Household Resource Use Research Articles

The potential of domestic work and family economy in Russia

The article examines such economic categories as «home production», «household», decision–making and the effects of income and substitution.The household is a source of labor for the labor market, a source of income in the market of finished products, a source of savings in the financial market.Decisions on the redistribution of time between labor and leisure or labor in home production, on the share that can be spent on consumption and how to keep free money are made within the household within the budget limit. The author considered the factors influencing the decisions made.The author presents potential opportunities for increasing the use of household resources in active economic activity, substantiated the relevance of the research topic not only from an economic but also from a social point of view.Mainly, women are considered as a source of increased labor force, who, instead of performing family and educational functions, can enter the labor market, but many social risks of assigning part of family functions to public institutions are not taken into account in economic calculations. Studies comparing the explicit and implicit costs of women’s transition from family production to market production are of scientific interest.

A socio-economic environment that transformed farmers’ households into merchants

This study aims to reveal the socio-economic background of the household that led the farmer’s household to transform into a farmer at the same time as a healthy vegetable trader, as well as to design the marketing mix strategy plus motivation and management (4’P + 2’M). Data collection uses a triangular method, which is a combination of structured interview, in-depth interviews, and observation techniques at farms and places where healthy vegetables are sold. Data analysis used mixed models, namely quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative analysis applies descriptive statistics, while qualitative methods apply comparative analysis and desk studies. The results of the study show that the income obtained from agricultural products is not sufficient for economic needs as a trigger for them to double work as farmers and traders, as well as optimizing the use of household resources through the application of marketing mix strategies plus motivation and management, so that they are able to increase their household income.

Environmental Decision-Making Shaped by the Home: Situating Consumption in the Household

Research on environmentally consequential human decision-making often begins from the premise that consumption decisions are motivated by individual values. However, we argue that social science research aiming to understand consumer decision-making will benefit from integrating the lived experiences of people in households, where decisions are often influenced or mitigated by the presence of those who share homes. Conducting research on consumption decisions regarding household resources revealed the embedded nature of these decisions, which are situated in the context of the socially contingent dynamics of residential life. In this paper, we identify five social dynamic processes that influence consumption within the household: (1) referring, (2) norming, (3) enhancing, (4) constraining, and (5) allocating. These processes, embedded within the dynamic social relationships of the residential household, moderate household resource use in ways that future social science research may strive to better understand.

Household resources and individual strategies

The question of diverging interests and preferences within couples over the use of household resources and the consequences of these conflictual views has been present for a long time in the development literature, albeit in a somewhat scattered way. This paper selectively reviews the abundant literature that offers insights into the intra-household decision-making process, the strategies put in place by individuals to secure their access to private resources, and the role of the changing economic environment in altering these mechanisms. This paper bridges different strands of the social sciences and exemplifies the complementarities among them. The main features of household organization are described to set the scene for the individual strategies introduced to bypass intra-household negotiations and secure access to private resources. These strategies include efforts to maintain access to income-earning opportunities and secrecy about income and savings. This paper also discusses attempts to maintain or tilt the balance of power within the household through the use of violence, on the one hand, and marital and fertility choices on the other hand. Finally, this paper describes directions for future research aimed at improving the understanding of household behaviour and responses to economic stimuli.

Changes to household practices pre- and post-occupancy in an Australian low-carbon development

Limiting study to a narrow range of energy and water using activities is insufficient to provide a holistic understanding of household resource flows. Consideration of a wide range of social practices is needed. With the rise of low-carbon developments featuring energy or water efficient technology and design around the world, the way residents interact with the design and technology and community is vital to understanding if these households and developments will meet their intended design goals. The opportunity to study resident's pre-and post-occupancy resource consumption is a unique opportunity to examine how design, technology and community influence household practices. This article studied 13 Australian household's practices of waste management, food shopping, item purchasing, travel and laundry practices for two weeks before and after moving into a low-carbon development, while the home system of practice is in a stable phase. This provides an opportunity to comment on the state of interlocking of resident's home system, from lightly interlocked to highly. Post-occupancy, the presence of solar panels influenced when some residents put the washing machine and tumble drier on, however only when the resident was home. Many residents are conscious of putting these on during the day or use timers where they had not previously. Changes to resident's travel practices were not as broad as they anticipated before the move, while recycling rates increased, influenced by a supportive community and shopping practices became more localised through the use of smaller food retailers. Results show that resident's resource use is heavily influenced by their work and socialising routines, which are not commonly focused on when attempting to change household resource use behaviours. A traditional focus on psychological approaches targeting values and attitudes fails to adequately address these factors, whereby a social practice theory approach allows for their consideration in influencing resource use in the home.

