Small Incomes Research Articles

Substance use among adolescent students with consideration of budget constraints

This paper estimates the demand for cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana with consideration of the other goods that might exist in a teenager’s utility function. Youth tend to have small incomes and limited wants, with the result that many students spend the bulk of their income on only a few items such as fast food, clothing, and entertainment. In this paper, we examine the influence of changes in the prices of goods commonly bought by teenagers on the demand for cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. We estimate own and cross price effects using the prices of the illicit substances and other consumer products including gasoline, clothing, entertainment, and fast food. Income effects are also estimated and show that teens with higher incomes and allowances are more likely to use substances. The implications of higher excise taxes on different products are discussed.

International organisations and the development of a physiology of nutrition during the 1930s

The problem of nutrition in the Interwar period was shaped by a complex combination of experimental research, economic and agricultural crisis and social practice. The scientific, political and economic aspects of nutrition allowed researchers to dream of a rational solution to the problem through the design of minimum and optimum standard diets for different incomes, professions and age groups. This article analyses the stimulus given by the League of Nations to a physiology of nutrition by means of a series of technical commissions working in collaboration with the International Labour Office, the International Institute of Agriculture and the Office International d’Hygiène Publique as a starting point to build a new culture of nutrition and better food production and to improve the population’s health. Community nutrition became a political tool to overcome a critical period and civilise people according to scientific patterns and liberal values. Technical reports discussed dietary standards, especially concerning infants and families with small incomes, criteria for an optimum diet, the nutritive value of foodstuffs as well as methods of screening the nutritional state of the population.

Importance of rural bioenergy for developing countries

Abstract Energy resources will play an important role in the world’s future. Rural bioenergy is still the predominant form of energy used by people in the less developed countries, and bioenergy from biomass accounts for about 15% of the world’s primary energy consumption and about 38% of the primary energy consumption in developing countries. Furthermore, bioenergy often accounts for more than 90% of the total rural energy supplies in some developing countries. Earth life in rural areas of the world has changed dramatically over time. Industrial development in developing countries, coming at a time of low cost plentiful oil supplies, has resulted in greater reliance on the source of rural bioenergy than is true in the developed countries. In developed countries, there is a growing trend towards employing modern technologies and efficient bioenergy conversion using a range of biofuels, which are becoming cost wise competitive with fossil fuels. Currently, much attention has been a major focus on renewable alternatives in the developing countries. Renewable energy can be particularly appropriate for developing countries. In rural areas, particularly in remote locations, transmission and distribution of energy generated from fossil fuels can be difficult and expensive. Producing renewable energy locally can offer a viable alternative. Renewable energy can facilitate economic and social development in communities but only if the projects are intelligently designed and carefully planned with local input and cooperation. Particularly in poor rural areas, the costs of renewable energy projects will absorb a significant part of participants’ small incomes. Bio-fuels are important because they replace petroleum fuels. Biomass and biofuels can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels to generate heat, power and/or chemicals. Generally speaking, biofuels are generally considered as offering many benefits, including sustainability, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, regional development, social structure and agriculture and security of supply.

Interlinked credit and farm intensification: evidence from Kenya

AbstractThis paper addresses the potential for interlinked credit/input/output marketing arrangements for particular cash crops to promote food crop intensification. Using panel survey data from Kenya, we estimate a household fixed‐effects model of fertiliser use per hectare of food crops, using an instrumental variables approach for addressing the endogeneity of participation in interlinked credit arrangements. Results indicate that households engaging in interlinked marketing programs for selected cash crops applied considerably greater fertiliser on other crops (primarily cereals) not directly purchased by the cash crop trading firm. These findings suggest that, in addition to the direct stimulus that interlinked cash crop marketing arrangements can have on small farmer incomes, these institutional arrangements may provide spill‐over benefits for the productivity of farmers' other activities such as food cropping.

