Subsistence Income Research Articles

Out relief, wages and household income in mid-nineteenth century Lancashire

It is well known that, despite local and regional variation, outdoor relief under the New Poor Law rarely provided paupers with subsistence income. However, this conclusion has generally been reached through analysis of poor relief doles in isolation, which marks an oversight as relief was rarely the only form of income available to a pauper. This research in progress article discusses how, through the use of a unique source, it is possible to examine outdoor poor relief within what historians have termed the ‘makeshift economy’, with a particular focus on the relationship between wages and welfare in the mid-nineteenth century.

Rights to trade for species conservation: exploring the issue of the radiated tortoise in Madagascar

SummaryIn many developing countries, people rely on natural resources for subsistence and cash income. The trade ban on species listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List may be counter-productive, as increasing the rarity and thus price of these species acts as a stimulus to illegal markets rather than a deterrent. Since illegal markets cannot have legal property rights, there is no basis for any form of sustainable harvesting based on property rights. The Malagsy radiated tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) is an example of a species that is threatened by domestic and international trade; legalizing international trade could, under certain circumstances, provide financial incentives that might effectively reduce the domestic trade and subsistence harvest of this animal. This paper argues this critically-endangered species may be more effectively conserved by assigning trading rights to local communities, rather than demanding a trade ban that cannot be enforced successfully.

Economic contribution of wild edible mushrooms to a forest fringe ethnic community in some eastern lateritic parts of India

Dry deciduous forests of the eastern lateritic part of India are a typical case where forest valuation is yet to be integrated with the non-timber forest products like wild edible mushrooms (WEMs), which have a wide use in subsistence and cash income. A detailed accounting of the production and utilization of WEMs harvested from that region was made to highlight the economic worth of WEMs to the Santal community of this region. The WEMs production in the forest was in a polynomial pattern during the monsoon period. The net present value of revenues from WEMs was estimated to be contributing 9.83 and 10.29 % of total annual income of a Santal family of the Choupahari and Gonpur forests, respectively. The ecological footprint of the Santal communities on WEMs was higher in the forest area which was closer to the local markets than did the distant ones. Forest areas of the eastern lateritic part of India have a strong potentiality to produce WEMs that may be helpful for socio-economic upliftment of local tribal communities through the development of entrepreneurship and policy making.

A Step Prior to REDD+ Implementation: A Socioeconomic Study

Phase 2 of the United Nations’ REDD+ climate change mitigation initiative is underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Meanwhile, activities are being implemented to assess the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. REDD+ projects need to include a social dimension; thus, the aim of this research was to understand how land-use relationships vary across communities in an area where a REDD+ project is planned. Specifically, we aimed to identify the primary income-generating activities, the variation in access to land, the potential for the development of community projects, and the implementation of alternative income-generating activities. In the summer of 2013, we assessed a REDD+ pilot project in and around the Luki Biosphere Reserve, Bas-Congo Province. We used participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods in four communities located both inside and outside the reserve. We found that current subsistence income activities led to the destruction of forest habitat due to population pressure and a lack of alternative income-generating activities. Customary land tenures overlay statutory rights, which can often mean that community rights are threatened. To achieve their targets, REDD+ projects should consider the actual land-use patterns of local communities in order to generate sustainable income from the land.

Survey of recent developments

Summary The arrival of a new year has brought with it an increased focus on Indonesia's 2014 legislative and presidential elections. While voters may be disillusioned with established political figures, a strong presidential candidate has yet to emerge. Many voters appear to yearn for an experienced and uncorrupt leader with new and proactive policies, which is why Jakarta's new governor, Joko Widodo, is being viewed as a potential candidate. The Constitutional Court has made two major, controversial rulings in recent months: the first concerned the upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas, the second the international-standard pilot-project schools (Rintisan Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional, RSBIs). The Court ruled both institutions unconstitutional and called for their immediate disbandment. In 2012, Indonesia's year-on-year economic growth slowed slightly, to a still healthy 6.2%, owing to continued weak global demand for its exports and a contraction in government expenditure. In contrast, foreign direct investment and portfolio investment were particularly strong, with respective increases of 25% and more than 142%. At 4.3%, inflation for the 2012 calendar year still remains well within the government's and Bank Indonesia's expectations. However, inflation expectations are high for 2013, owing to likely reforms to energy subsidies; the expected effect of bad weather on food prices; and increases in minimum wages, which attracted attention in 2012 because of their magnitude and their apparent disparity among regions. Concerns also exist that these rises in minimum wages will hamper Indonesia's international competitiveness and could discourage investment in labour-intensive industries. Minimum-wage policy is also controversial because of doubts about its relevance to the genuinely poor sections of society – those in informal employment or with primarily subsistence income, who constitute a large proportion of the population. Indonesia has experienced a steady increase in income inequality in the last decade, indicating that the benefits of strong economic growth have not been shared equally. Potential reasons for this increasing inequality relate to labour-market segmentation amid a growing middle class, weak institutional foundations, and commodity-driven growth. It appeared in 2012 that Indonesia has also been one of the world's poorest performers in HIV/AIDS prevention in recent years. While prevalence rates are low, the number of new HIV infections in 2011 was more than four times that of any other South Asian or Southeast Asian country, and the infection rate among the working-age population has risen by more than 25% since 2001. Infection rates among high-risk groups are also alarmingly high compared with those of other Southeast Asian countries. Targeted prevention, treatment and support programs among these groups are paramount.

