Main Breadwinner Research Articles

Drivers for economic recovery: analysis of family expenditure on catering services

PurposeCatering services play important role in the Spanish economy, accounting for 6.2% of GDP in 2021. To overcome the adverse economic impacts of COVID-19, catering services are considered one of the drivers to stimulate economic growth. Hence, the main aim of this paper is to analyse the sociodemographic profile of the family's main breadwinner who allocates most of his expenditure budget on different catering services before and during the pandemic caused by the COVID-19 in Spain.Design/methodology/approachThe official Family Budget Survey in Spain was used. This offers information on expenditure by families in 2019 and 2020. CHAID multivariate analysis was employed. This has proved a valuable tool in predicting expenditure, as well as determining the cause–effect relationship of this expenditure.FindingsFindings establish the main breadwinner's expenditure on catering services based on predictors such as “year” affected by the pandemic; “type of employment contract”; “gender”; and “age”. A gender “pub-gap” in consumption in bars and cafes has been revealed, and families with a male breadwinner, on a permanent contract, between the age of 40 and 60 spent the most on catering services.Originality/valueThis research presents a new interdisciplinary approach to family breadwinners as a company whose spend on catering is shaping the economic recovery and leading to new answers for hospitality management. Identified factors can lead to improved decision-making and contextualisation of economic models for food service providers in a post-pandemic future.

Men's income disadvantage and life satisfaction among Hungarian couples

In this paper, we examine the association between intra-household income distribution and subjective well-being. Specifically, we analyse how satisfaction differs according to whether or not an individual’s own income is higher than his/ her partner’s. The analysis is based on the 2015 wave of the Household Budget and Living Conditions Survey, conducted by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. Our primary sample consists of mixed-gender couple households in which both the woman and the man have income from employment. Our results show that men whose partners earn more than they themselves do are significantly less satisfied than are men who earn more than their partners. Similarly, women who earn more than their partners are significantly less satisfied than are women who earn less. This satisfaction disadvantage is due not only to the fact that a higher female income share may be an indicator of poorer household financial status; it may also be related to the health status and labour-market opportunities of partners (especially men), as these aspects are controlled for by several variables. We interpret the results as an impact of the social norm that “the man should be the main breadwinner in the household”. We also show that the estimated coefficients are higher for the less-educated than for the higher-educated. Since the attitudes of the former are more traditional, these results support the interpretation regarding the importance of the man’s breadwinning role. Keywords: intra-household income distribution, intra-couple income inequality, satisfaction, gender norms

Tinjauan Hukum Islam Terhadap Peran Ganda Istri sebagai Pencari Nafkah Utama dalam Keluarga (Studi Kasus di Desa Kasang Pudak Kecamatan Kumpeh Ulu Kabupaten Muaro Jambi)

This paper examines the dual roles of the wife as the main breadwinner in the family in terms of Islamic law that occurred in Kasang Pudak Village. The paper aims to find out the background factors and look at the Islamic law of the wife making the main breadwinner in the family in the Kasang Pudak Village community. This paper research method is normative sociological qualitative, which refers to the social rules that apply in society using a qualitative approach to the method of collecting data through interviews and documentation. Based on the results of the research that has been done, the researcher draws conclusions, first, there are several factors behind the occurrence of the dual role of the wife in the family in Kasang Pudak Village, Kumpeh Ulu District, Muaro Jambi Regency, namely economic factors, the husband's lack of skills, and educational factors, lazy work factors, as well as the factor of lack of understanding of religion, especially the law in family. Second, in the review of Islamic law regarding the breadwinner's wife, there are several scholars who differ in opinion, some of whom have the opinion of mubah (permissible) and some who do not. First, this group of scholars is of the opinion that it is permissible, because in Islam it does not prohibit women from working outside the home, as long as they understand the conditions that are permissible for women to work and they can fulfill them. Second, according to scholars who argue like this, basically the law on a wife working outside the home is prohibited, because by working outside the home there will be many obligations she must leave.