Interlinked credit and farm intensification: evidence from Kenya

This paper addresses the potential for interlinked credit/input/output marketing arrangements for particular cash crops to promote food crop intensification. Using panel survey data from Kenya, we estimate a household fixed-effects model of fertiliser use per hectare of food crops, using an instrumental variables approach for addressing the endogeneity of participation in interlinked credit arrangements. Results indicate that households engaging in interlinked marketing programs for selected cash crops applied considerably greater fertiliser on other crops (primarily cereals) not directly purchased by the cash crop trading firm. These findings suggest that, in addition to the direct stimulus that interlinked cash crop marketing arrangements can have on small farmer incomes, these institutional arrangements may provide spill-over benefits for the productivity of farmers’ other activities such as food cropping.

Subsistence Strategies of an Indigenous Minority in the Philippines: Nonwood Forest Product Use by the Tagbanua of Narra, Palawan

Indigenous people, such as the Tagbanua of Palawan Island in the Philippines, are often considered to be experienced and responsible users of natural resources. The Tagbanua have traditionally been involved in the collection of nonwood forest products (NWFPs) both for trade and for subsistence purposes. The proximity of many Tagbanua communities to the forest allows them easy access to NWFPs, although various restrictions, such as distance from markets, legal land issues, and lack of formal education, prevent them from receiving more favorable earnings from the sale of NWFPs. Similarly, increasing access to manufactured products also lessens dependence on NWFPs for food, medicine, and housing purposes, although small incomes prevent extensive conversion to the use of purchased goods. The knowledge and current subsistence-level use of NWFPs by the Tagbanua from the settlement of Boong are described and discussed.

Cash cropping and food crop productivity: synergies or trade‐offs?

AbstractThe case for promoting export‐oriented cash crops in Africa has generally been based on their direct potential contribution to agricultural productivity and small farmer incomes. A relatively neglected avenue of research concerns the synergistic effects that cash cropping can have on other household activities, including food production. The conventional view that cash crops compete with food crops for land and labour neglects the potential for cash crop schemes to make available inputs on credit, management training, and other resources that can contribute to food crop productivity, which might otherwise not be accessible to farmers if they did not participate in cash crop programs. This article builds on previous research by hypothesising key pathways by which cash crops may affect food crop activities and empirically measuring these effects using the case of cotton in Gokwe North District in Zimbabwe. Analysis is based on instrumental variable analysis of survey data on 430 rural households in 1996. Results indicate that—after controlling for household assets, education and locational differences—households engaging intensively in cotton production obtain higher grain yields than non‐cotton and marginal cotton producers. We also find evidence of regional spill‐over effects whereby commercialisation schemes induce second round investments in a particular area that provide benefits to all farmers in that region, regardless of whether they engage in that commercialisation scheme. The study suggests that the potential spill‐over benefits for food crops through participation in cash crop programs are important to consider in the development of strategies designed to intensify African food crop production.

Cash cropping and food crop productivity: synergies or trade-offs?

The case for promoting export-oriented cash crops in Africa has generally been based on their direct potential contribution to agricultural productivity and small farmer incomes. A relatively neglected avenue of research concerns the synergistic effects that cash cropping can have on other household activities, including food production. The conventional view that cash crops compete with food crops for land and labour neglects the potential for cash crop schemes to make available inputs on credit, management training, and other resources that can contribute to food crop productivity, which might otherwise not be accessible to farmers if they did not participate in cash crop programs. This article builds on previous research by hypothesising key pathways by which cash crops may affect food crop activities and empirically measuring these effects using the case of cotton in Gokwe North District in Zimbabwe. Analysis is based on instrumental variable analysis of survey data on 430 rural households in 1996. Results indicate that—after controlling for household assets, education and locational differences—households engaging intensively in cotton production obtain higher grain yields than non-cotton and marginal cotton producers. We also find evidence of regional spill-over effects whereby commercialisation schemes induce second round investments in a particular area that provide benefits to all farmers in that region, regardless of whether they engage in that commercialisation scheme. The study suggests that the potential spill-over benefits for food crops through participation in cash crop programs are important to consider in the development of strategies designed to intensify African food crop production.

