Shaping Household Research Articles

Does Farming Culture Shape Household Financial Decisions?

Does Farming Culture Shape Household Financial Decisions?

How Much Indian Households Spend in Higher Education? Tobit Analysis using National Sample Survey Data

Higher education in India is undergoing massive expansion, with enrolment figures touching 38.5 million and Gross Enrolment Ratio attaining 27.1%. However, this expansion is brought about by extensive privatisation, catering around 70% of students enrolled in the sector. This shift also marks a departure in perceiving higher education as a public good – impacting its sources of funding – disproportionately straining the pockets of households. Drawing on National Sample Survey data (2017-18), the present study examines the pattern and quantum of household expenditure and estimates key determinants of household expenditure in higher education. Employing Tobit model the study brings out the interplay of gender, caste and class in shaping households’ decision to allocate resources in higher education.

Review: How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America, by Priya Fielding-Singh

Review: <i>How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America</i>, by Priya Fielding-Singh

Impact of the COVID-19 control measures on rural households’ access to social capital for mobilizing resources in Eastern Ethiopia

Physical distancing and mobility restriction measures are used as central components of the COVID 19 response globally. In Ethiopia, the measures have been implemented against a complex social structure wherein social support practices (in the form of social capital) and daily social interactions are embedded. However, the mechanism of how such measures interact with various social capital practices and shape household access to various types of resources during the pandemic are less understood. This study examined the way the COVID-19 pandemic and protective measures shaped smallholder farmers’ access to social capital for mobilizing resources during the pandemic. A total of 176 households were randomly selected for the quantitative survey. In addition, 25 key informant interviews were collected. Results show that prolonged physical distancing and mobility restrictions imposed to control the health impact of the pandemic have disrupted normal patterns of social interactions and resource sharing between households. The imposed measures significantly decreased households’ access to food, information, credit/loan, labor, psychological support, and agricultural inputs and extension services. The study strongly suggests that the public health measure imposed for the COVID-19 prevention and control affect the proper functioning of a society's social capital framework, thereby, reducing poor households’ ability to deal with socioeconomic crises and uncertainties. This implies that ongoing as well as future responses to the pandemic should adapt and integrate crisis management measures with the local risk-sharing mechanisms such as indigenous mutual support frameworks and processes. Harnessing inclusive social protection programs and building strong rural financial infrastructure and agricultural service delivery can help vulnerable households cope with shocks, improve the effectiveness of pandemic responses and facilitate post-crisis recovery.

Current Information Provision Rarely Helps Coastal Households Adapt to Climate Change

Households play an important role in reducing coastal vulnerability through individual and collective action. Information provision is a key strategy adopted by governments to support household adaptation. However, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of the different types of information and their influence on coastal household response. Drawing on case study research in two Australian coastal communities, we explore the types of information shaping household responses to three hazard scenarios: a heatwave, a severe storm, and sea-level rise. We find that passive information informs action in fewer than half of all households. Furthermore, even current attempts at more action-oriented information only informs coping strategies. If coastal adaptation is to achieve the transformational changes vital to manage the impacts of climate change, information provision must transition from passive and generic delivery via traditional modes, to actively communicating adaptation as the ‘glue’ between hazard management and household resilience through context-relevant and household-driven communication modes. Further research into the types of information that promote more-than-coping responses, such as information to facilitate collective action, is also recommended.

Financial capital as a shaper of households' adaptive capabilities to flood risk in northern Bangladesh

This paper identifies access to financial capital as having a catalytic role in shaping households' adaptive capabilities to flood threats in rural Bangladesh. Twenty village-level Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were convened in the highly flood-prone Sirajganj district in the north of the country. Village participants were asked to describe the major forms of adaptation to flooding. This process identified forty forms of adaptation which were then classified according to the five capitals framework of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA). The narratives generated from the FGDs identified financial capital as having a catalytic role in shaping interactions with other forms of capital and ensuing adaptive capabilities to flood. Thematic coding of these results revealed five pathways in which financial capital shaped household adaptive capabilities. These insights into the importance of financial capital tell an important message about vulnerability and adaptive capability in an increasingly climate-stressed world. Focus group testimonies emphasise the lived realities of how wealth and income stratify the ability to adapt to increased flood threats, a major symptom of climate change in Bangladesh. This heightens the need for financial aspects of vulnerability to be foregrounded in adaptation policies.

