saharan African farmers: A bioeconomic household production model.

Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a contagious viral disease affecting small ruminants, has been targeted by the global community for eradication within the next 10 years. However, eradication will require substantial money, human resources, coordination among actors, and individual commitments. The objective was to estimate the cost of PPR at a household level, thereby providing information on the potential economic benefits of PPR eradication and the incentives for small ruminant keepers to actively participate in the PPR Global Eradication Programme. This study focused on four sub-Saharan countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali and Rwanda. Publicly available household level data assembled by FAO were used. A bioeconomic model was built to estimate impacts of PPR for a standardized theoretical area, where each household raised an average small ruminant herd or flock. Model outputs were used to estimate, at a household level, income loss due to a PPR outbreak. We constructed various income scenarios to account for the variability of small ruminant income as a proportion of total household annual income. Household income losses ranged from 2% to 40% of total annual income; percentages varied depending on the income scenario and on the gross annual economic impact of PPR on small ruminant production, which ranged from 20% to 80%, based on results of the bioeconomic model. As expected, the more small ruminant production contributed to household income the greater the impact. Estimates provided herein warn decision makers that, given the heterogeneous impact of PPR on household income, the willingness of small ruminant decision makers to participate in the PPR Global Eradication Programme may vary widely and tailored approaches should be devised and implemented.

EatingChapattiswith Salt and Water: Bundelkhand’s Chronic Food Insecurity

Food insecurity prevails when the availability of sufficient nutritious and safe food is threatened. This article examines conditions in Bundelkhand’s Banda district and analyses the reasons behind the conditions of food insecurity prevalent there. On the basis of household-level primary data, body mass index (BMI) and 24-hour dietary recall (24-HDR) have been used to measure the chronic and transitory dimensions of food insecurity. The overall sex specific prevalence of chronic energy deficiency (CED) shows that both males and females are passing through a critical situation with respect to their nutritional status, with females being more underprivileged. Nearly two-fifths of the households remain hungry and are consuming calories less than the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 1,890 calories, with wasted children being the biggest sufferers of CED. Persistent drought conditions combined with the unavailability of assured means of irrigation and faulty implementation of government systems and services, have ensured that Banda district remains in a state of chronic food insecurity.

Modelling technical efficiency and technology gap in smallholder maize sector in Ethiopia: accounting for farm heterogeneity

ABSTRACT This paper examines the effect of farm heterogeneity on the technical efficiency and technology gap of maize production in Ethiopia. We utilize comprehensive household-level data in 2010, 2013 and 2015 for three major maize producing regions in Ethiopia. We estimate technical efficiency using a bias-corrected stochastic meta-frontier model that accounts for technological differences and the consistent ‘true’ fixed-effects stochastic frontier model, which disentangles unobservable farm heterogeneity from inefficiency. We find that maize farmers produce below their potential output with the technology available and the prevailing environmental conditions in their regions. The results show that Oromia has the highest technical efficiency, followed by SNNP, and Benishangul-Gumuz is the least efficient in maize production. These findings generate important policy implications for achieving increased technical efficiency and reduce the technology gap in maize production. Moreover, the level of education, age of household head, family size, household wealth, and off-farm employment and extension services significantly affect technical efficiency in maize production in Ethiopia.

Is small beautiful? Links between agricultural mechanization services and the productivity of different-sized farms

ABSTRACT Developing agricultural mechanization services is commonly regarded as an important approach to pushing smallholder farmers engaging in modern agricultural production in China. However, whether smallholder farmers can benefit more from agricultural mechanization services is ambiguous. Using household-level data collected from Henan province in China, this study investigates the effect of agricultural mechanization services on the productivity of different-sized farms. The results indicate that the productivity of medium farms benefits more from agricultural mechanization services rather than small and large farms. Further analysis shows that medium farms are more likely to adopt agricultural mechanization services and reveals a positive relationship between the adoption of agricultural mechanization services and farm productivity. The higher rate of adoption of agricultural mechanization services and the related higher productivity of medium farms can be explained by the tendency of large farms to invest in self-owned agricultural machinery and the likelihood that small farms will input more labourers in wheat production. Although Chinese governments aim to develop the social service in agriculture for smallholder farmers, it seems that they do not get positive responses.

