Income-earning Activities Research Articles

Addressing food security in Africa via multiple livelihood strategies of women farmers

Because food insecurity is primarily a problem of low household incomes and poverty, and not just inadequate food production, projects and programs for food insecure African farmers which aim at increasing production of subsistence crops may be ineffective. Instead, government should look for ways to improve returns to farmers' resources in a broader context, which may include expanded opportunities for non-farm microenterprises and agricultural labor. This has been the conventional wisdom since the writings of Amartya Sen. Still unclear, however, are the implications of his thinking for the roles of African women farmers who are traditionally the food-crop producers in Africa and are often food insecure. Immediate expansion of income-earning activities such as cash cropping and non-farm microenterprises may not be possible for women in male headed households in many African societies where cash income is seen as part of the male domain. In addition, women farmers may need a long adjustment period to diversify their income sources fully because most African countries are at the early stages of structural transformation. Different developmental interventions, both in policy and in technology, are therefore needed to address food security and economic transformations in Africa in the short and long term.

Sex, Maids, and Export Processing: Risks and Reasons for Gendered Global Production Networks

Increasing numbers of women have become sex workers, maids, or employees in export production networks—all largely female sectors—to earn incomes in the restructured global economy. Many must migrate domestically and internationally. Women encounter many risks and much insecurity in these sectors: low wages, no benefits, long hours, harassment, health hazards, and lack of rights or legal recourse. By examining work in these three sectors simultaneously, we find that, as a result of globalization, economic restructuring, and crises, 1) women have increasingly been forced into such income-earning activities and 2) many governments have been pushed into strategies that foster these occupations.

Women in Small-Scale Aquaculture in North-West Bangladesh

Fish culture in small ponds, ditches, or rice-field plots has become important to a large number of poor farmers in north-west Bangladesh. In a situation of decreased fish supply from natural resources due to degradation and/or over-exploitation, small-scale aquaculture has been identified as the best alternative to ensure fish supply for household consumption and income generation. However, the involvement of women in this activity is very limited. Social and cultural constraints cause less mobility of women with less involvement in outside income-earning activities. Women are largely involved in unpaid housework and crop production and livestock rearing within their homestead areas. This study shows that there is a great potential for integration of crop-livestock-fish in smallscale aquaculture production with active involvement of women.

War and Women in the Sudan: Role Change and Adjustment to New Responsibilities

War and Women in the Sudan:Role Change and Adjustment to New Responsibilities Julia A. Duany and Wal Duany "Hunger is killing us and the relief is killing people too. This free food is too little to keep us alive, and it is robbing us of our way of life." Buoth nak Naath Introduction Sudanese women argue that they have become a lifeline for family survival. Men, on the other hand, claim that providing for the family is primarily their duty, while women are merely their helpers. The reality is that in South Sudan women head two out of five households. Every family has lost at least one member, usually a husband or older brother. This has left a vacuum in terms of family support, and many Sudanese women have acquired a new role in becoming sole provider for their household.1 In recent years, the number of ethnic conflicts in Sudan has increased considerably. One effect of these conflicts has been a steadily growing need for food aid. Local production has not been possible because of instability in the region. Many Sudanese communities have been uprooted from their villages and displaced. Relief aid has become the only way many people can get food, yet the system has also created miserable human conditions. One important fact stands out, however: if men were traditionally considered the sole providers for family, currently, women's leadership has become an important alternative for family survival. [End Page 63] Women exercise "mutual assistance" to change household relations through exercise of their gender-based networks and access to kinship connections through lines of intermarriages. As Julia Delaney has written elsewhere, "When women talk, they discuss issues that concern people's lives, and their communities. They talk about sickness, conflicts to be resolved, bad harvests, not enough rain, infertility, etc. The gift of an African woman has been to engage in dialogue and stand for truth, saying things others do not want to hear, and her ability to go out and do things for the welfare of her family."2 Although much knowledge has been gathered about African women over the last several decades, many gaps remain, with a number of communities still inadequately or incompletely studied. Misrepresentation and lack of appropriate data have hampered research on the position of rural African women. Only if the data become more complete can we understand the practical realities experienced by African women that may suggest ways to improve African societies.3 Still, research on the position of African women has helped us understand how social and cultural norms limit women's access to participation in decision-making. It is through African women that we may accurately evaluate women's contributions to the household and the economy at large. This study examines Sudanese women's perceptions of how land or cattle ownership, family relations, household social structures, and other social realities may stimulate women's opportunities to obtain better resources in the Sudan. Obtaining information from women themselves is essential for understanding issues affecting the formulation of policies and programs relevant to the needs of African women. Such an understanding can facilitate their participation in both the formal and informal sectors, thereby improving women's situation and increasing their contribution to the development, transformation, and rebuilding of their societies. While the situation of women in other societies differs in some respects, many of the issues addressed by Sudanese women are also relevant to other African societies. We have therefore interviewed women about their lives in order to present southern Sudanese women's own opinions of how social realities affect their positions as women, as well as to elucidate the challenges they face as they take on new roles as decision-makers and providers for their families. [End Page 64] In Sudan, as in many African societies, women typically engage in farming, dairy production, domestic duties, and income-earning activities. Although African women often work long hours, they typically do not have resources sufficient to enable them to provide for their families.4 Because husbands and wives cooperate indirectly, their different activities may even suggest to outsiders that they are competing for resources. This misconception has often been a problem for...