Here Comes the Rain Again: Productivity Shocks, Educational Investments, and Child Work

In predominantly agrarian economies with limited irrigation, rainfall plays a critical role in shaping households’ incomes and subsequently their spending decisions. This study uses household-level panel data from a nationally representative survey in India to estimate the effect of agricultural productivity shocks – as proxied by exogenous annual rainfall deviations from long-term average – on education expenditures and children’s work status in rural Indian households. Our results show that a transitory increase in rainfall significantly reduces education expenditures and increases the likelihood of child labor across a range of work activities. Additionally, we show that productivity-enhancing inputs such as land ownership and credit access do not mitigate these countercyclical effects of rainfall variations, indicating the importance of market imperfections (in labor and land markets). We also find that the effects of productivity shocks are reinforced for historically marginalized castes, and moderated for more educated households. These highlight that the average effects mask considerable heterogeneity based on household and regional characteristics

Households' intentions under financial vulnerability conditions: is it likely for the COVID-19 pandemic to leave a permanent scar?

PurposeThe authors draw on psychological reactance theory, collective mental programming, psychological profiles and financial vulnerability experiences to assess the possibility that the pandemic may induce transformative changes in households' behavioral intentions related to financial decisions after the pandemic is over.Design/methodology/approachUsing a unique survey data drawn from four different countries located in North America, Europe, Africa and Latin America, the authors show that the stressful conditions that accompanied the pandemic have instigated a state of financial vulnerability and stimulated instinctual defensive mechanisms among consumers.FindingsThe study results indicate that households have intentions to make defensive decisions in spending, consumption, planning and investment. Furthermore, the authors report evidence that personal psychological heterogeneity (as an individual factor) and collective mental programming (as a cultural factor) play a significant role in shaping households' postpandemic financial intentions.Research limitations/implicationsThe study findings carry important practical implications. For financial institutions, marketers and financial advisors, the authors’ work implies that individual and collective factors affect people's perception and behavioral intentions in response to financial adversities. For social planners and legislators, the authors’ work shows that they should expect not only short-term but also long-term reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/valueMost research on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on households' financial behavior focuses on transitional adjustments made during the pandemic, and little emphasis has been placed on potential postpandemic adjustments. The authors contend that it would be a mistake to analyze the pandemic-induced crisis as a temporary financial hardship.

Contextualizing cross national patterns in household climate change adaptation.

Understanding social and behavioral drivers and constraints of household adaptation is essential to effectively address increasing climate-induced risks. Factors shaping household adaptation are commonly treated as universal; despite an emerging understanding that adaptations are shaped by social, institutional, and cultural contexts. Using original surveys in the United States, China, Indonesia, and the Netherlands (N=3,789) - we explore variations in factors shaping households’ adaptations to flooding, the costliest hazard worldwide. We find that social influence, worry, climate change beliefs, self-efficacy, and perceived costs exhibit universal effects on household adaptations, despite countries’ differences. Disparities occur in the effects of response efficacy, flood experience, beliefs in governmental actions, demographics, and media, which we attribute to specific cultural or institutional characteristics. Climate adaptation policies can leverage on the revealed similarities when extrapolating best practices across countries, yet should exercise caution as context-specific socio-behavioral drivers may discourage or even reverse household adaptation motivation.

Gender Differences in Stock Market Participation: Evidence From Chinese Households

Using micro household survey data from China, this study finds that women are less likely to participate in the stock market than men. This gender pattern in market participation rates holds when we control for household features, characteristics of both spouses, and their interactions and relative decision-making power. We also show that the gender difference in stock market participation operates through investors’ behavioral factors, particularly their risk preference. Moreover, we confirm the influence of cultural gender norms among older households. The gender difference in stock market participation is reduced where women’s influence over the decision of stock investments is likely constrained by a male-biased social norm. The study’s findings suggest the crucial role of gender and gender-related cultural norms in shaping household financial decisions in the presence of gender inequality, such as in China. It extends our understanding of the interrelations between financial decisions and social and behavioral dimensions in a developing context.