Kinds of Plains Cree Culture

The Nehiyanak, a Canadian Plains Cree band, is renegotiating an imposed identity as morally inferior to an estimable ethnic segment of local society. Evidence includes Nehiyanak assertiveness in the display of cultural symbols and a growing visibility in the community ceremonial calendar. Comparing the 1990s to the 1960s, a restricted use of the culture concept in current ethnic theory is contrasted to a more inclusive meaning in traditional anthropological description. Nehiyanak ethnological culture, while not immediately relevant to ethnic cultural work, nonetheless provides content to the latter, and mediates ethnic choices. (Cree Indians, ethnicity, culture theory, culture change) ********** The Nehiyanak, a Plains Cree band, has had a change of fortune since I first encountered them in the 1960s. They then held a stigmatized ethnic identity in the rural Canadian community of Short Grass (2) that they had no means to repudiate. An asymmetrical relationship of wealth and power severely limited Indian opportunity for projecting moral self-worth. Now, with expanded resources and a claim to an estimable identity, the Nehiyanak speak with a voice formerly denied them to say who and what they are. They employ a special version of contemporary Cree culture in doing so. This essay compares the community of the past to that of the present, and explores the utility of current theorizing about the culture of ethnicity for explaining what has happened to the Nehiyanak. It examines a restricted usage of the concept of culture that is a part of ethnic theory, one that contrasts with a traditional ethnological sense of the term. It argues that failure to attend to the most inclusive cultural context, resulting from exclusive focus on Cree ethnic culture, gives a misleading and fragmented account of band life, and only a partial explanation of Nehiyanak ethnic action. The preoccupation of Indians with certain identity attributes, such as spirituality, assumes different forms depending on whether an activity takes place within band confines or in exchanges with whites; that is, whether it is relevant ethnologically or ethnically. To consider such differences mere situational compartmentalizations overlooks what crosses between them, and misses instructive insights into the culture of which the ethnological and ethnic are analytical parts. Taken together, the ethnic and ethnological constitute the total culture of the band, and this essay discusses several ways the two are processually intertwined. NEHIYANAK IN THE 1960S During my early fieldwork (1963-1970), the reserve was the home of about 150 Crec living in eleven households, segregated from the white world. There had never been a Christian mission there, nor a resident agent of the Indian Affairs Branch (IAB). Officials seldom visited the band. Families got by on very small incomes provided by government relief, augmented by sporadic agricultural work for whites during haying time and by fencing. For ready cash, Nehiyanak sold fence posts cut and cured on the reserve. Small-scale grazing of whites' cattle, in transactions between individual Indians and ranchers, was kept hidden from the IAB. Money spent on the band was entirely under the control of an agent who decided when and for whom houses were built (by a white contractor) and who approved charges for road work and fencing. In the 1960s, a white schoolteacher managed relief payments and compelled class attendance as a requirement for family aid. The IAB decided who would be included on the band list. The unpaid chieftainship circulated informally among men who had no occasion to speak on behalf of the band or deliver services to its members. Although there were in principle three councilors, there was no accord or fuss about who filled the offices at any given time. Band officers did not make trips to the IAB agency, a day's drive away. …

