Labor-saving Technology Research Articles

Rural–urban analysis of parental time poverty and child over-nutrition in ghana

ABSTRACT This study examines the link between parental time poverty and child body mass index, prevalence of overweight and obsesity. The study relied on data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS), a nationally representative household level data. Employing the standard instrumental variable (IV) to control for endogeneity indicates that parental time poverty is associated with a higher BMI z-score and higher likelihood of children being overweight and obese, particularly in rural Ghana. Additionally, there is evidence of heterogeneity in the effect of parental time poverty on the prevalence of children being overweight and obese based on income classification and gender. The implications of these findings suggest that interventions aimed at providing labor-saving technologies and improving social and physical environments in rural areas may help reduce parental time poverty and improve child nutrition outcomes.

Surgical instrument counting: Current practice and staff perspectives on technological support

BackgroundSurgical instrument counting is a manual, attention-intensive task of the operating room (OR) nurse. Many labour-saving technologies have been proposed, but implementation remains challenging. Knowledge of current counting methods and staff preferences could guide future developments towards effective application. ApproachWe observed OR nurses counting materials and instruments in 50 surgical procedures performed by various surgical specialties in a regional teaching hospital in Delft, The Netherlands. Additionally, we surveyed them on their preferences concerning the methods of counting. Key findingsVariations in approaches of surgical counting were observed, with OR nurses using multiple strategies and counting techniques to manage disruptions and limit workload. Interest in using supportive technology is limited to the preoperative and postoperative phase. RelevanceThis research relates observational data to staff preferences. Our findings may guide future developments of labour-saving innovations regarding surgical counting towards developing more effective applications and to ensure successful implementation.

Agricultural Technological Change, Female Earnings and Fertility: Evidence from Brazil

Abstract I study how agricultural technological change affects labour market opportunities and fertility in a developing country context. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in the adoption of genetically engineered soy across municipalities in Brazil, I show that this labour-saving technology reduced female agricultural earnings and employment without inducing any female sectoral reallocation. Furthermore, this technology adoption increased fertility due to increases in overall household earnings and substitution effects driven by the reduction in female labour demand. These results suggest that technological progress in developing countries may not improve female economic opportunities or lower fertility unless substitution effects are negative and sufficiently large.

The Role of Human Resource Management in Agricultural Labor-Saving Technologies: An Integrative Review and Science Mapping

The integrative role of human resource management continues to rise as a topic in sustainable and smart agriculture. This dual focus emphasizes new solutions for agricultural businesses and rural areas, incorporating academic concepts with practical implementations to address the pressing challenges coming from the implementation of labor-saving technologies. The study employs the integrative review method, along with science mapping of literature. After a careful selection of studies from the Scopus database, we included 149 papers for our analysis. Our findings suggest that the overall scholarly work has been concentrated on the topics of entrepreneurship and organizational structure. We conclude that the literature is mostly directed toward sustainability development goals such as gender, diversity, and youth. The current trends topics are “collective action” and “artificial intelligence”. Furthermore, our study offered insights into developing and emerging themes, trends, and future directions. The HRM functions that play a pivotal role in the adoption of labor-saving technology adoption are knowledge management, change management, labor allocation, sustainability allocation, and regulatory compliance. Moreover, we provided the practical implementation of the HRM roles and future directions. This study benefits agricultural researchers, agricultural managers, and policymakers because it gives a comprehensive and interdisciplinary perspective.

Ecological shock and time poverty: Evidence from northern Ghana

Despite the importance of time poverty in economic decision-making and impact on welfare outcomes, empirical studies linking ecological shocks and time poverty is limited. This paper documents the relationship between an ecological shock and time poverty in northern Ghana using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS). We employ the standard instrumental variable (IV) method and conduct several robustness checks to ensure a robust estimate of ecological shock on time poverty. The results show that ecological shocks increases time poverty by 15 percentage points. The decomposition analysis of time poverty indicates that ecological shock is postively associated with time poverty based on paid work with no significant effect on time poverty based on unpaid work. Our results further show that the effect of ecological shocks on time poverty is a rural phenomenon. In addition, we note that the effect of ecological shock on time poverty is more prominent among the youth, large farm holders, and high-income earning household heads. The main implication of the findings is that development interventions that enhance access and adoption of gender-sensitive labour-saving technologies must be scaled up to reduce farm committed time, increase crop productivity and reduce the potential intergenerational transfer of time poverty. Provision of social protection measures such as the support through the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty to poor farm households would reduce the burden of ecological shocks on their wellbeing.

