Integrated Household Survey Research Articles

The relationship between forest cover and diet quality: a case study of rural southern Malawi

The importance of forests in supporting the well-being of poor rural communities cannot be overstated, not only for improving food security but also for biodiversity conservation. For many people living in developing regions of the world, forests provide healthy and nutrient-dense foods which can improve overall diet quality and act as a safety net during times of hardship. Forests can also provide a source of income and facilitate certain agricultural practices, potentially allowing for poverty alleviation and mitigation. This study examined whether there was a relationship between forest cover and diet quality at the household level in rural southern Malawi. Nutrition data for 2084 households, collected as part of the 2010/11 Third Integrated Household Survey for Malawi (IHS3), were compared with a satellite-based land-cover map of Malawi. Households located in areas with a high percentage forest cover had significantly improved vitamin A adequacy compared to households in less forested areas. Also, vitamin A intake was significantly improved by consumption of wild plant foods. Forest cover was not associated with any other indicators of diet quality, but a number of social and demographic factors were significant determinants, including household size, education and access to markets. Further investigation of these associations is imperative at a time when forests are being cleared at an alarming rate to make way for agricultural production.

Impact of Migrants' Remittance on the 'Left-Behind Wives': Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

International migration- mostly through temporary job contract by male workers- has become a significant avenue to escape unemployment and poverty especially for the poor and unskilled rural Bangladeshis (Sharma and Zaman 2009). Migrants of this category usually has very little chance to settle permanently in the destination country, therefore they remit most of their income to the home country to improve the current livelihood of the 'left-behind' family and increase the productive capabilities of the household (Raghuram 2007). It is commonly assumed that the prevailing large male-dominated migration from Bangladesh brings extended freedom and economic participation of the women from the left-behind families. This research aims to ascertain the impact of the migration of husbands on the status of left-behind wives. The basic assumption of this study is that having husband in abroad can be viewed as 'treatment' and thus Propensity Score Matching (PSM) can be used to form the 'control' group of households without migrant husband or foreign remittance. By applying PSM on the extracted dataset from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2015 (IFPRI 2016), 312 households have selected in two groups, 156 households in the treatment group and 156 in the control group. From this new matched sub-sample, women position is compared on the four different dimensions namely participation in decision-making, freedom of mobility, participation in reproductive decision and prevalence of domestic violence; and comparative difference between the groups can be considered as the impact of 'treatment' i.e. international migration and remittance. Evidence suggests that husbands' migration gives left-behind wives more authority in spending decision such as food, housing, health-care, child education and clothing; increases freedom of mobility; and reduces the prevalence of domestic violence against them in compare to the peer group. On the contrary, wives of the control group enjoy higher participation in both inside- and outside-home income generating activities.

Gay glass ceilings: Sexual orientation and workplace authority in the UK

A burgeoning literature has examined earnings inequalities associated with a minority sexual orientation, but far less is known about sexual orientation-based differences in access to workplace authority – in contrast to well-documented gender and race-specific differences. We provide the first large-scale evidence on this question using confidential data from the 2009–2014 UK Integrated Household Surveys (IHS) (N = 607,709). We are the first to document that gay men and lesbians are significantly more likely to have objective measures of workplace authority compared to otherwise similar heterosexual men and women. However, we also find clear evidence that gay men face glass ceilings: their higher likelihood of attaining workplace authority is driven entirely by their significantly higher odds of being low-level managers. In fact, gay men are significantly less likely than comparable heterosexual men to be in the highest-level managerial positions that come with higher status and pay. Oaxaca-style decompositions suggest that this differential access to workplace authority for gay men is due to discrimination as opposed to different skills and characteristics. Moreover, this “gay glass ceiling” is stronger for racial minorities than for whites. Corresponding effects for lesbians exist but are notably weaker. These results provide the first direct evidence of social stratification in the workplace associated with a minority sexual orientation and reveal that differences are exacerbated for individuals with multiple marginalized identities.

