Individual Household Characteristics Research Articles

The impact of financial insecurity on self-reported health: Europe in cross-national perspective

Using the EU-SILC 2008 module on over-indebtedness and financial exclusion, this paper analyses how perceived future-orientated economic insecurity alters individual self-assessed health (SAH), once controlling for past and current financial situation in a range of European countries. Those effects differ by gender and by country. Our results also suggest that country characteristics explain a larger part of the unknown variability of individual levels of SAH than individual-household characteristics. Thus, our findings might be of help in designing the most effective policies intended to alleviate the individual welfare costs of perceived financial insecurity provoked by upcoming business-cycle downturns.

Simulating Small-Scale Agricultural Adaptation Decisions in Response to Drought Risk: An Empirical Agent-Based Model for Semi-Arid Kenya

In Eastern Africa, increasing climate variability and changing socioeconomic conditions are exacerbating the frequency and intensity of drought disasters. Droughts pose a severe threat to food security in this region, which is characterized by a large dependency on smallholder rain-fed agriculture and a low level of technological development in the food production systems. Future drought risk will be determined by the adaptation choices made by farmers, yet few drought risk models … incorporate adaptive behavior in the estimation of drought risk. Here, we present an innovative dynamic drought risk adaptation model, ADOPT, to evaluate the factors that influence adaptation decisions and the subsequent adoption of measures, and how this affects drought risk for agricultural production. ADOPT combines socio-hydrological and agent-based modeling approaches by coupling the FAO crop model AquacropOS with a behavioral model capable of simulating different adaptive behavioral theories. In this paper, we compare the protection motivation theory, which describes bounded rationality, with a business-as-usual and an economic rational adaptive behavior. The inclusion of these scenarios serves to evaluate and compare the effect of different assumptions about adaptive behavior on the evolution of drought risk over time. Applied to a semi-arid case in Kenya, ADOPT is parameterized using field data collected from 250 households in the Kitui region and discussions with local decision-makers. The results show that estimations of drought risk and the need for emergency food aid can be improved using an agent-based approach: we show that ignoring individual household characteristics leads to an underestimation of food-aid needs. Moreover, we show that the bounded rational scenario is better able to reflect historic food security, poverty levels, and crop yields. Thus, we demonstrate that the reality of complex human adaptation decisions can best be described assuming bounded rational adaptive behavior; furthermore, an agent-based approach and the choice of adaptation theory matter when quantifying risk and estimating emergency aid needs.

Farmer fertilization practices of mature rubber plantations in Northeast Thailand during a period of low rubber prices

Since 2000, farmers in Northeast Thailand have planted more than 5,000 sq km of rubber on land previously devoted to agriculture. The expansion of rubber led to a significant increase in tree cover in Northeast Thailand. Rubber prices peaked in 2011 and since then farmers have had to adjust to lower prices. Little research has documented how farmers responded to low rubber prices. This paper seeks to describe how small-scale rubber farmers use fertilizer in a region that did not historically grow rubber during a period of low rubber prices. We collected data from structured interviews with 29 farmers in Subsomboon village in Khon Kaen province, Northeast Thailand. Most farmers reported that they reduced fertilizer costs by reducing the number of times they applied fertilizer, as well as changing to cheaper brands and/or using organic fertilizer. The majority of farmers still used large amounts of chemical fertilizers, either alone or in combination with commercial organic fertilizers with unknown nutrient contents. The N and P2O5 contents of the chemical fertilizer alone were consistent with national recommendations (82.0–137.6 kg N/ha/y and 33.3–97.7 kg P2O5/ha/y). Thai national recommendations for rubber, however, were developed for rubber plantations in traditional planting areas where rubber has been grown for over a century, and are considered by many experts to be high. The study’s findings indicated that small scale rubber farmers would benefit from recommendations for fertilizer applications that respond to variations in rubber prices, while taking into account the diversity of individual household characteristics and goals. To optimize recommendations that sustain the growth and yield of rubber, limit the effects of environmental externalities, and maintain rubber’s profitability, policymakers require detailed information on the diverse situations in which rubber is grown. This requires experimental research that tests a variety of fertilization practices under different biological and physical conditions.

Energy demand projections and relevance of income dynamics in Gauteng’s residential sector