Livelihood, culture and patterns of food consumption in rural Burkina Faso

Many factors interact to shape household food security and consumption and these must be analyzed together to build understandings of how they interact in particular contexts. In the Sahelian context, we report on a study investigating how productive resources (access to capital, land, labor), livelihood choices, food cultural norms and location together affect household food consumption by 120 rural households in the provinces of Yatenga and Seno in Burkina Faso. These two provinces have quite different cultural and socioeconomic conditions. Data was generated from an initial interview focused on household resource access followed by monitoring of household food consumption using 24-h and 7-day recall interviews over 11 months. Grain consumption was estimated along with the frequency of milk, meat, vegetable, oil/fats, and fruit consumption. Food security is shaped by the pathways through which households gain access to food. Surveyed household report low levels of self provisioning of grain (averaging around 50% of need) with different seasonal patterns of grain purchases based on cash sources. Principal components analysis finds significant degree of co-variation of food consumption parameters. Regression analysis finds that disposable wealth and cultural norms against milk consumption are positively and negatively associated with food consumption, controlling for land and labor access. Location (province) and ethnic identity (related or not to Mossi culture) are found to be important factors affecting household proclivity and ability to manage livestock which in turn leads to greater consumption of animal products (milk and meat) and greater savings to mobilize during times of grain deficit.

Trying to recycle domestic waste and feelings of guilt: a moderated mediation model applied to South African households

Notwithstanding the multiple efforts of governments and research on pro-environmental behaviour to foster a recycling culture in emerging markets, recycling habits have not kept pace. Informed by the theory of trying, this study developed and tested a conceptual model aimed at determining the factors shaping households’ decision to try to recycle. The study also investigated whether the potential mediation of feelings of guilt is moderated by past attempts to recycle. Data collected from 349 representatives of households in the city of Tshwane, South Africa was used for the analysis. The results confirmed that attitudes, social norms, feelings of guilt, and past trials are key enablers of households trying to recycle. The results further showed that the mediating effect of feelings of guilt is only evident among households that have tried to recycle their waste in the past. The findings point to the need for policymakers and environmental campaigners to implement informed behavioural change strategies to stimulate initial trials to separate domestic waste.

Who Wears the Pants? Gender Identity Norms and Intrahousehold Financial Decision‐Making

ABSTRACTUsing microdata from U.S. household surveys, I document that families with a financially sophisticated husband are more likely to participate in the stock market than those with a wife of equal financial sophistication. This pattern is best explained by gender identity norms, which constrain women's influence over intrahousehold financial decision‐making. A randomized controlled experiment reveals that female identity hinders idea contribution by the wife. These findings underscore the roles of intrahousehold bargaining and traditional norms in shaping household financial decisions.

Domestic Law and Slavery in Late Imperial China: Glimpses from Lineage Registers

Over the past century, the late imperial Chinese nubi system has been the subject of numerous studies. Depicted as a highly exploitative mode of labor coercion, it has nonetheless been radically differentiated from slavery. In this article, I explore how nubi were conceptualized in late imperial China through the lens of lineages’ domestic regulations and admonitions. Nubi bondage was first and foremost a living experience of strong asymmetric dependency. However, as a de jure institution, its conceptual and normative dimensions do matter as they justified the enslavement of human beings and contributed to shaping household practices. Domestic regulations reveal a process that transformed outsiders into absolute inferiors. This consideration alone is an incentive to reconsider the alleged disqualification of nubi as a form of “slavery” and to engage broader comparisons with slavery in a more global perspective.

The Power of Love: Emotional Support and Financial Hardship

Using microdata from two complementary U.S. household surveys, I document that individuals who lack emotional support from family and friends are more likely to experience financial hardship. This pattern is substantially stronger for women as well as for those prone to anxiety and depression. Further evidence suggests a belief-based channel through which emotional support improves financial preparedness for potential adverse shocks. Overall, these findings underscore the importance of the psychological dimension of social networks in shaping household financial outcomes.

How prices, income, and weather shape household electricity demand in high-income and middle-income countries

Abstract This analysis provides an international perspective geared towards understanding the future demands being placed on the world's electricity system. It focuses upon the household or residential demand for electricity in a number of high-income and middle-income countries that may raise power demands for cooling in a warming world. Panel estimates on 26 high-income and 29 middle-income countries over the 1978–2013 period provide critical information on how household electricity demand responds to income, weather, and prices. Our dynamic panel estimates address nonstationarity, heterogeneity, and cross-sectional dependence. We believe these are the first panel estimates for middle-income/non-OECD countries and the first panel estimates for high-income/OECD countries to address all three of the previously identified statistical issues. Relative to high-income country responses, long-run elasticities for middle-income nations are larger for income (0.8 compared to 0.6), larger for cooling (0.3 versus insignificant), and smaller for prices (−0.08 relative to −0.2). As middle-income economies are likely to grow more rapidly than high-income/OECD economies, the trends related to income and cooling responses are likely to place greater pressure on a warming world unless the power sector can be decarbonized globally.