Determinantes de la informalidad laboral en Colombia para el período 2008 – 2017

El objetivo de esta investigación es identificar los determinantes clave que explican la informalidad laboral en Colombia, para el período 2008 – 2017. En el proceso se utilizó un enfoque metodológico cuantitativo, de tipo descriptivo, para ello se emplearon datos de la Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH), realizada por el Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE), además de diversas fuentes referenciales de la literatura, donde los determinantes se catalogaron como cíclicos y acíclicos, dependiendo de su comportamiento, respecto al ciclo económico. Los análisis arrojan que Bogotá, Medellín, Manizales, Pereira y Cali, presentan las tasas de informalidad más bajas (entre 40 % y 50 %). Adicionalmente, entre las conclusiones resalta que existe una relación lineal o directa entre la duración del desempleo y la informalidad; a mayor tiempo en calidad de desempleado, mayor probabilidad de caer en la informalidad.

Intrahousehold empowerment gaps in agriculture and children's well‐being in Bangladesh

AbstractThis article examines the relationship between empowerment gaps between spouses and children's nutritional status and education using nationally representative data from the 2012 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey. We measure relative empowerment of spouses using the recently developed Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index. We find that while gender gaps in empowerment are only linked weakly to children's nutritional status, fathers’ and mothers’ empowerment have different effects on investment in children. Fathers’ empowerment is positively associated with younger children's nutrition and schooling, while mothers’ empowerment is more important for girls’ education in general and in keeping older boys and girls in school.

Getting the food list 'right': an approach for the development of nutrition-relevant food lists for household consumption and expenditure surveys.

The present paper aimed to demonstrate how 24 h dietary recall data can be used to generate a nutrition-relevant food list for household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) using contribution analysis and stepwise regression. The analysis used data from the 2011/12 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS), which is nationally representative of rural Bangladesh. A total of 325 primary sampling units (PSU=village) were surveyed through a two-stage stratified sampling approach. The household food consumption module used for the analysis consisted of a 24 h open dietary recall in which the female member in charge of preparing and serving food was asked about foods and quantities consumed by the whole household. Rural Bangladesh.ParticipantsA total of 6500 households. The original 24 h open dietary recall data in the BIHS were comprised of 288 individual foods that were grouped into ninety-four similar food groups. Contribution analysis and stepwise regression were based on nutrients of public health interest in Bangladesh (energy, protein, fat, Fe, Zn, vitamin A). These steps revealed that a list of fifty-nine food items captures approximately 90 % of the total intake and up to 90 % of the between-person variation for the key nutrients based on the diets of the population. The study illustrates how 24 h open dietary recall data can be used to generate a country-specific nutrition-relevant food list that could be integrated into an HCES consumption module to enable more accurate and comprehensive household-level food and nutrient analyses.

Determinants and Impact of Urbanization on Household Livelihoods in Lilongwe District: Evidence from Integrated Household Survey

Determinants and Impact of Urbanization on Household Livelihoods in Lilongwe District: Evidence from Integrated Household Survey

FOOD SUBSIDY OR CASH TRANSFER: IMPACT OF THE FOOD SUBSIDY REFORM ON EGYPTIAN HOUSEHOLDS

The Egyptian food subsidy system plays an important role in providing basic goods at low prices, to households, especially the poorest ones. However, the system has been through different reforms to decrease its cost and improve its targeting efficiency. This paper studies the impact of removing the rationed subsidized products and replacing it by cash transfers. Using the Egyptian Integrated Household Survey (HEICS – 2010/2011), a mixed demand model is used to estimate the own price, cross price and income elasticities. The estimated elasticities are used to compute the impact of the suggested reforms on households’ welfare, measured by their food expenditures. The results show that the removal of subsidies will lead to an increase in the expenditures on free market goods for all income groups at both urban and rural areas, especially for the two lowest quintiles.

Job market outcomes for IDPs: The case of Georgia

Internally displaced people (IDPs) constitute a serious economic, social and cultural problem for many countries, including countries in transition. Despite the importance of the problem, there are only a handful of previous studies investigating the issue of labour market outcomes for IDPs. Moreover, the impact of protracted displacement has not been addressed in academic work at all. We aim to fill this gap in the literature using 13 years (2004–2016) of Integrated Household Surveys from Georgia, which has experienced a large flow of internal migrants from the early 1990s until now. Our analyses indicate that the labour market outcomes for IDPs are much worse than those for local residents. Specifically, IDPs are 3.9–11.2 percentage points less likely to be in the labour force, depending on the period and duration of IDP status. IDPs are also up to 11.6 percentage points more likely to be unemployed, even after 20 years of forced displacement. Finally, IDPs residing in a locality for more than five years receive persistently lower wages than local residents with similar characteristics, with the gap widening over time, reaching some 11% in the last period under analysis.