VALUE-CHAIN ANALYSIS OF GINGER SUB-SECTOR IN SOLUKHUMBU DISTRICT, NEPAL

Survey research was carried out on Value Chain Analysis of Ginger Sub-Sector in Solukhumbu district with an objective of finding the value chain of ginger in Solukhumbu district of Nepal. Household level data from 60 household from Necha-Salyan rural municipality and Thulung Dudhkoshi rural municipality were sampled using random sampling technique. Few Local traders, wholesaler and retailers were also interviewed. Average area under ginger cultivation was found 2.35 ropani. Average cost of production per ropani was Rs. 14450.38 and majority of production cost of the production was covered by seed. The productivity of ginger in study area was 8.22 Mt/ha which was lower than national average and higher than the district productivity. The average price of the fresh ginger was Rs. 85.63/kg and Rs.200/kg for the dried ginger. Price fluctuation, lack of proper market, white grub, rhizome rot, lack of road access were the major problems for ginger grower in Solukhumbu District. Despite many problems, ginger cultivation in the study area was profitable business with B/C ratio 2.37 and B/C ratio of dried ginger was 1.13. Most of the sampled farmers were involved in the farming for their livelihood. Improved cultivation practices with recommended variety, timely plantation and seed treatment, simple processing like cleaning, sorting and grading are of immediate need to generate additional income to the producer.

Financial Inclusion and Household Welfare: An Entropy-Based Consumption Diversification Approach

State-led financial inclusion programmes have been implemented in many developing countries, but their effectiveness in raising welfare remains widely debated. In this article, we report evidence on this issue, against the backdrop of recent policy initiatives on financial inclusion in India. We employ Theil’s entropy-based index to estimate diversification in consumption expenditure, and use this as a measure of welfare. Using household-level panel data across all regions of the country, we find evidence that greater financial inclusion increases diversity in non-food items. Further, we also notice that there is a shift in consumption basket from food items to non-food items. These findings suggest an improvement in welfare for both rural as well as urban households.

Insights into smallholder capacity for agricultural commercialisation: Evidence from four African contexts

Over the last 15 years, the agricultural economics and development literature has amply highlighted success stories of smallholder farmers in developing countries, illustrating their increased engagement and integration with markets, in other words, higher rates of commercialisation. Yet, this seeming ‘success’ should not detract from the large proportion of farmers who, through engaging in high-value market chains, face high risks that often limit the extent of their engagement. This study, across four African contexts in Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, strives to better understand smallholder participation in agricultural commercialisation. Using new detailed cross-sectional household-level data, from the Agricultural Policy Research in Africa (APRA) consortium, collected over 2017–2018, we analyse assets as a determining factor for localised patterns smallholder commercialisation. Applying asset-based thresholds, we capture commercialisation ‘capacity’—an indicator of the household’s commercialisation potential and ability to respond to risks. Despite the possibility to increase commercialisation as well as institutional arrangements that may reduce risk, such as contract farming, benefits from linkages with medium-scale farmers or returns from specific crop types, we find that households may yet be constrained by lower capacity. Hence, the need for targeted support for those at the margins and with limited assets; with the most pronounced and significant constraints for lower capacity households in study areas in Tanzania. These results can better inform development policies for agriculture where it is important to be able to specifically target households rather than a one size fits all approach.