Elevated soil nitrogen pools after conversion of turfgrass to water-efficient residential landscapes

As a result of uncertain resource availability and growing populations, city managers are implementing conservation plans that aim to provide services for people while reducing household resource use. For example, in the US, municipalities are incentivizing homeowners to replace their water-intensive turfgrass lawns with water-efficient landscapes consisting of interspersed drought-tolerant shrubs and trees with rock or mulch groundcover (e.g. xeriscapes, rain gardens, water-wise landscapes). While these strategies are likely to reduce water demand, the consequences for other ecosystem services are unclear. Previous studies in controlled, experimental landscapes have shown that conversion from turfgrass to shrubs may lead to high rates of nutrient leaching from soils. However, little is known about the long-term biogeochemical consequences of this increasingly common land cover change across diverse homeowner management practices. We explored the fate of soil nitrogen (N) across a chronosequence of land cover change from turfgrass to water-efficient landscapes in privately owned yards in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, in the arid US Southwest. Soil nitrate (–N) pools were four times larger in water-efficient landscapes (25 ± 4 kg –N/ha; 0–45 cm depth) compared to turfgrass lawns (6 ± 7 kg –N/ha). Soil –N also varied significantly with time since landscape conversion; the largest pools occurred at 9–13 years after turfgrass removal and declined to levels comparable to turfgrass thereafter. Variation in soil –N with landscape age was strongly influenced by management practices related to soil water availability, including shrub cover, sub-surface plastic sheeting, and irrigation frequency. Our findings show that transitioning from turfgrass to water-efficient residential landscaping can lead to an accumulation of –N that may be lost from the plant rooting zone over time following irrigation or rainfall. These results have implications for best management practices to optimize the benefits of water-conserving landscapes while protecting water quality.

Health care utilization and costs for children and adults with duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an incurable neuromuscular disorder of childhood. Healthcare, caregiving, and other resource needs of affected individuals are thought to be substantial; however, the economic burden associated with DMD has not yet been assessed specifically in Australia. Australian households with a child with DMD were asked to complete a cross-sectional survey. Data were collected on annual resource utilization including hospital and medical services, equipment, home modifications, informal care, and working days lost. Mean healthcare costs were found to be $10,046 Australian dollars per affected individual and were markedly higher than average Australian health expenditures at each age group. The mean total cost was $46,700 (median $32,300), with healthcare costs contributing 22% of total costs. The annual economic cost of DMD was found to be high, reflecting a significant socioeconomic burden, especially in boys who reach adulthood, where household resource use and caregiving burden is highest. Muscle Nerve 53: 877-884, 2016.

English

In this paper the extension organization that promotes packages of technologies and practices was closely examined in line with its impact to mediate the use of household resources which determine the type of livelihood strategies perused at household level and their ultimate outcomes either in more secured or vulnerable livelihoods. For this study, a survey data were collected in 2006 from a randomly selected 65 participant and 27 dropout farm households living in Maqibassa and Dure-Bafano peasant associations in Awassa Zuria district, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Empirical estimation models like limited dependent variable and switching regression analyses methods were employed to analyse the data. Marginal effects of the independent variables were also considered in the limited dependent variable estimation approaches. Estimation results show that household participation status in the extension programme significantly depends on household head characteristics (like age and level of education), family size, household wealth status and duration of stay in the programme. Household food security status increases with program participation as the use of purchased external inputs and technical advice enhance crop yield for participant households in the extension programme. Marginalizing the poor rural households from the current extension programme aggravates rural livelihood insecurity and rural poverty for which it was meant as a remedy. This capitalizes the need to consider a paradigm shift from production oriented agricultural extension to livelihood extension approach which comprises agricultural and non-agricultural rural interventions with the objective of giving the opportunity to the poor rural farm households in securing their livelihoods by making use of available resources at hand. Key words: Livelihood extension, agricultural extension, participants, dropouts, food security.

The opportunities that different cultural contexts create for sustainable design: a laundry care example

Increasing economic growth coupled with rapidly expanding populations in developing countries has led to the emergence of a large “consumer class”. This rapid increase in consumption has altered household consumption behaviour and resource use, often adversely affecting their environmental footprint. There is, therefore, a pressing need to understand the effect culture has on product interactions, particularly when designing new products and systems for emerging markets. This paper presents the findings of an in depth user study which set out to explore the effect of culture on household resource use. In depth, qualitative user research was undertaken into the laundry procedure in three regions. In-context interviews, observations and household tours were carried out in 19 households across three sites; The East Midlands, UK; Curitiba, Brazil; and Bangalore, India. Findings show significantly different behaviours in washing techniques, routine, consumption patterns and aspirations. The results inform the development of a methodological cultural resource as well as set of 7 design guidelines to understand the effect of designing interventions for sustainable behaviour in different cultural contexts.