Conservative outlook, gender norms and female wellbeing: Evidence from rural Bangladesh

Abstract Following Identity Theory proposed by Akerlof and Kranton (2000), we conceptualize the interactions between conservative outlook and female wellbeing through influencing gender norms. Conservative households often prefer women to stay home, which correlates to female employment and decision-making autonomy, affecting female physical mobility and female nutrition. Finding a suitable indicator for conservative outlook is difficult as we typically lack household-level ‘value survey’. In the fast modernizing context of rural Bangladesh, wearing burqa (veil) is often perceived as an indicator of socially conservative outlook. Using this insight, we process the data from the second wave of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) for 2015 to test the statistically robust association between household-level conservative outlook and gender-sensitive wellbeing indicators such as female employment, body mass index, and decision-making autonomy for the population of ever-married females aged 15–49 years old. After controlling for individual, household, and regional characteristics, and using sub-regional fixed effects, our findings suggest that living in conservative households is associated with lower probability of female employment. Females from conservative households are less likely to be in wage work or salaried jobs. The probability of being overweight is also higher for the females in conservative households as compared to non-conservative households.

¿Vale la pena estudiar en Colombia?

Con el fin de evaluar el efecto de la educación y de la experiencia sobre los ingresos laborales en Colombia, se estimó un modelo minceriano cuadrático por Mínimos Cuadrados en Dos Etapas, con variable instrumental para controlar el problema de selección, basado en la información de la Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares (GEIH) entre los años 2009 y 2015. Para el caso, se realiza una revisión bibliográfica y de hechos estilizados, con el fin de proporcionar un acercamiento a la teoría referente a la hipótesis planteada. Así mismo, se realiza un conjunto de ejercicios econométricos, en aras de verificar empíricamente la relación directa entre educación e ingreso laboral, en particular, el retorno a la educación en el sector urbano, obtenido a partir de la semielasticidad, que los premios educativos reflejan sobre el logaritmo de los salarios. Se encuentra que, culminar los estudios secundarios y universitarios aumenta los salarios recibidos; que ser hombre, tiene también un efecto positivo sobre los ingresos; pero que, el premio que reciben por culminar los estudios, es mayor para las mujeres que para los hombres.

Analysis of the Main Aspects Regarding the Price Indices Applied in the Determination of Inflation

Inflation is the abridged or statistically synthesized form of price rises. Inflation can be expressed in the terms we commonly encounter in analyzes and daily studies as the consumer price index, which is nothing more than the evolution of the prices of the goods bought and of the tariffs and services used. It is, to put it this way, the main index or instrument for assessing inflation. However, a number of other indicators that are specific to the economic activity domains are used in the calculation of the consumer price index. Thus, we find the index of industrial production prices, the unit value of exports and imports, the cost of living index, the retail price index, the construction cost index, the agrifood product price index, or the average exchange rate index. All of these indicators that we have mentioned are used in inflation calculations in the sense that they are being discussed when it comes to determining how inflation is evolving. Inflation is an indicator that has negative effects on the real outcomes of economic activity and negatively influences the real value of the incomes of the population at one time. In calculating inflation, a number of issues have to be resolved, such as the definition of the calculated indicators, the advantages and disadvantages of the harmonization of the indicators mentioned the scope of each of them, the data sources and especially the most commonly encountered problem, the weighting system which we use. We know that there is an integrated household survey, family budget surveys, so that the data obtained can be processed so that they can present in a realistic way the evolution of prices within the national economy. Inflation is also important because once we know the concrete results; we can bring macroeconomic performance indicators as well as other sizes at a real comparability level. It is known that in the evolution of each period of time the macroeconomic indicators are calculated in the prices of the respective period, and then by deflation we manage to bring the indicators to a level of comparability. In the study, the emphasis is on solving these issues, so that specific inflation indices, such as the monthly inflation rate, the monthly average inflation rate, the inflation rate at the end of the period or year or the annual inflation rate, will be harmonize, correlate and put in place the possibility of making a realistic inflation calculation in the national economy. The Laspeyres or Paasche type weighting issue involves two issues that need to be considered when we build indicators that measure inflation.