Energy modelling serves as a crucial tool for informing both energy policy and strategy development. But the modelling process is faced with both sectoral energy data and structural challenges. Among all the sectors, the residential sector usually presents a huge challenge to the modelling profession due to the dynamic nature of the sector. The challenge is brought by the fact that each an every household in a region may have different energy consumption characteristics and the computing power of the available models cannot incorporate all the details of individual household characteristics. Even if there was enough computing power within the models, energy consumption is collected through surveys and as a result only a sample of a region is captured. These challenges have forced energy modellers to categorise households that have similar characteristics. Different researchers choose different methods for categorising the households. Some researchers choose to categorise households by location and climate, others choose housing types while others choose quintiles. Currently, there is no consensus on which categorisation method takes precedence over others. In these myriad ways of categorising households, the determining factor employed in each method is what is assumed to be the driver of energy demand in that particular area of study. Many researchers acknowledge that households’ income, preferences and access to certain fuels determine how households use energy. Although many researchers recognise that income is the main driver of energy demand in the residential sector, there has been no energy modelling study that has tried to categorise households by income in South Africa. This paper chose to categorise households by income because income is taken to be the main driver of energy demand in the urban residential sector. Gauteng province was chosen as a case study area for this paper. The Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning System (LEAP) is used as a tool for such analysis. This paper will further reveal how the dynamics of differing income across the residential sector affects total energy demand in the long run. The households in Gauteng are classified into three income categories – high, middle and low income households. In addition to different income categories, the paper further investigates the energy demand of Gauteng’s residential sector under three economic scenarios with five energy demand scenarios. The three economic scenarios are first economic scenario (ECO1), second economic scenario (ECO2) and third economic scenario (ECO3). The most distinguishing factor between these economic scenarios is the mobility of households from one income band to the next.The model results show that electricity demand will be high in all the three economic scenarios. The reason for such high electrical energy demand in all the economic scenarios compared to other fuels is due to the fact that among all the provinces, Gauteng households have one of the highest electricity consumption profiles. ECO2 showed the highest energy demand in all the five energy demand scenarios. This is due to the fact that the share of high income households in ECO2 was very high, compared to the other two economic scenarios. The favourable energy demand scenarios will be the Energy Efficiency and MEPS scenarios due to their ability to reduce more energy demand than other scenarios in all the three economic scenarios.

Patterns and determinants of communal latrine usage in urban poverty pockets in Bhopal, India

To explore and explain patterns of use of communal latrine facilities in urban poverty pockets. Six poverty pockets with communal latrine facilities representing two management models (Sulabh and municipal) were selected. Sampling was random and stratified by poverty pocket population size. A seventh, community-managed facility was also included. Data were collected by exit interviews with facility users and by interviews with residents from a randomly selected representative sample of poverty pocket households, on social, economic and demographic characteristics of households, latrine ownership, defecation practices, costs of using the facility and distance from the house to the facility. A tally of facility users was kept for 1 day at each facility. Data were analysed using logistic regression modelling to identify determinants of communal latrine usage. Communal latrines differed in their facilities, conditions, management and operating characteristics, and rates of usage. Reported usage rates among non-latrine-owning households ranged from 15% to 100%. There was significant variation in wealth, occupation and household structure across the poverty pockets as well as in household latrine ownership. Households in pockets with municipal communal latrine facilities appeared poorer. Households in pockets with Sulabh-managed communal facilities were significantly more likely to own a household latrine. Determinants of communal facility usage among households without a latrine were access and convenience (distance and opening hours), facility age, cleanliness/upkeep and cost. The ratio of male to female users was 2:1 across all facilities for both adults and children. Provision of communal facilities reduces but does not end the problem of open defecation in poverty pockets. Women appear to be relatively poorly served by communal facilities and, cost is a barrier to use by poorer households. Results suggest improving facility convenience and access and modifying fee structures could lead to increased rates of usage. Attention to possible barriers to usage at household level associated particularly with having school-age children and with pre-school childcare needs may also be warranted.

How Does Viet Nam's Accession to the World Trade Organization Change the Spatial Incidence of Poverty?

Trade policies can promote aggregate efficiency, but the ensuing structural adjustments generally create both winners and losers. From an incomes perspective, trade liberalization can raise gross domestic product per capita, but rates of emergence from poverty depend on individual household characteristics of economic participation and asset holding. To fully realize the growth potential of trade, while limiting the risk of rising inequality, policies need to better account for microeconomic heterogeneity. One approach to this is geographic targeting that shifts resources to poor areas. This study combines an integrated microsimulation-computable general equilibrium model with small area estimation to evaluate the spatial incidence of Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization. Provincial-level poverty reduction after full liberalization was heterogeneous, ranging from 2.2 percent to14.3 percent. Full liberalization will benefit the poor on a national basis, but the northwestern area of Vietnam is likely to lag behind. Furthermore, poverty can be shown to increase under comparable scenarios.

Smallholder Dairy Farmer Access to Alternative Milk Market Channels in Gujarat, India

Although India is already the worlds largest milk producer, dairy production particularly among smallholder and even landless farmers continues to grow with growing demand. Currently over 80% of that milk marketed passes through traditional channels handling raw milk and traditionally processed products, in spite of the high profile given to cooperative dairy development through the Operation Flood programs. However, the growing middle class is likely to increase the demand for the more formal processed and pasteurized products, which the traditional market generally cannot deliver. This may shift opportunities for market participation and development away from smallholder dairy producers towards larger farmers who can deliver larger daily quantities of milk, and may be better able to manage milk quality. This study addresses the links between smallholder dairy farmers and alternative traditional, private and cooperative sector milk markets, using data collected in the traditional Indian dairy heartland, the State of Gujarat, based on a random survey of over 700 rural geo - referenced households. The analyses combine household survey and GIS -derived data that allow a rigorous differentiation of the effects of individual household characteristics from those related to location. A two-step analysis is conducted to explain milk market participation and conditioned on that, milk outlet choice, and their determinants, including a simple probit, followed by McFaddens choice model, using a conditional logit. The results suggest that smallholders are not limited by scale, access to land resources, or social group, from participating in the growing formal milk market channels.