Women's income and the livelihood strategies of dispossessed pastoralists near the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania

There are numerous incidences of impoverishment and livelihood change in pastoral societies following transformations in land use, and land and livestock ownership. Opinion is divided over the effect of these changes on women. This paper considers the case of the former residents of the Mkomazi Game Reserve. Pastoralists were evicted from the Reserve in the late 1980s and their livelihoods have changed as a result. I show that women from poorer households now have to sell milk, firewood, or medicine frequently to meet daily family needs, but I argue that increased income-earning activity by women is not only the result of impoverishment. Selling goods is useful for women as it provides an income that they control and some choose to earn their own money. The income resulting is also subject to intrahousehold power dynamics. Women may have to sell more goods more often and may be less free to use the money as they wish because men sometimes withdraw “normal” provisions for day-to-day needs in the expectation that women's income will meet the deficit. Debates over the changing status of women in pastoral society need to be cognizant of these intrahousehold contests.

Gender, culture, and architecture in Ahmedabad and Berlin.

Spatial and social processes are inextricably linked. Hence gender relations as an inherent part of social relations get built into the spatial forms of any society. Spatial segregation by sex was a mark of traditional societies. This has diminished somewhat in contemporary societies due to various factors, perhaps the most important being the entry of women into the public sphere and their participation in income-earning activities. This paper looks at traditional, modern and postmodern housing in two cities--Ahmedabad and Berlin--through the lens of gender and culture. While there have been changes in housing over time, these changes have not been in proportion with the changes in gender relations in society which, in turn, have not kept pace with the way women's needs and priorities have changed. Housing must necessarily reflect the current needs of a society, and that entails reflecting the needs of both women and men equally.

Gender, Culture, and Architecture in Ahmedabad and Berlin

Spatial and social processes are inextricably linked. Hence gender relations as an inherent part of social relations get built into the spatial forms of any society. Spatial segregation by sex was a mark of traditional societies. This has diminished somewhat in contemporary societies due to various factors, perhaps the most important being the entry of women into the public sphere and their participation in income-earning activities. This paper looks at traditional, modern and postmodem housing in two cities—Ahmedabad and Berlin—through the lens of gender and culture. While there have been changes in housing over time, these changes have not been in proportion with the changes in gender relations in society which, in turn, have not kept pace with the way women’s needs and priorities have changed. Housing must necessarily reflect the current needs of a society, and that entails reflecting the needs of both women and men equally.

The impact of agricultural policy liberalization on rural communities in Mexico

Mexico still has more than 24 million of its inhabitants living in poverty, the bulk of these living in rural areas. Since 1982 Mexico has carried out a model programme of structural adjustment and economic liberalization. From 1988 onwards the previously protective and interventionist farm policy has been liberalized. This paper examines the state of rural poverty and the effect of recent policy changes through detailed studies of four villages in central Mexico carried out between 1996 and 1998. In these cases, households maintained a diverse portfolio of income-earning activities, based on farming, salaried and waged work, temporary migration and small-scale enterprises. Incomes varied little between communities, but were highly unequal within the villages—almost as unequal as income nationally. Most of the inequality arose through the concentration of earnings from larger-scale business and salaried work. On the other hand, any additional income from waged work was likely to reduce inequality. Thanks to uneven distribution of incomes, half the households lived in moderate poverty and one third in extreme poverty. The main determinants of incomes were education, access to capital and migration. The chance of being poor was greater for households that had few sources of income and had no migrants. Cluster analysis revealed three groups differentiated by the pattern of their livelihoods. One third had specialized in salaried work or larger-scale rural business, and were rarely living in poverty; just over one sixth of households specialized in farming, also mainly not poor; and the majority who, while farming small plots, depended heavily on wage labouring for their subsistence and who were usually poor. The main changes affecting the economies of the four villages since 1988 were first and foremost changes in macro and external variables—inflation, stagnation of domestic demand, changes in the world coffee price, and knowledge of international migration. Farm and rural policy change—seen in terms of lower real prices for maize, fewer input subsidies and less state assistance to farming—had been less significant. Most of the changes lowered returns to farming and other rural businesses, pushed down real wages, and raised the cost of living. The retreat of the state and economic liberalization had not led to any countervailing entry of private services or capital. Despite harder times for many households, the response was usually to adapt by tightening belts and looking for extra jobs, rather than abandoning peasant life in the villages. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children's influence on household economic activity in Nigeria.

