Livelihood Issues Research Articles

The closed fishing season policy in Ghana: Lessons from the coastal fisherfolk

Although the socio-economic significance of fishing is globally recognized, the protection of fish stock has not been adequately attended to in fisheries management, leading to fishing practices that threaten the sustainability of fish stock. This study examined the Closed Fishing Season (CFS) policy adopted in Ghana to reduce the excessive pressure on fish stock to ensure the sustainability of fishing-related livelihoods. Data were collected through interviews and focus group discussions with 80 participants, comprising coastal fisherfolk as critical stakeholders, traditional authorities, technocrats, and an academic in fisheries. The data were analysed thematically. The findings revealed that whereas the academic and technocrats had a scientific justification for the policy, the fisherfolk took a cultural view of it without necessarily discounting the scientific rationale. Compliance with the policy was high but there were isolated cases of violations occasioned principally by livelihood pressures. The fisherfolk perceived the livelihood support packages provided by the government to be inadequate, unfairly distributed, and untimely delivered. Also, they perceived their participation in decision-making to be low. Based on the fact that their expectation of a bumper catch immediately after the CFS was not met, the fisherfolk described the effectiveness of the policy to be weak. Although the fisherfolk were not opposed to the policy in principle, they maintained that it was more important to address issues of corruption in the distribution of premix fuel, plastic waste, trans-shipment, proliferation of fishing vessels, use of chemicals and light for fishing, and other illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing practices. Adopting the co-management approach in addressing issues of alternative livelihoods, IUUs, and misconceptions, coupled with a strategic integration of scientific and indigenous knowledge in the design and implementation of the policy would enhance its effectiveness.

Competitive or crowding‐out? Estimating spillover effects from large‐scale farms on smallholders in China

AbstractDrawing on data from the Chinese Family Database for 2015, 2017, and 2019, this study employed the difference‐in‐differences method to examine the spillover effects of large‐scale farms (LSFs) on smallholders. The findings confirmed that LSFs positively affect smallholder household income and nonfarm income. The mechanisms verified that LSFs increase the nonfarm income of smallholders, primarily through the transfer out of their land. Additionally, we found that vulnerable groups—such as households with a lower proportion of the labor force, a lower proportion of members in good health, and lower total education years of the labor force—are more likely to be crowded out. Additionally, the study confirmed that LSFs steal the market from smallholders, precipitating a slightly negative competitive effect. These findings have important policy implications for developing countries implementing the LSF policy and for countries where smallholders suffer from livelihood issues.

Turn-Taking in Political Interviews and Its Impact on Building Government Credibility

Television political inquiry is conducted through question-and-answer exchanges with host and government officials on prominent livelihood issues, which helps to improve the efficiency of government governance. Interview participants’ identity, communicative intention, power, and contextual factors have a significant impact on the discourse choices of both parties. This research clarifies the mechanism by which communicators mobilize appropriate discourse strategies to promote the solution of social problems. It adopts qualitative research method and conversation analysis to interpret interview participants’ talk-in-interaction and discourse strategies in “Ask Government Affairs of Shandong”. Research finds that adjacency pairs in political interview perform social behaviors such as greetings, requests, suggestions, apologies, acknowledgement. Interview participants’ turn-taking is divided into claiming for the turn, holding the turn, and giving up the turn. Discourse strategies such as insertion, interruption, and repetition are adopted to claim for the turn. Discourse markers and conversation repair are applied in communicators’ turn-holding stage. Communicators adopt explicit nominations, vague job designations, and silence strategies to give up the turn. Clear, accurate, and highly relevant official responses are conducive to projecting a responsible government image and improving government credibility. The phenomenon of avoidance, hesitation, and pause in official response is likely to cause the masses to question government officials’ work capability, which is not conducive to establishing a positive and trustworthy government image. Suggestions for optimizing the process setting of political interview and official responses are provided to enhance the effect of political enquiry.