Household-level transition methodology towards sustainable material footprints

This paper presents a new household-level methodology for transition towards sustainability. The methodology includes measuring the resource use of households on a micro level, testing relevant measures towards a one-planet resource use, and developing mainstreaming options in co-operation with households and providers of services, products, and infrastructures. We use the MIPS (Material Input Per unit of Service) method to calculate the use of natural resources and concentrate on the material footprint as an aggregated indicator for the overall use of material resources. With HST (Household-level Sustainability Transition) methodology, we extend the material footprint methodology from just measuring household resource use to developing visions, conducting experiments, as well as learning and upscaling, all of which contribute to the whole Transition-Enabling Cycle. Results from the first application of the HST methodology on five households in Jyväskylä, Finland, show that it is possible to achieve a significantly more sustainable level of consumption by a relatively few changes in everyday living. Achieving a one-planet use of material resources, however, also requires systemic changes.

Towards making efficient use of household resources for appropriate prevention of malaria: investigating households’ ownership, use and expenditures on ITNs and other preventive tools in Southeast Nigeria

BackgroundMany households own, use and spend money on many malaria preventive tools, some of which are inappropriate and ineffective in preventing malaria. This is despite the promotion of use of effective preventive methods such as Insecticide treated nets (ITNs) and indoor residual house spraying (IRHS). The use of these ineffective methods imposes some economic burden on households with no resultant reduction in the risk of developing malaria. Hence, global and national targets in use of various effective malaria preventive toools are yet to be achieved in Nigeria. This paper presents new evidence on the differential use and expenditures on effective and non-effective malaria preventive methods in Nigeria.MethodsSemi-structured interviewer administered pre-tested questionnaire were used to collect data from 500 households from two communities in Enugu state, Nigeria. The two study communities were selected randomly while the households were selected systematically. Information was collected on demography, malaria status of children under 5 within the past month, types of malaria preventive tools used by households and how much was spent on these, the per capita household food expenditure and assets ownership of respondents to determine their socio-economic status.ResultsThere was high level of ownership of ITNs (73%) and utilization (71.2%), with 40% utilization by children under 5. There were also appreciable high levels of use of other malaria preventive tools such as window and door nets, indoor spray, aerosol spray and cleaning the environment. No significant inequity was found in ownership and utilization of ITNs and in use of other preventive methods across socioeconomic groups. However, households spent a lot of money on other preventive tools and average expenditures were between N0.83-N172 ($0.005-$1.2) The richest households spent the most on window and door nets (P = 0.04).ConclusionHigh levels of use and expenditure on ITNs and other malaria preventive tools exist. A programmatic challenge will involve designing ways and means of converting some of the inefficient and inappropriate expenditures on many ineffective malaria preventive tools to proven cost-effective methods such as ITNs and IRHS. This will help to achieve universal coverage with malaria preventive tools.

Involvement of Rural Women in Homestead Vegetable Cultivation at Rangpur District in Bangladesh

Ho mestead garden is a traditional agro forestry system and an imperative co mponent in the livelihoods of rural poor, and in the rural economy of Bangladesh. Ho me gardening activit ies are cente red on wo men and it can also increase the inco me of wo men, which may result in the better use of household resources and improved caring practices and empowerment. Th is e m- powerment of wo men also addresses a priority area of poverty alleviation and prov ides important socio-economic returns. The focus of the study was the involvement of rural wo men in homestead vegetable cultivation in Gangachara subdistrict of Rangpur district. Data were collected fro m 120 respondents by using random Samp ling method of Ganga chara subdistrict of Rangpur district. Majority (66%) of the respondent had medium involvement with homestead winter vegetable production. The highest proportion (68%) of the respondents had medium involvement in ho mestead summer vegetable production. Correlation analysis indicated that among the respondents selected characteristics, family size was no relat ion with each of their winter, summer and overall ho mestead vegetable cultivation. Farm size had no relationship with winter vegetable cult ivation but h ad positive rela- tionship with summer and overall vegetable production. Age, education, knowledge on homestead vegetable cultivation, annual family inco me, and farm size and commun ication exposure were positively related with each of their winter, su mmer an d overall homestead vegetable cultivation. The coincident impact of home gardening programs in terms of giv ing wo men a voice and promoting their fu ll involvement in domestic life can make an important contribution to the overall imp rovement of Bangladesh .