Rural Income and Forest Reliance in Highland Guatemala

This paper estimates rural household-level forest reliance in the western highlands of Guatemala using quantitative methods. Data were generated by the way of an in-depth household income survey, repeated quarterly between November 2005 and November 2006, in 11 villages (n=149 randomly selected households). The main sources of income proved to be small-scale agriculture (53% of total household income), wages (19%) and environmental resources (14%). The latter came primarily from forests (11% on average). In the poorest quintile the forest income share was as high as 28%. All households harvest and consume environmental products. In absolute terms, environmental income in the top quintile was 24 times higher than in the lowest. Timber and poles, seeds, firewood and leaf litter were the most important forest products. Households can be described as 'regular subsistence users': the share of subsistence income is high, with correspondingly weak integration into regional markets. Agricultural systems furthermore use important inputs from surrounding forests, although forests and agricultural uses compete in household specialization strategies. We find the main household determinants of forest income to be household size, education and asset values, as well as closeness to markets and agricultural productivity. Understanding these common but spatially differentiated patterns of environmental reliance may inform policies aimed at improving livelihoods and conserving forests.

Changing land management: A case study of charcoal production among a group of pastoral women in northern Tanzania

Challenging economic and environmental conditions, coupled with increasing population, have led to changes in the priorities and activities of rural Africans. In Tanzania's savanna woodlands a growing dependency on non-farm extractive activities such as firewood supply and charcoal production is placing increasing pressure on local resources. Although the actual impact that fuelwood consumption has on tree cover is neither well documented nor completely understood, deforestation due to extractive practices for commercial charcoal sales has the potential to have a particularly profound impact on semi-arid savanna systems in Tanzania where forest and bush regeneration are especially slow. This study investigates land use conflicts and recent changes that have led to major shifts in resource management and use associated with the extraction of fuelwood for charcoal production in the Maasai village of Engikareti in northern Tanzania where charcoal serves as a cash crop for a growing number of women. In 2005, more than 200 women (four to six percent of the village population) removed an estimated 4000 trees to provide subsistence income for their families. Population growth, drought, social and economic marginalization, and a lack of other marketable resources are factors leading to rapidly increasing rates of extraction. While demand for fuelwood for charcoal production is unlikely to deplete forest cover on a large scale over the short term, imbalances between the patterns of demand and availability foreshadow potential localized scarcities and the degradation of savanna vegetation.

Trade-Offs Between Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Development in Five Tropical Forest Landscapes

This study explores how conservation and development are interlinked and quantifies their reciprocal trade-offs. It identifies interventions which hold a promise to improve both conservation and development outcomes. The study finds that development trajectories can either be at the cost of conservation or can benefit conservation, but in all cases sustained poverty negatively affects conservation in the long term. Most scenarios with better outcomes for conservation come at a cost for development and the financial benefits of payments for environmental services (PES) are not sufficient to compensate for lost opportunities to earn cash. However, implementation of strategies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in locations with low population densities come close to overcoming opportunity costs. Environmental services and subsistence income enhance the attractiveness of conservation scenarios to local people and in situations where these benefits are obvious, PES may provide the extra cash incentive to tip the balance in favor of such a scenario. The paper stresses the importance of external factors (such as industrial investments and the development of the national economy) in determining landscape scale outcomes, and suggests a negotiating and visioning role for conservation agencies.

Supply-side harm reduction strategies: Bolivia's experiment with social control

Harm reduction approaches to drug control have almost exclusively focussed on consumers in northern countries. This article supports recent analysis that indicates that such policies also hold relevance for producer countries by drawing on recent policy innovations in Bolivia. When Evo Morales, the president of the national coca grower confederation, was elected the country's first indigenous president in 2005, he promised to fundamentally change 25 years of the U.S.-funded “drug war” that had generated repeated human rights violations. The new policy, which implicitly incorporates harm reduction principles combined with respect for human rights, recognizes coca leaf's traditional use and cultural importance and relies on vigorous local organizations to implement a community-based programme called social control. Results to date indicate that Bolivia's social control experience has reduced violence in coca growing communities, ensured small farmers a subsistence income from coca and increased sovereignty, while making a modest contribution to containing expansion of coca cultivation. The programme has registered 50,000 farmers who are allowed to cultivate limited quantities of coca to supply traditional users and helped them gain secure title to their land. This registration is combined with satellite surveillance to guarantee that farmers do not exceed limits established by law. To date, the programme's reach is incomplete and coca is still diverted to the drug trade. Nonetheless, the approach may offer lessons for other drug producer countries, particularly where strong socio-political organizations are found in combination with closeknit communities holding shared cultural values.