Sustainable Development Challenges in Shanxi's Coal Industry: A case study of Datong Coal Mine Group

The purpose of this study is to investigate the sustainable development challenges faced by coal resource-based areas, focusing specifically on Shanxi Province in China. The study aims to understand the long-term impacts of extensive coal mining on the ecological environment, safety incidents, and the local economic system. It seeks to draw lessons from case studies of coal enterprises to identify innovative measures for companies in transition and development, with the ultimate goal of promoting sustainable practices that address livelihood issues and contribute to the modernization process. The research employs a qualitative case study methodology, using Datong Coal Mine Group in Shanxi Province as a representative example. This approach enables an in-depth analysis of the specific challenges related to coal mining in the region. The findings highlight the significant ecological and safety challenges posed by widespread coal mining practices in Shanxi Province, including environmental degradation, ground subsidence, and recurring safety incidents. The study suggests a need for innovative measures to transition towards more sustainable and diversified economic activities. The research provides valuable insights and recommendations for policymakers, industry leaders, and communities in similar resource-dependent regions to adapt to the demands of modernization and sustainability.

Reshaping port-city relationships through underground logistics system: A mixed qualitative approach

Against the backdrop of explosive growth in freight demand, the negative impacts of the traditional road-system-based port-city logistics mode on urban transportation, environment and safety have become prominent livelihood issues, as well as significant economic and social problems. Port-city underground logistics system (PC-ULS) has been widely recognized as an innovative way to ensure the sustainable development of port cities. However, the influence mechanism of PC-ULS on the port-city relationships is still unclear. Thus, this paper attempts to explore the PC-ULS-based port-city relationships formation process and the main influencing factors using a mixed qualitative approach. The social, economic and environmental impacts of PC-ULS on the development of port cities were systematically analyzed using the Shanghe Port ULS and Shanghai Port ULS as the case studies. The results show that the impacts generated by PC-ULS are positive and widely distributed across the economic sphere, port-city traffic, logistics governance, urban equity, stakeholders, ports, and urban spaces, as well as ecological sustainability. Furthermore, the urban planning, technology compatibility and engineering risk related factors have a strong impact on the PC-ULS implementation. A set of incentive policies has been designed to promote the effectiveness of PC-ULS. The findings provide a unique perspective on underground space development and utilization to address port-city conflicts, as well as a reasonable implementation pathway for PC-ULS application.

The Impact of Rising House Prices on Young People’s Fertility

At present, the problems of population aging and low fertility of young people in China have become more and more serious, which has become an important factor restricting economic and social development. Although the “comprehensive” policy has been implemented and has achieved certain effects, the willingness of young people to give birth is still low. At the same time, the rise of housing prices has become one of the major social and livelihood issues, and the impact of housing prices on people’s fertility intentions has also received widespread attention from scholars at home and abroad. Based on this, this study takes young people of childbearing age in China as the research object, adopts the research method to study the impact of rising housing prices on the fertility behaviour of young people in the city, and based on the conclusions drawn, puts forward targeted suggestions for the benign development of the real estate market and the effective implementation of the population policy.

CLICK-FLISA Based on Metal-Organic Frameworks for Simultaneous Detection of Fumonisin B1 (FB1) and Zearalenone (ZEN) in Maize.

Mycotoxins are secondary products produced primarily by fungi and are pathogens of animals and cereals, not only affecting agriculture and the food industry but also causing great economic losses. The development of rapid and sensitive methods for the detection of mycotoxins in food is of great significance for livelihood issues. This study employed an amino-functionalized zirconium luminescent metal-organic framework (LOF) (i.e., UiO-66-NH2). Click chemistry was utilized to assemble UiO-66-NH2 in a controlled manner, generating LOF assemblies to serve as probes for fluorescence-linked immunoassays. The proposed fluoroimmunoassay method for Zearalenone (ZEN) and Fumonisin B1 (FB1) detection based on the UiO-66-NH2 assembled probe (CLICK-FLISA) afforded a linear response range of 1-20 μmol/L for ZEN, 20 μmol/L for FB1, and a very low detection limit (0.048-0.065 μmol/L for ZEN; 0.048-0.065 μmol/L for FB1). These satisfying results demonstrate promising applications for on-site quick testing in practical sample analysis. Moreover, the amino functionalization may also serve as a modification strategy to design luminescent sensors for other food contaminants.