Farm diversification and food and nutrition security in Bangladesh: empirical evidence from nationally representative household panel data

Existing literature suggests that farm production diversification has the potential to influence the diet diversity of farmers, but that the magnitude of the association is likely to vary by context and the underlying causal mechanisms are not well understood. This study analyzed the nexus between farm diversification and diet diversity using two round of nationally representative panel data from the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS), collected in 2011/12 and 2015. We used several indicators of dietary diversity including the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS), Women’s Dietary Diversity Score (WDDS), and the Food Variety Score (FVS). To measure farm diversification we used the total number of crop, vegetable and fruit species, the number of food crop species only, and the Margalef species richness index. We found robust evidence for a positive association between farm diversification and diet diversity, even when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across households using the conditional fixed effect Poisson model in order to take advantage of the panel structure of the data. The magnitude of the estimated effect was small. Analysis of other factors indicates that market access, commercialization of farms, diversification of income towards off farm sources and women’s empowerment also have positive and significant effects on household dietary diversity. These findings suggest that it may be necessary to couple efforts to increase farm diversity, market access, farm commercialization and income diversification with women’s empowerment in order to improve dietary diversity in Bangladesh. Further research is needed to better understand these complex relationships including their ultimate associations with nutritional status.

Effect of Means-Tested Social Transfers on Labor Supply: Heads Versus Spouses—An Empirical Analysis of Work Disincentives in the Kyrgyz Republic

Popular perceptions that the provision of income transfers to poor households creates work disincentives prevail. Existing evidence is mixed and depends on the country, the type of transfer, and the population group analyzed. This paper empirically estimates potential work disincentives of a means-tested social transfer for adults with different household positions. Using data from the Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey 2012, the analysis compares labor market outcomes for household heads and spouses using quasiexperimental methods to assess transfer effects on labor supply. Overall, beneficiaries have on average higher labor market participation rates, but results differ by household position and socioeconomic context. Household heads in beneficiary households are less likely to be economically active than similar nonbeneficiaries. Yet, spouses are more likely to be economically active. Moreover, outcomes depend on whether the household is located in the south or the north of the country.

Food Security in Rural Bangladesh: Examining the Role of Women’s Earnings and Food Budget Control

Household food security is vital to measure of a country’s advancement and well-being. Three mostly usage determinants to measure household food security are per capita daily calorie availability, dietary diversity, and individuals body mass index (BMI) scores. Food security condition in rural Bangladesh is vulnerable due to poverty, unavailability and high prices of food. Almost every year food price is increasing in Bangladesh due to the low level of production, improper market management and fraud business syndicate from some top traders. In Bangladesh, food production is affected by natural calamities such as the flood in monsoon period. Rice is considering as the leading food and dominating 70% of total calorie intake in rural Bangladesh. Rural inhabitants are consuming protein and micronutrient-rich food very infrequent. The main barriers to decrease the malnutrition rate are a lack of access to protein and micronutrient rich foods and inappropriate health services. Women and children are the primary targets of ensuring nutrition security in developing worlds. However, in rural Bangladesh, in practice, both women and children are getting fewer privileges regarding food consumption and health facilitates. The main objective of this paper is to examine the role of women’s earnings and food budget control. Very authentic, recognized and useful datasets are needed to get the precise insights and information about food security condition and the role of women in food security in the rural Bangladesh. Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey 2011-12 datasets are used for this study. Regression method is used to analyze the research objectives. This paper found that women control over food budget has positive roles to ensure food availability in the house and more dietary diversity. However, the BMI scores indicate that rural people are heavily under-weight and under-nutrition.

Gay Glass Ceilings: Sexual Orientation and Workplace Authority in the UK

A burgeoning literature has examined earnings inequalities associated with a minority sexual orientation, but far less is known about sexual orientation-based differences in access to workplace authority – in contrast to well-documented gender and race-specific differences. We provide the first large-scale evidence on this question using confidential data from the 2009-2014 UK Integrated Household Surveys (IHS) (N = 607,709). We are the first to document that men and lesbians are significantly more likely to have objective measures of workplace authority compared to otherwise similar heterosexual men and women. However, we also find clear evidence that men face glass ceilings: their higher likelihood of attaining workplace authority is driven entirely by their significantly higher odds of being low-level managers. In fact, men are significantly less likely than comparable heterosexual men to be in the highest-level managerial positions that come with higher status and pay. Oaxaca decompositions suggest that this differential access to workplace authority for men is due to discrimination as opposed to different skills and characteristics. Moreover, this gay glass ceiling is stronger for racial minorities than for whites. Corresponding effects for lesbians exist but are notably weaker. These results provide the first direct evidence of social stratification in the workplace associated with a minority sexual orientation and reveal that differences are exacerbated for individuals with multiple marginalized identities.