This study estimates the effects of children's economic contributions on parents' allocation of time for income-earning activities, care of preschool children, non-income home production, and leisure activities in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Fathers spent 65% of work time, mothers 20%, and children 15% during the assessment of family time allocation and income contribution. Demographic factors affecting the parents' time for the children include age of parents, age and sex of children and the number of other people living in the household. Economic factors affecting parents' time allocation include education, house value, wealth, and combined income of parents. Major observations noted were the following: 1) children contribute non-negligible amounts of income and time to their families' income-earning activities; 2) they play important roles in non-income home production and child care activities; 3) their presence has a considerable influence on their parent's allocation of time; 4) children appear to stimulate fathers to work longer hours at the expense of leisure; 5) young children reduce mothers' time in income-earning activities and leisure time; 6) older male children substitute for mothers' shorter work time; 7) older female children substitute for mothers' lesser home production time; and 8) older children of both sexes appear to increase mothers' leisure time.

Social and Economic Development in Four Ladino Communities of Eastern Guatemala: A Comparative Description

This paper puts the four INCAP longitudinal study villages in their economic and social setting. Beginning with a short historical account of the formation of Ladino peasantries in Guatemala, it then recounts the particular history of each of the villages, describes their basic ecological features, and gives a more detailed description of the systems of production now found in each village. Differences related to the income-earning strategies available, to the allocation of household labour, and to the participation of women in income-earning activities are particularly examined. Differences are also noted in the infrastructures of the communities and their demographic features. All these differences may have important effects, either individually or interactively, on the nutrition of individuals. Additional research is needed to assess the magnitude of these effects on the nutrition status of the study participants.

Women’s work and family size in rural thailand

Surveys of 612 couples in 2 districts of rural Thailand were conducted to analyze the extent to which the birth of each child and the cumulative effect of childbearing interrupts, interferes with, or influences women's economic activity. The districts were in a northern area, Lamphun, where fertility has declined rapidly since the 1960s, and central Suphanburi province where the decline has been slower. Couples were selected for having completed families or 1 or 2 children, or 4 or more surviving children, and were matched for age. Information was obtained by survey questionnaires and by focus groups. Small family couples were somewhat better educated and of higher socioeconomic status, and tended to be farmers, while large family couples were more likely to engage in wage labor. These couples viewed women's labor as an economic necessity, either for survival or to educate and provide for their families. To cope with child care, women resorted to relatives, older children, hired child care, nursery school, primary school, took their children with them to work or modified their work schedule. The double burden of income-earning activity and child care caused considerable strains for working mothers. There was an overwhelming consensus among both groups that childbearing interrupts and that child care interferes with women's work. 95% of the small and 90% of the large families felt that more work could be done if families were kept small. Implications of this study are that government sponsored family planned should continue, and that some type of subsidized day care is needed, including early morning hours when farm women leave for work.

How poor women earn income in sub-Saharan Africa and what works against them

In sub-Saharan Africa, household-based agricultural activity remains the foundation of rural livelihoods — and women do most of the work. Their activities are under increasing stress; they and their children are falling into poverty even as their need for cash income is increasing. Although they keep a foothold in the household economy, increasingly women are dependent on self-employment or wage work for survival; they have little access to services and few opportunities to become more productive. Their situation is exacerbated by continuing male dominance and unequal household responsibilities. The informal sector offers opportunities for entrepreneurship, especially in trading or small-scale agroindustry, but unlicensed activity is discouraged in many countries. Some women also find themselves competing with businesses that are run or licensed by the state. Several micro level interventions are identified that support women's income-earning activities and may halt further deterioration in rural livelihoods.

Participation of rural women in income-earning activities: A case study of a Bangladesh village

Rural women in Bangladesh, despite a number of structural and cultural constraints, play significant roles in agricultural production. Their productive activities confined within the households are not, however, socially recognized. Marginalization and pauperization result from socioeconomic changes such as landlessness, population growth, the increase in cost of production, the decline in productivity and falling income and real wages. In addition, technological changes in food processing, especially the spread of rice mills, are displacing labour without creating new employment opportunities. The effects of such changes have been harsh on the poorest section of women. In order to survive women are in desperate need of income-earning opportunities. Policies and analyses need to be focussed on women as a separate category; the strategy of simultaneous pursuit of integrated and separate organizations will facilitate their participation in developmet.