Till mortgage do us part: Mortgage switching costs and household's bank switching

Abstract We investigate the role of mortgage switching costs in shaping the households’ decision to change their main bank. To this end, we use a unique panel dataset that enables us to infer household's bank switching, in conjunction with a legal reform that exogenously slashed down the mortgage switching costs. The empirical evidence, which survives to a variety of robustness checks, supports the hypothesis that the explicit switching costs in the retail banking market are a weighty factor in shaping households’ bank switching, despite any potential “informational lock-in”. Dissecting the results, we show that the effects of the reform were not uniform across households. The more educated households, those with a longer or broader relationship with their previous bank and those residing in ex-ante less competitive banking markets were at the forefront of the wave of bank switching.

Embodied competences in preparedness for blackouts: Mixed methods insights from rural and urban Norwegian households

As part of governmental risk management policies, households are advised to be aware of local preparedness plans, make a family emergency plan and kit, and stock supplies to increase their level of preparedness. But the sole focus on this ‘formal preparedness competence’ fails to consider the ‘embodied preparedness competence’ that comes into play during a blackout. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews in Norwegian households and a representative web survey (N = 1,005), this article considers how an embodied competence shape household preparedness for extensive electricity and ICT infrastructure breakdowns. Informed by social practice theory, we define embodied competences as practical knowledge of how to act, and demonstrate the importance of three constituents: (i) previous experience with blackouts or having lived with restricted access to electricity or ICT; (ii) local geographical knowledge of climate and weather conditions and the built environment; and, (iii) mobilising social networks. The analysis shows that the formal preparedness competence was low, while the three constituents of the embodied competence were found to be significant preparedness resources. However, these varied between and within households, and most notably rural households had more experience with blackouts, more extensive social networks and were more engaged in their geographical surroundings than urban households. Our analysis provides important insights for policy in demonstrating that households should be recognized as resourceful through their everyday practices rather than by the level of implementation of formal preparedness resources.

Eco-feedback delivering methods and psychological attributes shaping household energy consumption: Evidence from intervention program in Hangzhou, China

Promoting household energy-saving behaviors requires devising effective messages and selecting appropriate message delivery methods. Meanwhile, the specific psychological factors that shape the effectiveness of interventions remains elusive. Based on an energy conservation intervention program carried out in communities in the city of Hangzhou, China in 2016, this paper investigates the impact of eco-feedback and energy-saving tips delivered to households via an instant messaging platform (i.e., WeChat), stickers combined with leaflets, and face-to-face consultations in promoting energy conservation. Psychological attributes including personal values and aspects of decision-making that affect pro-environmental behavior, as well as social and housing demographics were collected and analyzed to identify relationships between household characteristics and the effectiveness of an intervention. The findings suggest that, coupled with eco-feedback, stickers and leaflets (mean rank 37.54) performed better than other alternatives (mean rank 55.34 for WeChat group, 57.08 for consultation group) in encouraging household energy-saving behaviors. The effectiveness of eco-feedback using an instant messaging platform was revealed to be short-lived. Moreover, the study found that psychological features such as the perception of sufficient non-material incentives and opportunity to perform energy conservation behavior, as well as valuing environmental quality, personal health, and leisure time, are significantly correlated with energy savings. The findings not only contribute to future policymaking in demand-side energy conservation, but also provide insights for the cultivation of long-term behavioral changes at the neighborhood level through the effective design of communications and engagement.

Is financial advice a cure-all or the icing on the cake for financial literacy? Evidence from financial market participation in China

We examine how financial advice interacts with financial literacy to shape household decisions on stock market participation in China. Particularly, we investigate how the effect of financial advice varies with economic expectations, preferences for asset diversification and the level of financial literacy. Feeding the data of 5274 households into a Probit model that predicts the probability of holding stocks, we find that, while an increase in financial literacy significantly raises the stock market participation of all households, seeking financial advice only increases the participation for those households which have a preference for asset diversification or which have an optimistic expectation about the economy. Moreover, the effect of financial advice is concentrated on households with high financial literacy, implying that an insufficient level of financial literacy is the reason for the poor performance of financial advice in China. We also examine if there are influential trust or quality concerns which would reduce the effectiveness of financial advice but we find no significant evidence for it.