Farmers' perceptions of participation and institutional effectiveness in the management of mid-hill watersheds in Nepal

In the mid-hills of Nepal, as in many developing countries, gradually developing urban centers and increasing demand for agricultural produce, due to population growth and early development activities, have persuaded farm households to reorient their subsistence farming to become farm systems growing surplus food to be sold in the markets. To cope with these changes, institutions play an important role and, for these institutions to be effective, farmers must perceive their participation as not being coerced. Their participation is influenced by individual household characteristics and proximity to support services and markets. Our main findings from the analysis of household surveys based on the level of market participation included: (1) the education level and amount of training attended by family members are influencing social variables, while farm size and gross farm income are dominant economic variables influencing household participation and perceived institutional effectiveness; (2) these variations revealed significant differences in the levels of market economy for household participation and institutional effectiveness within the watershed; and (3) the factor analysis further categorized several socioeconomic variables into three major factors explaining household participation and institutional effectiveness; these included labor quality and resources, supplementary income coming from migration and off-farm activities, and awareness and modern skills acquired by farm household members living within the watershed.

Recycling and Waste Diversion Effectiveness: Evidence from Canada

In this paper, we investigate the relationship between recycling policy options and recycling behavior to study the most effective methods of diverting post-consumer waste from landfills. We employ data from a unique, micro-data set collected from households in communities across Ontario, Canada. We estimate the relationships between several commonly recycled materials (newsprint, glass, plastics, aluminum cans, tin cans, cardboard, and toxic chemicals) and individual household characteristics, recycling program attributes, and garbage collection financing methods. We find that user fees on garbage collection have significant impacts on recycling levels for all materials except toxic chemicals, and mandatory recycling programs on particular items have significant effects on recycling for almost all materials. Limits on the amount of garbage that can be placed at the curb, and providing free units under user fee systems, however, generally have a negligible or detrimental impact on recycling.

Location and uptake: integrated household and GIS analysis of technology adoption and land use, with application to smallholder dairy farms in Kenya

GIS-derived measures of location and space have increasingly been used in models of land use and ecology. However, they have made few inroads into the literature on technology adoption in developing countries, which continues to rely mainly on survey-derived information. Location, with all its dimensions of market access, demographics and agro-climate, nevertheless remains key to understanding potential for technology use. The measures of location typically used in the adoption literature, such as locational dummy variables that proxy a range of locational factors, now appear relatively crude given the increased availability of more explicit GIS-derived measures. This paper attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of integrating GIS-measures into analysis of technology uptake, for better differentiating and understanding locational effects. A set of GIS-derived measures of market access and agro-climate are included in a standard household model of technology uptake, applied to smallholder dairy farms in Kenya, using a sample of 3330 geo-referenced farm households. The three technologies examined are keeping of dairy cattle, planting of specialised fodder, and use of concentrate feed. Logit estimations are conducted that significantly differentiate effects of individual household characteristics from those related to location. The predicted values of the locational variables are then used to make spatial predictions of technology potential. Comparisons are made with estimations based only on survey data, which demonstrate that while overall explanatory power may not improve with GIS-derived variables, the latter yield more practical interpretations, which is further demonstrated through predictions of technology uptake change with a shift in infrastructure policy. Although requiring large geo-referenced data sets and high resolution GIS layers, the methodology demonstrates the potential to better unravel the multiple effects of location on farmer decisions on technology and land use.

THE MICROECONOMETRIC APPROACH TO MODELLING ENERGY DEMAND: SOME RESULTS FOR UK HOUSEHOLDS

The paper is concerned with the empirical modeling of domestic demand for energy at the level of the individual household. A model of household energy expenditures and energy using durable ownership is described. Estimation takes place using a pooled sample of households drawn from the repeated cross- sections of the annual Family Expenditure Survey (FES). Price and income elasticities are found to be highly dependent on individual household characteristics, type of house tenure, energy using durable ownership and outside temperature. Finally the results are placed in a policy relevant context. Copyright 1991 by Oxford University Press.

The microeconomics of distribution: A simulation of the farm economy

A simulation model that incorporates both production and consumption behavior of farm households in Taiwan is presented. The model is used to analyze the effects of policy instruments (price supports, minimum wages, taxes, subsidies, demographic policies, and land and capital redistribution) on the aggregate values of the endogenous variables of the system—the supplies of output and labor, the demands of factors and consumption, income and expenditure—and their distribution among households. The model differs from other simulation models in that it is based on microsimulation, in which the joint distribution of individual household characteristics such as farm-specific prices, initial endowments of land and capital, and numbers of workers and dependents, is explicitly taken into account. As a result, the model is capable of capturing the distributional as well as aggregate impacts of policy changes.