Leslie Crombie. 10 June 1923 — 3 August 1999

Leslie Crombie was born in York on 10 June 1923, the second eldest, and only boy, of Walter Crombie and Gladys (née Clarkson). On his father's side his great-grandfather had kept a tobacconist shop in York and his grandfather, George, had founded a prosperous legal practice in the City of York. On his mother's side, Leslie's great–grandfather originated from London and settled in York after helping to build the York Railway Station. Leslie's father qualified as a solicitor and practised law in his grandfather George's office. However, he disliked the profession and, after his marriage and the death of his father, Walter passed over the practice to his brother Norman and took the lease of a hotel in the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately, the hotel did not prosper and was given up after a few years, and the family, which included Leslie's three sisters, Ivy, June and Molly, moved to Portsmouth. Although Leslie's father had a small allowance from his brother Norman and the legal practice in York, and he had various small intermittent incomes from teaching, the family was desperately poor during the 1930s. Leslie received little encouragement from his parents, but he passed the 11+ examination and entered Portsmouth Northern Grammar School in 1934, where he was awarded a very respectable School Certificate when he was 16 years old. However, it was now 1939 and World War II was about to start, and his school was evacuated to Winchester. With poor living conditions and little facilities for study, the young Leslie was determined to take a job and study part-time. He was appointed in 1940 as an assistant in the analytical laboratory of Timothy Whites and Taylor at their head office in Portsmouth under the supervision of Ron Gillham, who greatly influenced his further career; he was paid 13 shillings and 6 pence (in decimal terms, 67½pence) per week. In the evenings, Leslie studied at Portsmouth Municipal College for a London University Intermediate BSc. Alas, after a heavy bombing raid in January 1941, Timothy Whites and Taylor's laboratories were removed from the map, along with a great deal of the centre of Portsmouth—but fortunately not the MunicipalCollege.

L'orientation et le contenu des relations réciproques des personnes âgées

AbstractIf many efforts have been undertaken by the scientific community in the last years to better understand the interactions between seniors and their informal support network, understanding of their reciprocal relations remain incomplete. In a context of “young” and “old,” where the later group is becoming larger, coexist longer because of increased life expectancy, and where the redistribution of public resources seems to favour seniors, the private inter-generation solidarity takes on considerable importance. These solidarities are especially expressed by helping each other, and this varies depending on the actors involved. This article attempts to describe the orientation and the content of the reciprocal relationships of seniors and to identify the principal determinants of such relations in Quebec. The data come from the Survey of Aging and Independence study undertaken by Statistics Canada in 1991. The results show that about two out of five seniors have this type of relationship and most often with their spouse. For individuals who no longer have a spouse, children, and particularly a daughter become privileged partners. This study also shows that exchanges of help with friends and/or neighbours prove to be essential when seniors live alone. These actors could even become essential in the future for the upholding of the autonomy of these “grandpa-boomers” who are less well surrounded in later life in terms of descendants than the seniors of today. Finally, very old men with small incomes, living alone in an urban setting and with few or no surviving children are the least likely to experience reciprocity with their entourage.

Foreign-born professionals in the United States

This article is abridged from a longer one published by the Center for Immigration Studies. The analysis of the distribution of foreign-born professionals in the United States by income ethnic group and occupation is based on 1990 Census PUMS File A sample returns. The foreign-born population is described as comprising 8.2% of US professionals or 1349587 persons. Over three-quarters of foreign-born professionals are Whites and Asians (40.8% and 35.2% respectively). However foreign-born White professionals represent 28.1% of the total foreign-born US population; foreign-born Asian professionals represent 23.3%. Hispanics are the least well represented among professionals (16.7% of professionals and 41.2% of total foreign population). Foreign-born professionals are distributed by occupation about equally among the sciences (27%) health professions (26%) and teaching professions (27%). US professionals account for about 20% in health or science fields and 33% in teaching. 17.4% of foreign-born and only 11% of professionals are in engineering fields. Other differences between natives and foreign-born is in post-secondary teaching where 8.7% are foreign-born and 4.4 are natives. However in elementary and secondary teaching 27.0% are natives and 14.3% are foreign-born. Foreign-born Blacks are mostly in nursing and other health occupations (34.3%) while Asians are mostly engineers (22%) and physicians (12%). Hispanics are largely pre-college teachers entertainers writers and artists. Over 25% of foreign-born Chinese are engineers and 16% are college professors. The pattern is a greater concentration of foreign-born in the sciences medicine and college education. Natives are concentrated in pre-college education the social sciences and law. Asians are the highest paid and Hispanics the lowest paid. Median income is $37782 for Asian professionals and $36375 for White foreign-born professionals. Foreign-born professionals have small but higher incomes in 9 out of 13 occupations. White and Asian natives earn more than Blacks and Hispanics. Differences in income vary by ethnic affiliation of foreign-born. The conclusion is reached that continued access to large numbers of foreign-born professionals offers few incentives to attract train and retain natives in the sciences.