Unemployment and the direction of technical change

I construct and analyze a growth model in which technical change can increase unemployment. I first analyze the forces that deliver a constant steady state unemployment rate in this setting. Labor-saving technical change increases unemployment, which lowers wages and creates incentives for future investment in labor-using technologies. In the long run, this interaction generates a balanced growth path that is observationally equivalent to that of the standard neoclassical growth model, except that it also incorporates a positive steady state level of unemployment and a falling relative price of investment. I also study the effects of a permanent increase in the ability of R&D to improve labor-saving technologies. In the long run, this change leads to faster growth in output per worker and wages, but it also yields higher unemployment and a lower labor share of income. In the short run, this change exacerbates existing inefficiencies and slows economic growth.

Has labor-saving technology accelerated? Evidence from industry-level data

What role has labor-saving technological change played in the recent past in charting out the trajectory of employment? Have we already transitioned into a new technological regime where production technologies are more invasive upon labor’s terrain? In this study, I provide empirical evidence to answer these questions. Using industry-level data from 12 advanced economies for 1970–2007, I show that capital goods did not become more effective in labor-saving after 1980 or 1990. Similarly, the strength of the relationship between employment and output did not decline after 1980 or 1990. While many recent econometric studies have estimated the number of workers displaced due to industrial robots with which the media and public are highly preoccupied, there is nothing new in the fact that production technologies are labor-saving and displace workers. The importance of demand side factors and structural change (mainly deindustrialization) in determining employment patterns is often neglected, leading to a misleading assessment of the impact of labor-saving technologies on employment.

Commemorating 50 Years of Publication of Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher: Adding Women to “Small = Beautiful”

Abstract Fifty years ago, Schumacher in his celebrated book, Small Is Beautiful, argued that the Western model of mass production, which relies on high-cost, capital-intensive, and labor-saving technology, was not suitable for developing countries to improve their economic conditions and living standards. Instead, Schumacher proposed an alternative path of development that emphasized low-cost, small-scale, and labor-intensive technology. Considering persistent unemployment in developing countries, Schumacher’s model of alternative development remains relevant for the vast majority of their people. However, he failed to include women in his model and held traditional views on gender roles. His understanding of the economic role of women did not align with the women’s movements, which sought equal access to education and employment. By using a case study of India, this article argues that it is often poor women who are the “agents” of Small Is Beautiful. Through low-cost small businesses, they are uplifting themselves and their families out of poverty and contributing to society’s well-being.

Determinants and Profitability of Cowpea Production in Safana Local Government Area, Katsina State, Nigeria

As an important cash crop in Nigeria, cowpea is extensively cultivated in most parts of northern Nigeria. This study was carried out to examine the profitability and factors influencing cowpea production in Safana local government area, Katsina State, Nigeria. Fifty farmers were randomly selected for the study area and semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, farm budget technique, and multiple regression analysis. Results indicated that most of the respondents (58%) were middle-aged within 30 - 50 years with 64% of the respondents having more than 5 years of farming experience. The most important determinants of cowpea production in the study area, include labour (P< 0.01), land (P< 0.05), and seed (P< 0.1). The production enterprise was very profitable as ₦ 46, 209.84 per hectare was generated as the net farm income. Also, the return per naira invested was found to be N 2.10. It was recommended that measures should be taken to bring about an increased generation of income, such as the use of improved seed varieties and the adoption of labor-saving technologies in the area.

Глобальная бедность и структурные сдвиги в экономике

Over the past 30 years, the world has achieved significant success in the fight against global poverty. However, progress in reducing its scale varies greatly in different parts of the world. Today, the epicenter of this calamity lies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The concentration of poverty in several places on the planet does not make the study of sources and dynamics of this phenomenon any less relevant. It is simultaneously both the root cause and the consequence of many current global challenges. The article focuses on analyzing the connection between the dynamics of poverty and structural shifts in the economies of developing countries. The authors note that for a long time, an important mechanism for reducing poverty in poor countries was the outflow of unskilled labor from the agricultural sector to the industrial one. As long as labor-intensive technologies were used in industry, it effectively absorbed the uneducated agricultural population, increasing their income and lifting them out of poverty. However, innovative labor-saving technologies and the digitization of economy have slowed down this process.Modern economy requires fewer workers while placing high demands on the quality of human capital. Poor African countries, caught up amid global technological shifts, have faced major challenges. One of the main ones includes the low level of education and vocational training, as well as the absence of not only computer literacy but also basic literacy. Under such conditions, innovation cannot organically develop, create high-tech jobs, and contribute to poverty reduction. Our contribution to academic literature lies in the demonstration, based on empirical materials, of various models of reducing global poverty in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. We also draw attention to possible mechanisms of this reduction and their transformation against the backdrop of the implementation of modern advanced technologies.