Analysis of the Current Situation and Influencing Factors of the Satisfaction of the Elderly Living in Social Welfare Institutions in Lhasa City

Elderly is an important livelihood issue, and the aging of China is becoming more and more serious, accompanied by the miniaturization of family structure and empty nest. In order to cope with these problems, the development of institutionalized elderly care has been urgent. At present, China's nursing homes introduced public-private partnership, medical care, embedded and other pension models, but by geography, natural environment and historical development and other factors, the level of nursing homes around the world to start a different level of nursing service satisfaction is one of the important indicators to measure its level. In this paper, we conducted a research on Lhasa Social Welfare Institutions that practiced the public-private partnership and medical-nursing integration model, and the results showed that their satisfaction score was 81.9%, which was high. Multiple linear regression analysis found that gender, age, and education level significantly affect satisfaction. This paper reveals the operation of nursing homes in border ethnic areas, adds information to related studies, and provides suggestions for the development of nursing homes and the supply-side reform of nursing services.

The social effects of energy regulation: Energy-consuming rights trading system and corporate labor demand

Although it is a key measure to control energy consumption and promote the improvement of industrial structure, energy market allocation reform has rarely been concerned with its impact on employment, an important livelihood issue. To fill this gap, this paper takes the Energy-Consumption Rights Trading System (ECRTS) enacted by China in 2016 as a research background and adopts the difference-in-difference approach to explore the effects and mechanisms of the ECRTS on enterprise labor demand. The results show that the ECRTS significantly reduces firms' labor demand, particularly for low-skilled workers, through both production scale effects and technological upgrading effects. Specifically, the ECRTS has led to a decrease in sales revenues and an increase in labor productivity, thereby reducing firms' labor demand. Heterogeneity tests indicate that the ECRTS has a greater impact on employment in firms with lower energy-consumption intensity, domestic capital injections, weaker innovation capacity, and lower market power. The paper also explores the welfare consequences of the policy, finding that while the ECRTS does not improve the environmental performance of firms it does not pass on the compliance costs of regulations to incumbent workers. The overall impact is neutral. This paper extends the study of the economic consequences of the ECRTS and has implications for other developing countries in reconciling energy regulation and employment.

Changes in livelihood assets due to the intervention of a development project: A case study at Khutamara Union, Bangladesh

Presently, any development initiatives without considering sustainability can barely be imagined. There has been a paradigm shift in the focus of the development partners from the mere development to sustainable development. However, the role of development partners in bringing sustainability in livelihood assets of the rural community has long been questioned. Hence, this study aims to explore the sustainability in the form of changes in livelihood assets of a local community in Bangladesh. This study considers the changes in livelihood assets of the community over the three-time frames - before, during, and after a project implemented by a national NGO called ‘UST’ and subsequently identifies the community’s capacity to sustain the project outcomes after the completion of the project. ‘Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF)’ developed by Department for International Development (DFID) was utilized in this study to analyse the vulnerability and livelihood issues of the community members. Data has been collected through focus group discussions, household survey and key informants’ interviews from three distinct villages of ‘Khutamara’ union in the ‘Nilphamari’ district of Bangladesh. The finding of the study states that all the livelihood assets such as the social capital, human capital, natural capital, financial capital, physical capital have positively changed due to the interference of the development partners. This study further finds that even after the completion of project tenure, such positive trends continue to exist among the community members indicating sustainable development. Moreover, political capital- a new type of livelihood has also emerged because of the project implementation which was not quite evident before the inception of the project. In addition, this study explored the unique phenomenon of the Shabolombee Gram, where the transformation altering farmers’, livelihoods does not come from the government or the private sector but originates from a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). Therefore, the government and its development partners may adopt and incorporate the Modified Sustainable Livelihood Framework (MSLF) to ensure the sustainable development.