The Reform of Housing Policies in Urban China and Household Consumption

Since 1998, housing policies in urban China have gone through a series of reforms that transformed housing allocation from a centralized welfare housing system to a market-oriented housing system. Through the process welfare dwelling residents are eligible to purchase their existing dwelling at a subsidized price. This access to welfare housing drives a wedge in the cost of acquiring property and subsequently can imply a substantial difference of net housing wealth and housing debts. This paper investigates the impact of access to welfare housing on household consumption by using a large household-level survey data from 2010 to 2018. Our results indicate that households owned welfare housing in the past had a higher level of consumption than households without access to welfare housing, and the benchmark estimate shows owning welfare housing can increase consumption by 11.5 per cent. Our results also suggest that this positive impact on consumption decays over time, and is particularly significant for low-consumption households and for those residing in first-tier cities.

Welfare Costs of Idiosyncratic and Aggregate Consumption Shocks

I estimate welfare benefits of eliminating idiosyncratic consumption shocks unrelated to the business cycle as 47.3% of household utility and benefits of eliminating idiosyncratic shocks related to the business cycle as 3.4% of utility. Estimates of the former substantially exceed earlier ones because I distinguish between idiosyncratic shocks related/unrelated to the business cycle, estimate the negative skewness of shocks, target moments of idiosyncratic shocks from household-level CEX data, and target market moments. Benefits of eliminating aggregate shocks are 7.7% of utility. Policy should focus on insuring idiosyncratic shocks unrelated to the business cycle, such as the death of a household’s prime wage earner and job layoffs not necessarily related to recessions.

Multidimensional energy poverty and human capital development: Empirical evidence from India

Energy poverty is believed to have crucial socio-economic impacts on people's lives, making it a major concern for the policy agenda in many countries, especially in the Global South. Evidence-based inferences on the antecedents and outcomes of energy poverty would aid policymakers in the formulation of better-informed policy decisions. However, measuring energy poverty at the micro-level has always been a challenge, especially in developing countries. This study uses household-level survey data from India to construct a multidimensional measure of energy poverty, which focuses on quantifying energy deprivation, covering both accessibility to and affordability of a broad range of energy forms, and examines its impact on human capital development indicators. Our instrumental variable-based estimations reveal that energy poverty has significant negative effects on children's health and educational achievements. Our results are robust to alternative ways of measuring energy poverty, a suite of estimation approaches, and other sensitivity checks.

Transitioning to an obese India: Demographic and structural determinants of the rapid rise in overweight incidence

India, which has long suffered from undernutrition, has seen a rapid rise in overweight incidence in the last decade and a half. These changes are characterized by significant within-country differences in overweight incidence that vary by gender and regional development levels. In this paper, we provide an integrative framework, linking the income-gradient hypothesis of obesity with biological, obesogenic, and environmental factors to provide an explanation on the emergence of within-country differences in overweight patterns. We utilize measured body mass index (BMI), along with individual- and household-level data of over 800,000 men and women surveyed in the National Family Health Surveys of 2005–06 and 2015–16 to identify correlates of within-country differences in overweight incidence. A decomposition analysis reveals that among women, in addition to increasing access to obesogenic technologies, biological factors are associated with overweight incidence. Among men, obesogenic factors related to technology use and health behaviors are associated with the rise in overweight incidence, but biological factors are not. At lower levels of regional development, overweight incidence is associated with greater access to obesogenic technology such as motorized transport, which reduces physical activity among men at higher rates than women. At higher levels of economic development, obesogenic behaviors, such as watching more television and reducing smoking, are associated with overweight incidence. Our results corroborate the call by public health experts for group-specific policies to stem the rise of overweight incidence in developing countries.

Do Nutrition Education Approaches With Preschoolers and Their Caregivers Influence Retention of Biofortified Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato on Farms? Evidence From Homa Bay County, Kenya.