Technical change in agriculture and homicides: The case of genetically-modified soy seeds in Brazil

In this paper, we estimate the effects of the introduction of a labor-saving technology in agriculture on violence, by examining the case of the adoption of genetically-modified soy seeds in Brazil. Previous literature has shown that this technological change leads to job displacement, increases in land conflicts and gender inequality. We show that the effects also spread to homicide rates, which increase significantly after the adoption of the modified soy seeds.

Does contract farming arrangement improve smallholder tobacco productivity? Evidence from Zimbabwe

Contract Farming Arrangements (CFA) can be viewed as a pro-active response to lack of reliable markets and steeply rising input prices. CFA proponents argue that CFA can enhance technical efficiency of tobacco farming and productivity. Thus, in this study, the paper interrogates the effect of CFA on tobacco productivity in southern Africa: Hurungwe district of Zimbabwe. The study controls for both observable and unobservable factors, like age, education, and ability to use information-unknown to the researchers, explaining farmers decision to participate in CFA. The study uses the Endogenous Switching Regression (ESR) model, which also acts as a robust check for the Propensity Score Matching techniques as it studies both observable and unobservable factors influencing CFA participation. Based on the ESR model, this study finds that CFA improves tobacco productivity by 39%. Nonetheless, CFA is labour-intensive. Hence, women and the elderly are less likely to participate in CFA, suggesting the need to develop gender-sensitive labour-saving technologies. Even though tobacco products kill their users, we would like to explore whether CFA can make farming more productive or not. We hypothesize that if tobacco farming would be more productive, then perhaps farmers will have enough money to buy food so they can be healthier even if the tobacco leaves, they grow can kill people elsewhere. Thus, these results inform CFA-related policies that improve smallholder tobacco productivity in Southern Africa. With existing tobacco controls, these results are equally valid to other cash crops where most developing economies anticipate the majority resource-constrained smallholder farmers to shift their production systems entirely away from tobacco in the immediate future.

Labor-saving innovations and capital structure

This paper presents evidence that labor-saving technologies positively impact a firm's financial leverage. The results are robust with two different measures of labor-saving innovations: automation and process innovations. The effects are more pronounced in firms facing greater labor input rigidity, such as firms with higher labor intensity, share of minimum wage workers, and union coverage. Our analysis suggests that labor-saving innovations reduce wage rigidity, allowing firms to increase financial leverage.

Does Informatization Cause the Relative Substitution Bias of Agricultural Machinery Inputs for Labor Inputs? Evidence from Apple Farmers in China

The change of information scenario may change the market transaction cost of different factors, thus changing the relative price of factors and inducing the substitution of production factors, but there is no research to prove this. Therefore, this study takes labor-saving technology (mechanical substitution of labor) as an example, evaluates informatization from three aspects of information technology access, information technology application and information literacy comprehensively, and uses the probit model and CMP method to analyze whether informatization causes the substitution of agricultural machinery inputs for labor inputs and its heterogeneity. The results show that informatization has a significant negative impact on farmers' choice of labor-saving technology, and the result is robust at the regional level, but the negative impact of informatization on farmers' choice of labor-saving technology in the eastern region is smaller than that in the western region. The level of information literacy has the largest negative impact on farmers' choice of labor-saving technology, followed by the level of access to information technology, and the level of application of information technology has the smallest impact. The study concludes that informatization has not led to the significant substitution of labor by machinery in apple production. Thus, the results are important for enriching the theory of induced change in agricultural technology in the context of informatization.

The state of women’s empowerment in fisheries in rural Bicol, the Philippines

ABSTRACT This study examined the state of women’s empowerment in fishing communities in the Bicol Region, the Philippines. Using the Alkire-Foster (AF) methodology, the results revealed that the ability to participate in making decisions related to productive resources (e.g. boat, fishing gear, fish processing equipment) and having access to and control over such resources were the key factors that contribute to women’s disempowerment in the study area. Furthermore, women were found to be in a less favourable position due to lower levels of formal education, large household size, limited sources for livelihood diversification, patriarchal norms shaping household headship, and meagre share in household income. On a positive note, control over household income and leadership in the community emerged as sources of women’s empowerment. Drawing on these findings, efforts to empower women should focus on providing them more access to formal and informal education, social infrastructure, microfinance services, and labour-saving technologies.

Review of the Current State and Potential Benefits of Using Herbicides by Smallholder Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Poor weed control automatically results in yield losses, and the review has provided a range of 30-100% depending on the crop, weed species, and stage of the crop. The timing and efficacy of the methods matter. Across the region, farmers use different methods broadly grouped into preventive, cultural, and curative methods. Herbicide application, a form of curative method, is seen as an effective means of weed control, which is cheap, time, and labor-saving technology for adoption. Also, the technology helps in soil carbon sequestration. Hence, it could be used to improve crop productivity and profitability of already of the farming systems in the region. The current adoption of herbicides is very low across SSA, ranging from 0.1-55%. The low adoptions in SSA could be associated with low education levels, poor knowledge, and experience with technology, cultural beliefs, high poverty levels, small farm size, and weak government and intercountry policies and extension services.