Water Stress: Between Farmers' Needs and Public Policies the Case of Smallholder Farmers in the Villages of Nabatieh Governorate

Water scarcity is a paramount developmental and livelihood issue globally, posing life-threatening challenges in the Arab world and the Eastern Mediterranean. This scarcity manifests in two forms: physical scarcity, due to insufficient water resulting from local environmental conditions, and economic scarcity, characterized by inadequate water infrastructure. When these forms of scarcity converge, they lead to severe water stress, exemplified by regions experiencing both low rainfall and inadequate water storage and sanitation facilities. In Lebanon, state policies, or the lack thereof, have significantly exacerbated water scarcity. Governmental negligence and mismanagement of water resources, compounded by insufficient investment in infrastructure, have intensified both physical and economic water scarcities. The lack of effective water conservation policies, poor maintenance of existing water facilities, and failure to develop new water projects have led to severe water stress, hindering developmental progress and threatening the livelihoods and health of the population. The combined effect of environmental challenges and governmental inaction has made water scarcity a critical issue, necessitating immediate and comprehensive interventions to ensure sustainable water management and availability for the future.

A Study on the Impact of the Scale and Structure of China's fiscal expenditure on people's Livelihood

As a public finance model with Chinese characteristics, people's livelihood finance is rooted in China's current national conditions and development stage. This concept marks a major shift in China's development strategy, from a single fo cus on economic construction in the past to a comprehensive development model that attaches equal importance to economic growth and people's well being. This change not only reflects the country's great attention to people's livelihood issues, but also indicates that China's economy and society are moving towards a new stage that pays more attention to people's livelihood. However, translating ideas into concrete policies and practices does not happen overnight, and requires time to settle and co ntinuous explorati on. Therefore, the key to the construction of people's livelihood finance is to reasonably determine and optimize the scale and structure of financial expenditure in the field of people's livelihood. This paper aims to deeply analyze the current sit uation of China's fiscal expenditure investment in the field of people's livelihood, explore its development trend through empirical an alysis, and reveal the existing problems. Specifically, this paper first makes a quantitative analysis of the scale of China's f iscal livelihood expenditure to reveal its changing trend over time. Then, we will further explore the changes in the expenditure structure, i ncluding the proportion and distribution of investment in key livelihood areas such as education, health care and social security. On this basis, this paper will reveal the existing problems of the current financial expenditure on people's livelihood. In order to deeply analyze the reasons behind these problems, this paper will further explore the main factors that le ad to the scale and structure of fiscal expenditure on people's livelihood. These factors may include unclear policy guidance, imperfect fisc al system, and imperfect supervision mechanism. Through the in depth analysis of these reasons, this paper aims to provide targeted optimization suggestions for the construction of livelihood finance.

Forest Worker Households in the NFPP: Enhancing Sustainable Livelihoods through Capital and Transformation

The persistent conflict between strict conservation and community welfare highlights the growing need to address sustainable livelihoods in forest protection programs. The Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) is a comprehensive forest protection program spearheaded by the Chinese government. It is designed to facilitate the conservation and restoration of forest ecosystems through a range of interventions, including logging ban, management, tending, and afforestation efforts. Drawing upon longitudinal micro-level household survey data spanning five consecutive years from 2017 to 2021, this research quantifies the sustainable livelihood levels of frontline participants in the NFPP by examining two dimensions: livelihood capital stock and livelihood transformation capacity. Additionally, it investigates the internal differentiation phenomenon within this cohort. The findings suggest that forest worker households engaged in tasks related to forest management, tending, and afforestation are the frontline participants in the NFPP, in contrast to management, technical, and service personnel. Moreover, these forest worker households exhibit a pattern characterized by a higher livelihood capital stock but a lower livelihood transformation capacity compared to non-forest worker households. Furthermore, within forest worker households, there is a significant group differentiation phenomenon, resulting in inter-group differentials in the sustainable livelihood levels based on geographical and seniority stratification criteria. The developers of the global forest protection program should prioritize addressing the sustainable livelihood issues of frontline participants in the program, especially the real problem of mismatches between livelihood capital stock and livelihood transformation capacity. This can be achieved through designing income incentives, stimulating consumption, and other means to enhance the relatively disadvantaged position of frontline participants while balancing the coordination and fairness of the protection program based on the aspects of both protection and development.