Biofortified staples have been promoted widely in sub-Saharan Africa to combat micronutrient deficiencies. Contemporary projects are increasingly using elementary schools to target households with these foods. This study assessed the effects of integrated nutrition education approaches, targeting preschoolers and their caregivers, on retention of orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) on farms in the second season after lapse of free vine dissemination initiatives. Rural farming households, with preschoolers and no prior engagement with OFSP, were targeted. A multistage sample of 431 preschooler-caregiver pairs was recruited for a cluster-randomized controlled trial. After issuing routine OFSP promotion activities, 15 village-level clusters of the pairs were randomized into 1 control group (3 villages) and 3 treatment arms (4 villages each) for the interventions. Baseline and follow-up household-level survey data were collected from the caregivers. The interventions included: (1) OFSP-branded exercise books, posters, and a poem to preschoolers only; (2) OFSP-oriented mobile phone mediated text messages to caregivers only; and (3) both 1 and 2 provided to individual households concurrently. Interventions 1 and 2 were single-channeled, while 3 was multichanneled. We estimated the intention-to-treat (ITT) and treatment-on-the-treated (TOT) effects using a binary logit model and a special regressor method, respectively. Only the multi-channeled nutrition education approach had significant effects (ITT = 0.167, P = .001; TOT = .243, P = .007) on the caregivers' likelihood to retain OFSP on their farms. The finding implies that multi-channeled agriculture nutrition education interventions through Early Childhood Development institutions can be effective in ensuring sustainable adoption of OFSP.

Household Demand Analysis for Pakistan: Recent Evidence

The objective of this study is to analyze household demand system for Pakistan by estimating various elasticities of demand. This study combines nine different rounds of Household Integrated Economic Survey data to estimate Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS). Household level data are supplemented with rich price information available for all the twelve months of the nine years. This approach yields efficient estimates of income and price elasticities, which are non-linear combinations of the parameters of AIDS. Standard errors for all the elasticity estimates are computed on the basis of Monte-Carlo simulations. The results show that household demand responses to income changes are similar between rural and urban households, while the response to price changes differ considerably. On average, rural households are found to be more responsive to price changes than the urban households. The study recommends that on equity grounds transport and communication and miscellaneous non-food goods and housing can be taxed more heavily as compared to other goods.

Does Nutrition Really Matter for the Productivity of Smallholder Farmers?

Household-level data from Malaysia Smallholder paddy farmers are used to test whether higher caloric intake enhances family farm labour productivity. This study contests the notion behind the efficiency wages hypothesis. Farmers’ productivity is estimated using Data Envelopment Analysis. To avoid estimation bias from reverse causality, we utilize a two-stage least square approach by choosing prices, household demography, and farm assets as instrumental variables. The results show that high caloric intake significantly affects farmers’ productivity in a non-linear relationship. Farmers with obesity and overweight conditions produce less per unit of inputs and supply more labour than farmers with normal BMI and normal weight. The model results show that production inefficiency increases significantly with the high consumption calories, high BMI, and obesity of farmers providing solid support for the nutrition-productivity hypothesis. The marginal effect on productivity falls drastically as caloric intake increases. These outcomes recommend that investing in the health sector in rural areas will improve farmer productivity. Policymakers should develop approaches that will maximize agricultural investments’ contribution to agricultural productivity and the overall rural economy.

Does credit utilization lead to increasing farm outcome? a micro-perspective of tea production from Rwanda

Credit is a crucial factor for tea growers to pay for physical farm inputs mainly input fertilizers, research and development of high yielding tea clones and labour in order to improve the production of green tea leaf and to meet factories’ demand for raw materials. However, mismanagement of accessed credits by farmers has been reported among the snags affecting the sector development. The study analyzed the determinants and impact of credit utilization on farm income among smallholder tea growers in Nyaruguru District, Rwanda. Crosssectional tea household level data were collected from 358 farmers randomly selected from tea cooperatives. The credit utilization and causal effect were estimated using the Endogenous Switching Regression model. Results showed a positive and significant relationship between credit utilization and tea farm income. Precisely, the causal effect of credit is a 7% increase in tea income for farmers who utilised credit for tea production, while its potential effect is up to a 55% decrease in tea income for those who divert credit for out-off tea production uses. Furthermore, training on good agricultural practices and credit management, cost of farm inputs, labour and access to group credit significantly influence utilization of credit for tea production. However, the size of credit (cash) and off-farm businesses significantly increase the diversion of credit and level of tea farm income. Tea farmers are encouraged to use tea credits for planned projects. Sensitizing farmers to procure farm input fertilizers in bulk through cooperatives should be vigorously pursued to discourage credit diversion.
 Key words: tea credits, tea farming households, farm income, endogenous switching regression