Weathering the storm together: Does unemployment insurance help couples avoid divorce?

This study examines whether unemployment insurance benefit generosity impacts divorce, drawing on full population administrative data and a Swiss reform that reduced unemployment insurance maximum benefit duration. We assess the effect of the reform by comparing the pre- to the post-reform change in divorce rates among unemployed individuals who were affected by the reform with the change in divorce rates among a statistically balanced group of unemployed individuals who was not affected by the reform. Difference-in-differences estimates suggest that the reform caused a 2.8 percentage point increase in divorce (a 25% increase). Effects were concentrated among low-income couples (+58%) and couples with an unemployed husband (+32%) though gender differences are attributable to men's breadwinner status. Female main breadwinners were more strongly affected (+78%) than male main breadwinners (+40%). Results confirm the 'family stress model' which posits that job search and financial stress cause marital conflict. Policymakers should consider a broad array of impacts, including divorce, when considering reductions in unemployment insurance generosity.

KEBIJAKAN MEWUJUDKAN PERAN DAN NORMA GENDER PADA KONDISI VIRUS COVID-19

The Covid-19 Corona virus where getting up at the moment, has changes in many aspects such as social, economic and cultural. The impact of pandemic Covid-19, we can feel indirectly the different influence between men and women. In the context of patriarchal gender norms, the existence of men is always in the position as the main breadwinner. In this situation, the government made a policy by enforcing all work to be done at home, in purpose to break the chain of virus transmission. This policy has an impact on men staying at home, so they cannot fulfill their gender norms as breadwinners and on the other hand the workload of women in the household is getting bigger. Through qualitative and quantitative approaches in the postpositivistic paradigm, this study tries to see how the policies that have been carried out by the Serang City Government in realizing gender roles so that there is no inequality and oppression for women. The results of the study show that so many cases of violence that occurred during this pandemic, then there was no direct policy taken by the Serang City Government to protect women, which was only limited to assistance and consultation for those who had violence problems. Keywords : Gender Norms and Roles, Policies, Covid-19 , Serang City

‘An essay in civilisation’? - Stevenage and the post-war New Towns programme

After some wartime planning, the British New Towns were launched in 1945-6 by the post-war Labour government. The New Towns were essentially statist, top-down initiatives to relieve the problems of congested urban areas and intended as self-contained and balanced communities for work and living. This paper critically examines the experience of Stevenage, the first New Town (designated November 1946), in light of changing political, economic and social circumstances at local and national levels. Its early years were very unsuccessful in fulfilling the foundational aims of the programme. This reflected a combination of strong local opposition, excessive government impatience and clumsy management so that, before 1951, it had a very poor record of housing completions. The 1950s and 1960s were highly successful for Stevenage’s growth and, to a large extent, in meeting the foundational aims of New Towns. It was outstandingly successful in becoming self-contained as regards employment. There were however limitations in the extent to which it was a socially balanced community that was truly relieving the problems of Greater London, whence most of its new arrivals had come. Because new residents gained house tenancies in Stevenage on the basis of the main breadwinner’s job, there was soon an upper working-class/lower middle-class predominance. The unskilled working class, ethnic minorities and older people were markedly underrepresented, present in much lower proportions than in congested inner London. There was also underrepresentation of managers, higher professional groups or the self-employed, reflecting both residential choices and the branch plant nature of its manufacturing economy. Several of these aspects became more problematic during the 1970s and 1980s, as the weaknesses of inner metropolitan areas grew. There were efforts henceforth to make housing tenancies less directly related to jobs. However, in 1980 the Stevenage Development Corporation was wound up and, during its final years, initiative had already been passing to other hands. Its rental housing stock was transferred to the local council while home ownership also grew markedly during the 1970s. The shift to private initiative went further when the Conservative Government after 1979 insisted that industrial and commercial assets soon be sold to help finance the remaining New Towns in the programme. These important and continuing changes, together with wider shifts such as manufacturing job decline, rise of service employment, growing car-based mobility and growing place of women in employment had further impacts for Stevenage. They raised further questions about how far it fulfilled the original New Town conception and whether that conception was even any longer relevant. The last section shows that Stevenage, although continuing to be an attractive location for employers, is now a much less self-contained and balanced community than in earlier decades.