Mutual benefit societies in Indonesia

We do not know when or how mutual benefit societies first appeared in colonial Indonesia, but there is evidence that they were part of the lives of at least some of the ordinary people in the towns and cities by the last quarter of the nineteenth century. By the 1910s they were common in workplaces and kampung, the often less than salubrious parts of the towns and cities where wage labourers and their families lived. Large numbers of people joined and some of them handled significant sums of money. For many people, they were an essential help in coping with daily life on small incomes with no capacity to save and with the ever‐present threat of loss of work, sickness or death. The relationships between mutual benefit societies, labour unions political parties and other voluntary organizations which would contribute to Indonesian nationalism is of particular interest. Clearly, to be involved in, and to be seen to be involved in, mutual aid was important for all these urban organizations.1

RURAL CREDIT AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN COLOMBIA

Recently the World Bank, aid donors, and others have shown greater interest in improving the income prospects of small farmers in LDC's. This interest springs in part from the fact that small farmers are at the bottom of the income ladder in many poor countries (though landless rural workers may be even worse off). Proposals to raise small farmer incomes have run the gamut from “wide‐spread” land reform to urban migration. Credit reallocation towards small and away from large farms has also been consistently advocated and has received renewed impetus due to the perceived failure of other alternative measures. Effective land reform has been found difficult to achieve short of full scale political revolution while enthusiasm for nonagricultural solutions has been tempered, at least until recently, by disappointing growth of high income employment opportunities in urban sectors.

Sources of geographic mobility among professional workers: A multivariate analysis

Using the 1960 Census of Population one-in-a-thousand sample, this study investigates determinants of geographic mobility among professional, technical, and kindred workers. Multiple regression analysis reveals that age accounts for most of the explained variance in mobility, followed by income, education, regional location, sex, family size, and marital status. Additional variables-class of worker, race, nativity, professional type, size of place and industry-add no significant increments to explained variance.More specifically, low income and high education stimulate mobility and increases in family size and age slacken it. Young married professionals move the most and farthest, males somewhat more than females. Mobility is greatest in the West, least in the Northeast. Age reduces or reverses contrasts between single and married, large and small families, high and low incomes, little and much education, and residents of East and West.Factor analysis suggests that migration is part of two orderly processes-occupational career mobility and family life cycle. The bearing of these findings on the relationship between geographic mobility and social integration for the middleclass in the United States is considered.

Approches du paupérisme rural : résultats d'une enquête-pilote dans la zone du centre rural du Neubourg (Eure)

Rural pauperism which is diffuse and isolated seem to have both social and financial causes. 16 % of the population in the Neubourg area are considered poor. They are evenly spread over the age structure, but Very unevenly over the villages. The poor family is characterized by a high number of children and persons living under the same roof. The per capita income is half of that of the rest of the population; food and illness are the two main concerns. The head of the family has a non-qualified Work and generally speaking, the poor can be characterized by low education standards and little vocational training. The overcrowded lodgings are lacking in cleanliness and decoration, but the household equipment is approximately equal to the national average. Social plagues like alcoolism, mental deficiency etc. are added to those unfavorable conditions. The poor seem to make up a « sub-culture », formed by unstable individuals in which three groups can be distinguished: families with small incomes, families with moderate incomes and old people. The future disappearing of pauperism depends on the effort of education and development of the understructure.