Agricultural Information Need of Smallholder Farmers in Chitwan District, Nepal

Agricultural information is very essential for smallholder farmers to increase farm production and productivity. However, there is no proper access to accurate and adequate agricultural information to smallholder farmers. This paper attempts to identify the existing agricultural information source and the agricultural information need of the smallholder farmers along with usefulness of the provided agricultural information. Household level data were obtained from four wards of Bharatpur metropolitan of Chitwan district during 2019. The result showed agrovet shops as most common source of agricultural information for smallholder farmers. The most needed agricultural information was about input market and prices followed by disease and pest control. Moderately useful agricultural information was provided to smallholder farmers. Findings of this research suggest that context specific agricultural information should be provided through the existing channels to the smallholder farmers.
 Int. J. Appl. Sci. Biotechnol. Vol 9(2): 94-97.

Short supply chain participation, and agrochemicals' use intensity and efficiency: evidence from vegetable farms in China

PurposeOveruse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is a major policy concern for many countries. Chinese government has adopted many technologies and management practices to reduce their use. However, little is known about the effects of social-economic method such as short supply chain (SSC) participation. SSC is an important organizational innovation in fresh food supply chains aiming at directly connecting farmers and consumers. Closer relationships between farmers and consumers may result in production behavioral changes. Thus the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impacts of SSC participation on agrochemicals application.Design/methodology/approachBased on the household level data collected from Jiangsu province in China, this paper employs an instrumental variable (IV) method to address the self-selection bias when we evaluate the effects of SSC participation on use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. In addition, this paper also distinguishes between growth inputs and facilitating inputs in the production function when we calculate the marginal production values of chemical fertilizer and pesticides.FindingsThe empirical results show that SSC participation significantly reduces chemical fertilizer use by 351 kg and pesticides costs by 1659 Yuan (RMB) per hectare, accounting for 43.4% of the average chemical fertilizer use and 49.4% of the average pesticide costs, respectively for Chinese vegetable farms. However, SSC participation still cannot improve the use efficiency of agrochemicals.Originality/valueThis paper uses both application quantities and allocation efficiencies of chemical fertilizer and pesticides to comprehensively evaluate the effects of SSC participations. The results will reveal the core role of SSC played in promoting sustainable development of Chinese agricultural sector dominated by small-scale farmers.

A Bayesian Approach to Linking a Survey and a Census via Small Areas

We predict the finite population proportion of a small area when individual-level data are available from a survey and more extensive household-level (not individual-level) data (covariates but not responses) are available from a census. The census and the survey consist of the same strata and primary sampling units (PSU, or wards) that are matched, but the households are not matched. There are some common covariates at the household level in the survey and the census and these covariates are used to link the households within wards. There are also covariates at the ward level, and the wards are the same in the survey and the census. Using a two-stage procedure, we study the multinomial counts in the sampled households within the wards and a projection method to infer about the non-sampled wards. This is accommodated by a multinomial-Dirichlet–Dirichlet model, a three-stage hierarchical Bayesian model for multinomial counts, as it is necessary to account for heterogeneity among the households. The key theoretical contribution of this paper is to develop a computational algorithm to sample the joint posterior density of the multinomial-Dirichlet–Dirichlet model. Specifically, we obtain samples from the distributions of the proportions for each multinomial cell. The second key contribution is to use two projection procedures (parametric based on the nested error regression model and non-parametric based on iterative re-weighted least squares), on these proportions to link the survey to the census, thereby providing a copy of the census counts. We compare the multinomial-Dirichlet–Dirichlet (heterogeneous) model and the multinomial-Dirichlet (homogeneous) model without household effects via these two projection methods. An example of the second Nepal Living Standards Survey is presented.