Market Access, Poverty, and Resources in South Africa: Understanding the Multi-Dimensionality of Market Access and its Influence on Resource Use Decisions

Rural households are the primary agents of environmental change in the very area where parks and protected areas are attempting to conserve ecosystem diversity. It is crucial to understand the linkage between market access and household resource use decisions if integrated conservation and development projects are to be successful in the long-term. Improving market access has been found to increase household welfare, which likely means an increase in consumption and natural resource use. The first goal of this project is to move beyond the notion of market access as a spatial concept toward one that recognizes household capacity to utilize and access the resources that markets provide (i.e., jobs, financial instruments, and insurance). The second goal is to see how each factor of market access influences resource use decisions.Data was collected from six communities bordering Kruger National Park in South Africa. The multi-dimensionality of market access was investigated using factor analysis, with findings demonstrating that market access is a function of place, social connections, capacity and financial knowledge. For household decisions on the allocation of consumption towards local natural resources, econometric models suggested that improving household status regarding each of the four dimensions of market access results in the household substituting away from local natural resource goods. In modelling cattle ownership decisions, improvement in capacity results in a reduction in cattle ownership, suggesting the market goods that are substitutes for cattle are only accessible via an increase in education and/or exposure to the cash economy.

Consumption-as-usual instead of ceteris paribus assumption for demand

Background, aims, and scopeLife cycle assessment (LCA) according to ISO 14040 standard (ISO-LCA) is applied to assess the environmental impact per functional unit of new or modified products. However, new or modified products can also induce demand changes—so-called rebound effects. If overall environmental impact is of interest, there is a need to assess the potential magnitude of such rebound effects and to allow recommendations on how to mitigate these effects. To do so, this study proposes to complement the constant demand assumption (implicitly assumed by the ISO-LCA), commonly known as the ceteris paribus assumption, with a consumption-as-usual assumption allowing a systematic stepwise inclusion of rebound effects.Materials and methodsWe base our results on a formal description of household consumption. To indicate the relevance of the proposed integration of rebound effects, different comparative LCAs are reviewed and the concept is applied to mobility as illustrative examples.ResultsBased on a description of household demand and consumption feedback loops, we propose the consumption-as-usual concept, which in contrast to the constant demand assumption assumes that (1) the use of household resources for consumption does not change and (2) preferences remain the same. Household resources for example are purchasing power (we assume that households do not work less), time, and living space. We outline how this concept allows integrating potential rebound effects into ISO-LCA by considering three different cases of reallocating freed household resources. To illustrate the use of the consumption-as-usual concept, we draw implications for different comparative LCAs from the literature and illustrate cases with income and time rebound for different personal travel modes.DiscussionThe consumption-as-usual concept is applicable to a broad range of product modifications and allows an important complementation of the LCA regarding rebound effects. For products with various changes in the need for household resources, the assessment becomes however a challenging task. The limits of the consumption-as-usual concept are mainly given by its two underlying assumptions. Therefore, new or modified products with the potential to change consumer preferences or even the amount of household resources used for consumption go beyond this concept.ConclusionsThe integration of rebound effects is feasible for many comparative LCAs. It helps in increasing the reliability of the assessment of overall environmental impact reduction through new or modified products. In addition, a basis is provided with which to mitigate rebound effects and give appropriate recommendations to product users.Recommendations and perspectivesPotential rebound effects should be included in LCA in order to guide consumers and policy towards sustainable consumption. We recommend the consumption-as-usual concept for this purpose. To predict rebound effects under consumption as usual instead of outlining potential amplitudes, further research on household preferences is needed and an optimisation model should be applied for household consumption. However, even if data are available for such a prediction, the assessment of potential rebound effects is still recommended in order to recognise dangers and opportunities in consumption changes.

Road development and market access on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast: implications for household fishing and farming practices

SUMMARYThe simplistic portrayal of road development as a classic environment versus development debate may be because the indirect pathways connecting road building with environmental change are poorly understood. Recent road development in previously remote regions of Nicaragua provides an opportunity to investigate these pathways. This paper examines the effects of increased market access on household resource use on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. Specifically, it looks at shifting market flow and price changes for natural resources and corresponding fishing and farming decisions in communities with varying degrees of market access before and after road completion. Fisheries markets were more responsive to market access increases than agricultural markets. With increased access, fishers increasingly sold to non-local buyers, overall export of fisheries' products increased and markets for new products emerged. Prices of fisheries goods were higher with proximity to markets and availability of non-local export outlets, and prices for some were more stable after the road was completed. There were no observed changes in household fishing and farming investments during the year-long study, and therefore the environmental implications of increased market access remain uncertain. Longer-term studies and additional biological monitoring are needed to determine the full environmental consequences of market access.