The Effects of 2016-2017 Rice Price Increase on Household Welfare and Poverty in Rural Bangladesh

This study assesses the impact of rice price shocks on household welfare and poverty in rural Bangladesh using the first- and second-order welfare measures derived from an indirect utility function. This article contributes to this literature by accounting for the heterogeneous price increase across each household and a differential price increase for net buyers and net-sellers. By utilizing 2015 Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) data, this article finds that a large increase in rice price reduces the welfare of the households and increases the poverty rate in rural Bangladesh. A 35% increase in retail price and a 28.5% increase in wholesale rice prices lead to a 1.72 and 1.43 percentage points increase in the headcount rate (HCR) of poverty in rural Bangladesh estimated using the upper and lower poverty lines, respectively. The decomposition of total households into net sellers and net buyers reveal that households who are net buyers fall into poverty more in number than the net seller who moves out of poverty. The results of this study would be valuable inputs for policymakers to design policies that protect the group of households who get hurt from rice price shocks.

Comparative Capability of Migrant and Non-Migrant Households: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

This research aims to ascertain the level of capabilities attainment by the rural households of Bangladesh through temporary international migration. Multilevel Propensity Score Matching (PSM) based on logistic regression is used to construct the ‘treatment’ group of migrant households and ‘control’ group of non-migrant households. Various observed characteristics of 5219 households from the cross-sectional Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) 2011-12 (Ahmed, 2013) is used to perform the matching procedures, and it matched 490 households of which 178 households for the ‘treatment’ and other 312 households for the ‘control’ group with similar observed characteristics like the ‘treatment’ group. Between these two groups, various outcome variables are compared by mean difference in case of continuous variables and relative proportion for categorical variables. Evidence from the matched sample indicates that migrant households have a higher level of food & non-food consumptions, better housing, higher education expenditure for the children, higher health expenditure, better access to the communication & social acceptance and higher participation of women in household decision-making compare to non-migrant households. In summary, they do possess extended capabilities and functionings i.e. ‘well-being’ and ‘social relation’. However, migrant households are also exposed to higher level of total outstanding loan, one-third of which taken exclusively for migration.

Job Market Outcomes of IDPs: The Case of Georgia

Internally displaced people (IDPs) constitute a serious economic, social and cultural problem for many countries, including countries in transition. Despite the importance of the problem, there are only a handful of previous studies investigating the issue of labor market outcomes of IDPs. We aim to fill this gap in the literature using 13 years of Integrated Household Surveys over 2004-2016 from Georgia, which experienced large flows of internal migrants from the early 1990s until now. Our analyses indicate that the labor market outcomes of IDPs are much worse than those of local residents. Specifically, IDPs are 3.9 to 11.2 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force, depending on the period and duration of IDP status. IDPs are also up to 11.6 percentage points more likely to be unemployed, sometimes even after 20 years of forced displacement. Finally, IDPs residing in a locality for more than 5 years receive persistently lower wages than local residents with similar characteristics, with the gap widening over time, reaching some 16 percentage points in the last period under analysis.

Duración del desempleo en los profesionales para las cuatro principales áreas metropolitanas de Colombia (2008-2014)

Esta investigación analiza los factores determinantes de la duración del desempleo para los profesionales en las cuatro principales áreas metropolitanas de Colombia, según la información de la Gran Encuesta Integrada de Hogares para el periodo 2008-2014. Se ofrecen análisis descriptivos y estimaciones econométricas a través de regresiones cuantílicas con corrección del sesgo de selección, y se realizan comparaciones específicas para las áreas metropolitanas de interés. Los resultados muestran que la edad no tiene un impacto significativo en la duración del desempleo en los profesionales; además, la tenencia de hijos menores de seis años y el estado marital son significativos para explicar la duración del desempleo, y de manera general en las mujeres profesionales la duración del desempleo es más persistente.