English

For decades, debates among African leaders have centred on possible solutions to the continent's food security dilemma. If not addressed, the continued increase in population density and the accompanying pressures from conflicting demands for land in many Sub-Saharan African nations, including Nigeria, have the potential to exacerbate the arable land situation in the near future. To achieve increased production, African farmers must increase their use of productivity-enhancing tools such as irrigation, improved seeds, fertilizer, and modern farm management practices. The use of Urea Deep Placement (UDP) technology to boost nitrogen availability, a key ingredient in rice production, was introduced to rice farmers in selected Northern Nigerian states. Empirical information on the economics of the use of this technology in rice production is scanty, hence this study. Based on data collected from three hundred UDP users and non-users, this study examined the cost structure, the profitability and productivity of rice farm in the presence of technological heterogeneity. The study employed descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and the Latent class generation modes. The data was divided into two groups based on their production functions. The study concluded that farmers that used urea deep production technology outperformed non-users. However, in the short run, this technology is labour intensive. To solve the excessive labour use in the short run and to make rice production appealing to the young people who make up the majority of Nigeria's labour force, labour-saving technology must be combined with UDP technology. Key words: Productivity, profitability, technological heterogeneity, urea deep placement, rice.

Adoption of improved rice technologies in major rice producing areas of Ethiopia: a multivariate probit approach

BackgroundThe need for adopting improved rice technologies and practices has become more important in Ethiopia as the national self-sufficiency gap has increased. This article examines the adoption level and factors governing the adoption of improved rice technology packages and practices using data collected from 594 rice-producing household heads in Ethiopia. A multivariate probit (MVP) model involving a system of five equations was used to assess the determinant for the decision to adopt improved rice technologies and practices.ResultsThe results showed that the adoption levels of improved rice varieties, row planting, recommended rate of urea fertilizer, recommended rate of DAP/NPS fertilizer, and recommended weeding frequency was 24.4%, 23.4%, 40.9%, 38.6%, and 52.4%, respectively. The model results attested that improved rice production technology packages are complementary. This finding implies that farm-level policies that affect the use of one improved agricultural technology can have a positive effect on the other technologies. The various demographic, socioeconomic, and institutional variables were found to influence the decisions to adopt different technologies of improved rice technology packages with different signs.ConclusionsTherefore, the government should devise ways to ease the accessibility of improved seeds and fertilizers along with the introduction of labor-saving technologies to promote row planting and achieve wider adoption of the technologies. Policies and interventions that are informed about such factors are required to accelerate the adoption of improved rice technology packages in Ethiopia to realize green revolution and secure self-sufficiency of rice sustainably.

Global Aging and our Futures

We analyze process of global population aging, which will have a significant impact on all areas of public life in the 21st century. Global aging is likely to create an acute demand for labor-saving technologies, as well as give a powerful impulse in the field of medicine. As a result of the completion of Cybernetic Revolution and achievement by global aging of an advanced phase, a new society will be formed–cybernetic society. It is likely to be an elderly society, with the institutionalization of age differences, relying almost entirely on smart (cybernetic) technologies and AI-based self-regulating systems.

Rural electrification and women's empowerment in Côte d’Ivoire

PurposeThis paper assesses the impact of this program on the rural women's employment opportunities using data from the 2015 round of the household's living standard survey (HLSS) of Côte d'Ivoire.Design/methodology/approachIn 2013, in order to improve the living conditions of the rural population, the Ivorian government launched the National Program for rural electrification (PRONER) to electrify all localities with more than 500 inhabitants.FindingsThe results show that PRONER, while reducing the time allocated to performing household chores, increases women's employment through the reallocation of time to full-time paid work in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. The authors also find that the allocation of men's time is not affected by this programme. A possible mechanism that would explain such a pro-women effect is the labour-saving technology introduced to home production as an effect of the reform.Research limitations/implicationsAs a limitation, it is important to note that these results were obtained in the specific context of PRONER in Côte d’Ivoire and are not necessarily applicable to rural electrification programmes in other contexts. Furthermore, the choice of other indicators to measure women's empowerment is limited by the quality of the data available. It would be interesting for future research to extend this analysis to include other aspects of women's empowerment and household welfare.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to the author’s knowledge to apply a robust econometric method by combining an inverse probability weighted regression adjustment model with Heckman sample selection method to access a robust causal effect of the PRONER in Côte d'Ivoire.