Human security, sustainable livelihoods and development: the case of the Niger Delta region in Nigeria

This article critically examines the complex connections between human security and livelihoods in relation to development in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. This region is pervaded by a web of socio-economic and environmental issues that have severely impacted the lives of people and communities due to environmental degradation. For example, the exploration and exploitation of natural resources in this region has had extensive consequences on the livelihood activities of the people. Moreover, the Niger Delta has been affected by persistent social instabilities and a lack of access to some of the basic assets of security, including personal, health, economic and environmental security. While the concepts of livelihoods and environmental degradation are reasonably well understood in the context of the Niger Delta, the complex links between them in relation to human security remain unexplored. To examine how environmental degradation impacts livelihoods, this article explores the concept of human security, following a rights-based approach in line with the sustainable livelihood framework. Furthermore, it draws from semi-structured interviews conducted in the region on the lived experiences of community members, such as farmers and fishers, and their challenges in bridging generational crises in the context of environmental degradation. I argue that understanding the interconnectedness of security and livelihood issues in the context of such crises provides an innovative approach to considering both environmental and social factors in sustainable development, which is essential for the overall well-being of people in the region.

The problem and countermeasures of the failure of the rural social security system to reduce poverty

The rural social security system is not only a major livelihood issue related to China's rural population, but also an important basis for the sustainable development of rural economy. This article discusses the problem of the failure of the rural social security system to reduce poverty, in a field survey and interview in a village in North China, further analyze was carried out on the derivative path of poverty caused by social security policies, and it was found that the lack of social security policies, obstacles to policy implementation, negative response policies and so on, It makes the security level and poverty reduction ability of rural social security policy appear obvious deficiencies. Based on the analysis of this paper, the corresponding governance countermeasures are put forward. By strengthening poverty governance, improving the implementation environment of poverty governance, improving cognitive bias and improving the efficiency of poverty reduction.

Development Journalism in Nigeria: Unveiling Potentials and Confronting Challenges

This article delineates the opinion gap between what we see as pan-globe journalism worldwide with regards to the birth of New International Information Order. It discusses development journalism as a misunderstood concept and how Nigerians perceive this form of journalism. Create an interactive experiential exhibit that simulates various aspects of local history, such as citizen involvement, cultural traditions, ethnic diversity, or natural features. Emphasizing media’s significant position in development of the society, the work brings to focus the necessity of a change from politics and business orientation to an inclusive reporting which addresses the gaps and the livelihood issues affecting the differing strata of the society. Cultural development of the media press is the basis of the article. Hence, first of all, national culture is preferably reflected in content and language. Also, as one of the main themes, it gives principles of peace journalism which is intended to be a responsible reporting tool that can bridge up Nigerians and bring unity and development within the country. On the other hand, the author discusses obstacles obstructing the adequate deployment of the African development journalism in Nigeria including digital impact, ownership of the media houses and profit-oriented news outlets. Keywords: Press, Development, Media, Order, Journalism and Nigerian Press.

The impact of digital development on non-agricultural employment of rural women: evidence from the broadband China strategy

ABSTRACT In developing countries, the employment of rural women is a crucial component of livelihood issues, with implications for sustainable social development, poverty alleviation, and the realization of gender equality. This study employs a quasi-natural experiment approach based on the Broadband China strategic pilot project. Through constructing a multi-temporal differences-in-differences empirical model, it analyzes the impact of digital development on non-agricultural employment of rural women in China, along with the underlying mechanisms. Empirical results indicate a significant positive effect of digital development on non-agricultural employment for rural women. This impact is more pronounced among younger, highly educated, married, parous, and those residing in main grain-producing regions. Mechanism analysis reveals that, on the labour supply side, digital development enhances the probability of rural women participating in non-agricultural employment by improving their labour force quality. On the labour demand side, digital development fosters the development of emerging industries and improves the employment environment, thereby providing more opportunities for rural women to engage in non-agricultural employment. Based on these findings, this study offers policy implications for advancing digital infrastructure construction and digital economic development in rural China, addressing women’s employment challenges, and narrowing gender employment gaps.