Stratifikasi Sosial Pada Keluarga Yang Nafkahnya Ditanggung Istri (Studi Kasus di Kelurahan Kedungbunder Kabupaten Blitar)

The phenomenon of wives working today is considered to cause changes and shifts in roles in a family. The position that generally places a husband as the head of the family and the main breadwinner, seems to have slowly changed. Its not as different as happened in some families in Kedungbunder Village Blitar Regency, where only the figure of the wife works to provide for the family. This kind of condition puts a wife having a more dominant role in the family. This study was conducted with the aim of examining social stratification among families whose livelihoods are borne by the wife. The method used is a qualitative research approach (field research), where data is collected through an in-depth interview process and parsipatory observation. The results showed that, some families in Kedungbunder Blitar Village where only the wife is working show the rule of law that states that the husband is the head of the family and the wife as a housewife, are considered not always applicable in the existing social reality. In the family, the wife's position is in a high social class because it is the economic source of the family and has more dominant power than other family members.Keywords: Social Stratification, Family, The Wife Works

The Role of Rural Women’s Occupations on Electrification and Use of Electric Stoves for Households in Busega District, Tanzania

The paper addressed occupations as socio-economic qualities that determine rural women’s capabilities to install and use electric stoves in their households. The study applied the cross-sectional design through conducting a household survey. The study sample size included 210 rural women and seventeen key informants. Qualitative data was analysed through content analysis while the quantitative data was analysed by computing descriptive statistics, cross tabulation and chi-square test. The study established that majority of rural women were interested in installing electricity and using electric cookers in their households. However, households without electricity lacked income for paying the required charges to get services. Men controlled installation and usage of electric cookers in households as they were the main bread winners while women lacked income to meet the required charges. As a result, rural women were negatively affected by the burden of firewood collection and cooking that led into deforestation in the area. The study recommends that sensitization on the installation and use of electric cookers should be done to rural women to increase their awareness on the benefits of adopting them. In addition, development stakeholders should support rural women by increasing their capacity for conducting income generation activities to get higher profits.

Mainstreaming a gender perspective into the study of energy poverty in the city of Madrid

The feminisation of energy poverty in the city of Madrid is currently impossible to measure through statistics for those women who are not the main breadwinners. However, a crescent body of knowledge about qualitative research applied to the study of energy poverty has disclosed several aspects related to vulnerability to energy poverty and its impacts. The paper shows the results of a qualitative characterisation of 16 women from Madrid based on interviews conducted during the winters of 2019 and 2020, before and after the COVID-19 lockdown. Four different ways in which gender roles shape experiences of energy poverty are revealed. First, the assumption of responsibility for the home well-being is intrinsically linked to women's identity. Second, how patterns and habits of energy consumption are influenced because of gender. In the third place, how emotions are not only a consequence of suffering from energy poverty but can also help to hide it. Lastly, segregation of capabilities by gender roles from the early age contributes to condition knowledge of household energy management. The importance of reformulating gender inequality dynamics by focusing on personal experience and being able to extract conclusions joining quantitative studies shall be included in future studies.