Consistent Estimates of the Wage Equation When Individuals Choose among Income-Earning Activities

One of the most stable relationships in economics is the human capital determination equation. Numerous studies, using data from the U.S. as well as low income countries, have found that education raises the individual's rate, and that experience affects rates in a non-linear way, peaking in the age cross-section generally at around thirty years of experience. The wage rate is an aggregate concept, in that it represents the returns per hour of work regardless of the type of work performed. This paper is a first step toward a disaggregation of according to income-earning activities. The activities distinguished here are work in the labor market, and vork in self-employment. These activities earn respectively wages and wages, but this nomenclature does not imply that work in self-employment is an activity outside the labor market: self-employment is an individual's choice among labor market alternatives. The motivation for this paper is three-fold. First of all, current literature has not explored in any depth the issue whether the determinants of the rates earned in the two activities are similar. Differences may well exist: entrepreneurial human capital varies from that of employees; the mix of pecuniary (wage) and non-pecuniary compensation may differ; entrepreneurs frequently use their own assets like land or capital in their business activity. Section II will expound on these theoretical differences in more detail. Second, little is known about self-employment wages. Most studies admit to the different nature of the two activities by omitting all individuals reporting self-employment earnings from the sample, and estimate equations for employees only. This is not the optimal solution to the problem: in developing countries up to one half of the labor force is self-employed, and even in industrialized countries 10 to 15 percent adds up to a sizeable group in absolute numbers.' Restricting the sample to employees is likely to intro-

Excise taxes, import restrictions, and the allocation of time to illegal income-earning activity

Excise taxes, import restrictions, and the allocation of time to illegal income-earning activity

On the Neutrality of Flow-of-Funds Corporate Taxation

real income-earning business activities of firms rather than the financial ones. Furthermore, it has virtually ignored the implications of the financial structure of the firm for the neutrality of flow-of-funds taxation of both real and financial activities of the firm in a model of the firm in which the financial structure has been explicitly included. We shall be particularly concerned with the sorts of flow-of-funds tax systems suggested by the Meade Report, the so-called R and R + F bases. We will show that whether the investment decision is distorted under such corporate tax bases depends on how the financial structure of the firm is determined. The R base is neutral under some financial constraints, while the R+F base is neutral under others.3 We also extend the analysis to incorporate personal taxes impinging on capital income and the effects of inflation. Finally, we introduce financial assets held by the firm. We show that the R base can be generalized to what we call the R + A base. This base will be neutral under the same borrowing constraints for which the R base is neutral. In general, the R+F base as defined in the Meade Report will not capture all the profits arising from financial intermediation and may

Foreign Investment in the National Income Accounts

The current magnitudes of foreign investment (both on a cumulated-stock and annual-flow basis) call into question the treatment of the foreign investment sector in the U.S. national income accounts. While not a very significant problem, say, 20 years ago, the dimensions of U.S. investment abroad, both in absolute terms and in relation to the U.S. economy now call for further statistical recognition than given in the national income accounts, where foreign-investment income-earning activities are only partly included and those flows which are included are netted out and shown in insufficient detail.

Income, Time, the Working Mother and Child Nutriture

Income, Time, the Working Mother and Child Nutriture Get access BARRY M. POPKIN, M.S., Ph.D, BARRY M. POPKIN, M.S., Ph.D Visiting Associate Professor School of Economics, University of the Philippines; Associate, Social Science Division, Rockefeller Foundation10537 Desert Forest Circle, Sun City, Arizona 85351, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar FLORENTINO S. SOLON, M.D., M.P.H. FLORENTINO S. SOLON, M.D., M.P.H. Director National Nutrition Council; Director, Nutrition Center of the Philippines; and Director, CIM-CU Vitamin A Deficiency Research Project10537 Desert Forest Circle, Sun City, Arizona 85351, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Tropical Pediatrics, Volume 22, Issue 4, August 1976, Pages 156–166, https://doi.org/10.1093/tropej/22.4.156 Published: 01 August 1976

Monetary Effects of Wartime Social Security Taxes

P oROPOSALS for new or increased social security taxes' have recently been advanced on the ground, among others, that such taxes would constitute an effective brake on inflation. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the validity of this claim. Pigou's criterion for the existence of inflation is that money income is expanding more than in proportion to income-earning activity. 12 Modern war, at least in the belligerent countries, and except in its early stages, is typically a time of maximum incomeearning activity.3 Once the war effort is in full swing, there is no unemployment except for the unavoidable minimum incident to the transfer of resources from civilian to war production and similar frictional causes. Conceivably the tax load may be so heavy as to reduce employment below this maximum,4 but the likelihood of such an eventuality seems so small as to justify its being ignored. If employment of resources is at a maximum and the amount