Practices and challenges of counselling in selected senior high schools in Accra, Ghana

Schools have been identified as important settings for promoting adolescent mental health and well-being. Little is known about counselling practices in Ghanaian senior high schools (SHSs). This study explored counselling practices in 11 SHSs in Ghana’s capital, Accra. We used convenience sampling methods to select 15 school counsellors and interviewed them about access to and utilisation of counselling in SHSs. We also explored common presenting concerns and service challenges. Data were analysed thematically and showed that most of the counsellors had a master’s or doctoral degree in guidance and counselling. According to our participants, students access counselling to address school (academic and career), home (e.g. parents’ problems and livelihood issues) and peer relations concerns. Other students access counselling for emotional (including suicidal ideations and self-harm), drug use and conduct issues. Counsellors provide academic advice, career guidance, financial and emotional support. Findings revealed that counsellors are facing several challenges including role conflict, work overload, deficient resources, as well as negative perceptions of counselling. Findings have implications for the government, policy makers, SHS administrators, school psychologists and counsellors and students.

Critical Evaluation about the Effects of Monetary Policy on Economic Recovery Under Keynesian Model

In response to the Covid-19 crisis and to mitigate its impact, countries have enacted a range of policies to stimulate effective economic development. In the context of Keynesianism, this paper evaluates the effectiveness of China's monetary policies enacted during Covid-19 as an example. Faced with tightening labor, supply, and consumption at home, China's central bank decided to ease monetary policy, increasing the overall money supply. Through the analysis of the Keynesian model, it is determined that the loose monetary policy used in China during Covid-19 has effectively stimulated aggregate domestic demand and increased GDP, but at the same time the price level has increased, the unemployment rate and the average domestic wage have increased. Through the evaluation of the loose monetary policy adopted by China during Covid-19, this paper proves that in the period of economic crisis, actively adopting loose monetary policy is effective, which is conducive to stimulating demand, increasing total output value, and conducive to economic recovery. At the same time, loose monetary policy will lead to higher unemployment and higher price levels. The living cost of residents will rise, and the instability of employment will lead to the decline of income expectations, which will affect the consumption willingness of residents. The government also needs to adopt policies to address livelihood issues after adopting loose monetary policy to deal with the economic crisis.

Risk factors associated with depression and anxiety among the Chinese general population after retracting the dynamic zero-COVID policy: A network analysis

BackgroundRecent studies have evidenced the negative psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and sociodemographic vulnerability among the general population, while limited information was available on which factors make the greatest contribution to psychological distress when these factors were considered concurrently. Herein, we aimed to investigate the pathways that underlie psychological distress in the context of retracting dynamic zero-COVID policy. MethodsWe employed the mixed graphical model to construct the network of depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), and pandemic-related factors in a general population sample (N = 1610). Then, we re-examined the network by adding sociodemographic variables to further explore the influence of sociodemographic factors. Additionally, we repeated the analyses in the second sample (N = 620) collected in the same period to assess the replicability. ResultsThe relationships between the pandemic factors and anxiety and depressive symptoms exhibited a tendency to decrease after adding demographic variables, and income became the most important node and shared edge weights with all anxiety and depressive symptoms. These findings were replicable with the second sample. No significant difference in the network properties was detected between the two samples. LimitationsThe cross-sectional design limits the ability to observe longitudinal changes in these risk factors and their relationship with psychological distress. ConclusionsIncome level, rather than the pandemic-related factors, acted as a vital role in the psychological distress of the general population, implying that livelihood issues may be the critical intervention targets for mental health during the post-pandemic period.