Are public transport policies influencing the transport behaviour of older people and economic equity? A case study of the Madrid Region

This article assesses the impact of a subsidy for public transport prices in the Madrid Region for the elderly on PT and automotive household expenditures. Data from the Spanish Household Budget Survey and a discontinuity regression model are used to analyse this PT policy from an equity and efficiency point of view. The results show that as a consequence of this public policy, households from quartiles 1 and 2 whose main-breadwinner is elderly and not employed have reduced their expenditure on PT by 83.9% and 65.3% respectively, and households from quartile 1 having an employed and elderly main-breadwinner have reduced it by 106.4%. All these households have been the main beneficiaries of the policy in terms of economic well-being. Therefore, in distributive and equity terms these subsidies benefit the poorest households among those whose main breadwinner is an elderly, and the richest ones. In terms of efficiency, the high increase of the relative price of automotive fuel due to PT subsidization has only had an impact on households in which the main breadwinner is elderly and not employed, concretely those households from quartiles 1, 2, and 3 have reduced their expenditure on automotive fuel by 38.8%, 30.3% and 51.9%, respectively.

Family and Partnership on the Way to “Constant Happiness“: Transformation of Gender Ideology in the Process of Religious Conversion to Western Buddhism in Russia

The article, based on biographical interviews conducted in 2019 with members of the Karma Kagyu Buddhist communities in Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Arkhangelsk, and Severodvinsk, examines the impact of religious conversion on gender ideology that supports individual decisions about how to achieve well-being through changing attitudes to marriage and partnership, as well as through flexible combination of family and work in everyday life. The study relied on the methodology of the narrative analysis developed by the German sociologist Fritz Schütze, which is focused on identifying relationship between institutional structures and subjective action. In the analysis of the biographical interviews, the main attention is paid to those changes in individual’s gender ideology and practices that take place in the process of religious conversion and facilitate reinterpretation of negative life experiences and of the consequences of deprivation caused by failed life strategies. We argue that the influence of the parental family and gender norms and attitudes formed before the religious conversion in some cases turn out to be a source of cultural exclusion caused by contradictions in the realization of the gender schemes of the “main breadwinner” and “complete family” inherited and reproduced from the Soviet period. Cultural exclusion results in the biographical traumatic experience, which needs to be redefined and demands the repair of broken gender schemes. The transformation of gender ideology has a neo-traditional character, involving the articulation of gender differences, assigning them different ranks, and, at the same time, flexibility in their development at the individual level. Article in Russian

Measurements and determinants of extreme multidimensional energy poverty using machine learning

The contribution of this study is twofold. First, it calculates the depth, intensity, and degrees of energy poverty in developing countries using a multidimensional approach. The data analysis of 59 developing countries of Asia and Africa confirmed a widespread ‘severe’ energy poverty across multiple dimensions. The results revealed that Afghanistan, Yemen, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines in Asia and DR Congo, Chad, Madagascar, Niger, Sierre Leone, Tanzania, and Burundi in Africa were the most susceptible countries to extreme multidimensional energy poverty. Second, the study employed supervised machine learning algorithms to identify the most pertinent socioeconomic determinants of extreme multidimensional energy poverty in the developing world. The results of machine learning identified the accumulated wealth of a household, size and ownership status of a house, marital status of the main breadwinner, and place of residence of the main breadwinner to be the five most influential socioeconomic determinants of extreme multidimensional energy poverty. Therefore, the robust findings of an accurate assessment of extreme energy poverty and its socioeconomic determinants have policy significance to eradicate severe energy poverty by announcing additional incentives, allocating resources, and providing special assistance to those who are at the bottom.

How household consumption has changed after an economic crisis

PurposeThis work analyzes the economic impact of an economic crisis on consumption in Spanish households, detecting inequalities in household consumption according to the age of the main breadwinner and changes in consumption patterns. In particular, the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 on household consumption are studied and divided according to the main breadwinner's age group to obtain the economic impact of the fall in consumption in young households.Design/methodology/approachThe input–output tables of the Spanish economy during the years 2005 and 2015 and data on household consumption based on age group have been used. Economic impact is estimated through multisector modeling, specifically a demand model expressed in monetary terms. This model allows us to obtain the direct impact on the sectors offering the demanded services and the indirect impact due to increase in intermediate demand from these sectors on the rest of them.FindingsThe results obtained show the changes in household consumption and its effects on different productive sectors, highlighting the following sectors: real estate activities, electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, accommodation and food service activities and manufacturing.Originality/valueThis study measures the impact of an economic crisis on the consumption of young households, analyzing all groups of households according to the main breadwinner's age, with the added value of studying the impact of this variation on household consumption and quantifying the positive and negative impact on the different sectors of activity of the Spanish economy.