An integrated evaluation of strategies for enhancing productivity and profitability of resource-constrained smallholder farms in Zimbabwe

In African smallholder agriculture, improved farm-scale understanding of the interaction between the household, crops, soils and livestock is required to develop appropriate strategies for improving productivity. A combination of models was used to analyse land use and labour allocation strategies for optimizing income for wealthy (2.5 ha with eight cattle) and poor (0.9 ha without cattle) farms in Murewa, Zimbabwe. Trade-offs between profitability, labour use and partial nutrient balances were also evaluated for alternative resource management strategies. Farm data were captured using the Integrated Modelling Platform for Mixed Animal-Crop Systems (IMPACT), which was directly linked to the Household Resource use Optimization Model (HROM). HROM was applied to optimize net cash income within the constraints specific to the households. Effects of alternative nutrient resource management strategies in crop and milk production were simulated using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) and RUMINANT models, respectively, and the output evaluated using HROM. The poor farm had a net income of US$ 1 yr −1 and the farmer relied on selling unskilled labour to supplement her income. The poor farm’s income was marginally increased by US$18 yr −1 and the soil nitrogen (N) balance was increased from 6 to 9 kg ha −1 yr −1 by expanding groundnut production from the previous 5–25% of the land area. Further increases in area allocated to groundnut production were constrained by lack of labour. On the poor farm, maize production was most profitable when cultivated on a reduced land area with optimal weeding. The wealthy farm had a maize-dominated cropping system that yielded a net cash balance of US$290 yr −1, mainly from the sale of crop produce. Net income could be increased to US$1175 yr −1, by re-allocating the 240 hired labour-days more efficiently, although this reallocation substantially reduced partial soil N and phosphorus (P) balances by 74 kg N ha −1 and 11 kg P ha −1, respectively, resulting in negative nutrient balances. Few opportunities existed to increase productivity and income of the smallholder farms without inducing negative nutrient balances. On the wealthy farm, groundnut was the least profitable crop; shifting its production to the most fertile field did not improve income unless the groundnut residues were fed to lactating cows. The analysis carried out in this paper highlights the need to develop practical technological recommendations and development interventions that consider farm resource endowment (land, fertilizers, manure and labour), variability in soil fertility within farms and competing resource use options.

Do developmental initiatives influence local attitudes toward conservation? A case study from the Kalakad–Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, India

We evaluated the conservation attitudes of the local villagers living adjacent to the Kalakad–Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve in southern India 6 years after implementation of a World Bank funded eco-development project. We assessed attitudes towards three facets of conservation: the tiger, an emblematic species signifying India's commitment to wildlife conservation; the forest, a principle source of fuel-wood and other products; and the Forest Department, which manages the forest. More specifically we predicted that (i) attitudes would be an effective predictor of resource use interest in the forest and (ii) benefits obtained from the EDP would create more favorable attitudes towards conservation and the protected area employees. Twelve villages located within 3 km from the reserve boundary were chosen and 2–3% of the households interviewed with regard to their attitudes towards these three facets of conservation, their household resource use patterns, wealth, sex, age and length of residency. We found significant associations between wealth, sex, age and both tiger and forest conservation. Providing benefits has not changed the underlying attitudes of the communities. The poorer sections of society, whether receiving benefits or not, tended to support tiger conservation because conserving wildlife did not affect their livelihood in any way, whereas both the rich and poor had misgivings about forest conservation due to dependency on forest products. We conclude that the eco-development project has not effectively addressed the most important of the local concerns.

Empirically Measuring Household Productivity: An Application

This research empirically examined the productive use of a specific family re source—nutrients available for meal production—within households headed by married couples and single persons. This was accomplished by estimating sepa rate production functions for the protein and fat contained in family meals. Data from the 1977 Nationwide Food Consumption Survey were used in the analysis. As hypothesized, the marginal products of the nutrient inputs were positive numbers whose values were less than one. The magnitude of the coefficient on protein was larger than the coefficient for fat. This suggests that households uti lize their protein resources more productively than their fat resources. From a nutritional point of view, this is encouraging. This research also supports the usefulness of household production theory in empirically analyzing the produc tive use of household resources.