HOME CARE AND HOUSING NEEDS OF THE AGED

The increasing number of reports designed guide administrators of programs for the aged and based upon prior research is one sign of the development of gerontology. The two reports under review are good examples. Each summarizes a number of sound research projects providing the field worker with relevant data, and each makes a number of practical recommendations based on these studies. Home Care and Housing Needs of the Aged was prepared by John G. Steinle and associates for the state housing authority to: (1) determine the feasibility and requirements for a housing program that will meet home care needs of the aged; and (2) to prepare an outline for an action program. The inseparable triad-health, income, and housing-are examined in a review of seven major studies. The data are convincing that chronic illness increases with age and that illness is a major factor contributing indigency. Chronic illness of the aged is the nation's number one health problem. While the report stresses the need for a variety of approaches, a series of recommendations are made with reference aged who suffer from chronic illness. The formulae for estimating number of aged with chronic illness in a given community and the need for nursing and housekeeping services should prove helpful. The second study was made by the Housing Division's Bureau of Research and Statistics. Data collected in 1954 for a study of home care services in New York City are analyzed with reference the aged. These data show that most home care patients are elderly, receive small incomes, are socially isolated, and prefer home care institutionalization. Some implications of this for public housing administrators are spelled out. DONALD P. KENT

The Argument Phase of Taxpayer Politics

EDERAL TAX POLICY is developed in a welter of clashing opinions. The major source of controversy is the conflict of interest that exists among different although often overlapping economic groups -businessmen, industrial workers, farmers, creditors, debtors, landlords, persons with large incomes, persons with small incomes, and so on. Members of Congress, who are the principal makers of tax policy, are presumed to represent the interests of the whole public. They are elected on a geographical basis and do not, at least formally, represent specific economic interests. Such interests achieve the practical effect of representation through organized groups with paid advocates-the lobbyists-who work for proposals to reduce, or prevent an increase in, the tax loads of their respective groups.' In effect each group endeavors to push part of its load on to other groups through securing favorable legislative changes. The art of taxpayer politics is to persuade the necessary majority of the makers of tax policy-whether in the given situation these are the voters generally, the members of Congress, or a small group of the latterto vote in the desired way on tax proposals. The persons who successfully practice this art become experts in knowing what causes a policy maker to decide a tax issue in a certain way, and use that knowledge to achieve their ends. The chief task of the lobbyist appears to be to bring and keep before the attention of the policy maker the considerations which will lead him to make a favorable decision. The factors that motivate policy decisions are complex. Some have little relation to the public interest; even irrational and subconscious factors are present. Deep-seated prejudice, personal friendship or hostility, domination by a political boss or a powerful constituent, party loyalty, a trade for votes on other measures,

Voluntary Savings and Consumer Behavior

To the majority of Americans, a dollar has only one function. It is to be used immediately in the purchase of food, clothing, or shelter. Few Americans have ever had difficulties in finding an outlet for their incomes. Most Americans live from one pay day to another and are seldom able to save much surplus above living expenses. The end of a given year finds few of them with balances in the bank or money in their pockets. Two facts account for this condition. There is first the fact that the majority of persons who receive incomes in the United States receive comparatively small incomes. A second reason is that necessary living expenses are based upon psychological reactions as well as upon physical requirements. The first fact is too well known to require extensive comment. The only really extensive survey made of the entire nation on the distribution of income was made by the co-operation of various governmental agencies for the year 1935-36. In general, according to this study of consumer incomes, one-third of all American families and individual consumers had annual incomes of less than $780, one-half less than $1,070 and two-thirds less than $1,450. About nine-tenths received less than $2,500. About two per cent of all consumer units received incomes of $5,000 or over, and less than one per cent received $10,000 and over.1 The war has increased the incomes of many. It has not, despite isolated cases, raised the incomes of the majority out of what is considered the lower income groups. Total manufacturing wages have risen tremendously. To many individuals it has meant an income where no income has existed before. To many it has meant a job where there was no job before. It has not meant an increase in the incomes of the majority to the level of income enjoyed by the relative few before the war.

The Distribution of Incomes

No lower limit of income is specified in the original table. We have assigned arbitrarily £25 as this figure. It is reasonable to suppose that, in the original computations, from which the table was obtained, account was taken of all incomes, even down to small incomes of the order of io shillings a week. We have rounded this off at l25 per annum. It is well known that the distribution of incomes in the higher income ranges follows closely Pareto's law, and the present distribution is no exception. If the following figures, extracted from the derived table above, are plotted on a double logarithmic scale, the points are seen to lie very closely to a straight line (see Fig. i).