Determinants of Economic Empowerment and Women’s Roles Transfer

Women, who were members of Economic Empowerment of Women Headed Family (WHF) Group and married in marital status, still tend to have lower economic status. There was a social reality that roles and functions of husbands and wives in many communities had shifted, especially of WHF Group members in Batang District, Central Java Province. The crucial condition causing the mentioned shifting was economic factors. Formerly, wives were only supporting bread winners, however, because of family economic needs, women switched their roles into breadwinners. Wives also took action as dominant decision makers in their households, although society had not fully recognized woman’s participation in development communication as head of family. The newest finding in this research was that married women, whose husbands had been fired, had already been included into WHF Program. There was 45 percent of WHF Group members, who still got married to husbands with no permanent jobs, and 15 percent belonged to those whose husbands had got fired, and five percent was jobless. The results of FGD supported the finding that there were some married women that had shifted from supporting breadwinners into main breadwinners.

Migration of dual-earner couples: a subjective wellbeing approach

We model push factors that determine the domestic migration decisions for couples, with emphasis on dual-earner different-sex couples. Unlike many prior studies that concentrate on labour market determinants of migration, we place the subjective well-being (SWB) reported by each partner at centre stage. We test whether migration determinants differ depending on whether the female is the main breadwinner in a dual-earner couple. We also test if determinants differ when either the female or the male is the sole earner within a couple. The evidence shows that a couple is more likely to migrate if she reports low SWB in the year prior to migration, with the strength of this effect varying depending on the earnings status of each partner prior to migration. Male SWB does not have the same impact on the migration choice although we find some evidence that pre-migration male wages impact the migration decision.

CARE OF ELDERLY IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: A PAKISTANI PERSPECTIVE

CARE OF ELDERLY IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: A PAKISTANI PERSPECTIVE

REINTERPRETATION OF LIVELIHOODS IN MARRIAGE LAW AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON FAMILY RESISTANCE IN THE TIME AND POST COVID-19

The rules regarding a living in Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage and the Compilation of Islamic Law imposes the obligation to earn a living only on the husband. These two regulations create problems in society. Many wives demand a living from their husbands. Not a few wives also have jobs and income, but they are spent on their own needs, including for consumptive things, channeling hobbies and others because they think that fulfilling a living is not part of their obligations. This condition is coupled with the interpretation of a number of verses of the Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet which are still patriarchal. The marriage law and a number of verses of the Qur'an and the Prophet's hadith need to be reinterpreted. This is because the development of an increasingly advanced era makes the role of women not only as wives who only take care of the household, but also as one of the contributors to the economy. This research uses the library research method. This study concludes that the livelihoods in these two laws and regulations need to be updated to be relevant to current conditions. Supposedly, the wife also has the same obligation in matters of livelihood. The reinterpretation of livelihood using the interpretation of mubadalah is to produce the principle of mutuality. The wife can even be the main breadwinner under certain conditions. This interpretation has implications for the fulfillment of the family's economy during the pandemic and post-covid-19 pandemic. Because, in difficult economic conditions, the wife participates in helping the family economy on a macro basis or even as the main provider in the household who changes places with her husband.Keywords: Reinterpretation, Livelihoods, Marriage Law, Family Resistance, Covid-19

Lietuvių moterys Didžiojoje Britanijoje Pirmojo pasaulinio karo metais | Lithuanian Women in Great Britain during the First World War

The Great War had a devastating impact on some Lithuanian immigrant families living in Great Britain. In 1917, after Britain and Russia signed a military agreement, the mobilisation was announced of foreign men living in Britain who were former subjects of the Russian tsar. The Lithuanians had to decide quickly whether to join the British army or return to Russia and fight on the Russian side. For disadvantaged immigrant families, the mobilisation of men and the loss of the main breadwinner were a major misfortune, and the British government had to provide benefits to the families of the mobilised soldiers. After the war, only a few of the Lithuanian men who had been transported to Russia were able to return to Britain to rejoin their families. The repatriation of these families to Lithuania was organised through the efforts of the British government and the Lithuanian Embassy in London. This article uses historiography and the Lithuanian weekly newspaper Išeivių draugas, published in Scotland from 1914, to describe the Lithuanian community during the Great War, and to analyse how the outbreak of the war, and in particular the Convention of 1917, affected the families of Lithuanian immigrants. The author focuses on the situation of Lithuanian women, their activities during the war, and their concern for the fate of their mobilised men and their families.

ASSESSING FISHERY LEGISLATION FOR GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWERMENT IN FISHERY COMMUNITIES IN INDONESIA

The research objective was to analyze the problem of fisherwomen empowerment and gender equality based on legal reviews in Indonesia. The research method used is normative legal studies. The results of the study found that there are discriminatory implications in Law Number 7 of 2016 concerning the Protection and Empowerment of Fishermen, Fish Farmers, and Salt Farmers or commonly referred to as the PEF Act (Protection and Empowerment of Fishermen) which is not in line with the empowerment of fisherwomen and is in conflict with gender equality. The findings make it clear that fisherwomen, unlike other economic actors in the fishing industry, are the most overlooked group rooted in socio-cultural prejudice. The PEF Act does not specifically recognize or even mandate any form of affirmative action for fisherwomen to gain equal access to protection and empowerment programs. This causes fisherwomen who have been culturally forcibly placed in households and away from the fishing industry. But instead, the PEF Act dwarfed the position of women as a mere secondary role in fishery households instead of the main breadwinner. Therefore, this study suggests that the government should make a strict amendment to the PEF Act. Namely recognizing gender equality in the role of fisherwomen and followed by reforming gender mainstreaming in the fisheries bureaucracy to accommodate fisherwomen's rights to access community empowerment programs for fishing communities.

Assessment of Household Catastrophic Total Cost of Tuberculosis and Its Determinants in Cairo: Prospective Cohort Study

BackgroundOne goal of the End tuberculosis (TB) Strategy is to see no TB-affected households experiencing catastrophic costs. Therefore, it is crucial for TB-elimination programs to identify catastrophic costs and their main drivers in order to establish appropriate health and social measures. This study aimed to measure the percent of catastrophic costs experienced by Egyptian TB patients and to identify its determinants.MethodsWe conducted a prospective cohort study with 151 Egyptian TB patients recruited from two chest dispensaries from the Cairo governate from May 2019 to May 2020. We used a validated World Health Organization TB patient-cost tool to collect data on patients’ demographic information, household income, and direct and indirect expense of seeking TB treatment. We considered catastrophic TB costs to be total costs exceeding 20% of the household’s annual income.ResultsOf the patients, 33% experienced catastrophic costs. The highest proportion of the total came in the pretreatment stage. Being the main breadwinner, experiencing job loss, selling property, and the occurrence of early coronavirus disease 2019 lockdown were independent determinants of the incidence of catastrophic costs. Borrowing money and selling property were the most-often reported coping strategies adopted.ConclusionDespite the availability of free TB care under the Egyptian National TB Program, nearly a third of the TB patients incurred catastrophic costs. Job loss and being the main breadwinner were among the significant predictors of catastrophic costs. Social protection mechanisms, including cash assistance and insurance coverage, are necessary to achieve the goal of the End TB Strategy.