Environmental income, rural livelihoods, and income inequality in western Uganda

The contribution of forest and wild products to the rural economy is typically undervalued in standard socioeconomic surveys. In this paper, we analyze the contribution of forests and other wild areas to the subsistence and cash incomes of rural households for a large sample of households in western Uganda (N = 521) and explore the role of these typically underestimated income sources in interhousehold measures of income inequality. We find that households in rural Uganda derive 26% of total household income from forests and other wild areas including fallows, agricultural lands, wetlands, grasslands, and shrub land. In general, households in the lower income quartiles are more dependent on forest and wild products for subsistence income, whereas wealthier households are more engaged in the sale of higher value forest products for cash income. Forests, fallows, and agricultural lands are the most important sources of environmental income for households in western Uganda. Income from forest and wild products plays an important role in reducing income inequality between households. The loss of this income due to deforestation and environmental degradation has implications for rural livelihood portfolios and for the well-being of relatively poor households.

Contribution of NTFPs to cash income of the War Khasi community of southern Meghalaya, North-East India

Ever since their emergence on this planet, human beings have depended on forest resources for their requirements, ranging from food, fuel to shelter. Sustainable extraction of forest resources has been promoted by conservationists and development agencies as a feasible strategy for forest dwellers, which does not diminish the resource base. Yet surveys of actual resource use suggest that for poorer resource-dependent communities without access to markets, non-timber forest products (NTFPs) can only act as a safety-net and a supplementary income source. In southern Meghalaya of India, NTFPs and medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) have become an important source of cash and subsistence income for poor people living in or near forests. People in this region have traditionally been collecting different forest products from private forests as well as community conserved forests. The study reveals that NTFPs contribute significantly towards the annual cash income of the local population. The contribution of NTFPs to their income was highest in the case of poor families (9.89%), followed by middle income families (3.34%) and the least for the higher income families (1.34%). Our household survey revealed that 100% of the population is directly or indirectly dependent on NTFPs. Household response indicates diversity in both the types and uses of products collected.

Harm reduction is not enough for supply side policy: A human rights-based approach offers more

Harm reduction approaches to drug control have almost exclusively focussed on consumers in northern countries. This article supports recent analysis that indicates that such policies also hold relevance for producer countries by drawing on recent policy innovations in Bolivia. When Evo Morales, the president of the national coca grower confederation, was elected the country's first indigenous president in 2005, he promised to fundamentally change 25 years of the U.S.-funded “drug war” that had generated repeated human rights violations. The new policy, which implicitly incorporates harm reduction principles combined with respect for human rights, recognizes coca leaf's traditional use and cultural importance and relies on vigorous local organizations to implement a community-based programme called social control. Results to date indicate that Bolivia's social control experience has reduced violence in coca growing communities, ensured small farmers a subsistence income from coca and increased sovereignty, while making a modest contribution to containing expansion of coca cultivation. The programme has registered 50,000 farmers who are allowed to cultivate limited quantities of coca to supply traditional users and helped them gain secure title to their land. This registration is combined with satellite surveillance to guarantee that farmers do not exceed limits established by law. To date, the programme's reach is incomplete and coca is still diverted to the drug trade. Nonetheless, the approach may offer lessons for other drug producer countries, particularly where strong socio-political organizations are found in combination with closeknit communities holding shared cultural values.

Barriers to free antiretroviral treatment access among kothi-identified men who have sex with men and aravanis (transgender women) in Chennai, India

The Indian government provides free antiretroviral treatment (ART) for people living with HIV. To assist in developing policies and programs to advance equity in ART access, we explored barriers to ART access among kothis (men who have sex with men [MSM] whose gender expression is feminine) and aravanis (transgender women, also known as hijras) living with HIV in Chennai. In the last quarter of 2007, we conducted six focus groups and four key-informant interviews. Data were explored using framework analysis to identify categories and derive themes. We identified barriers to ART access at the family/social-level, health care system-level, and individual-level; however, we found these barriers to be highly interrelated. The primary individual-level barrier was integrally linked to the family/social and health care levels: many kothis and aravanis feared serious adverse consequences if their HIV-positive status were revealed to others. Strong motivations to keep one's HIV-positive status and same-sex attraction secret were interconnected with sexual prejudice against MSM and transgenders, and HIV stigma prevalent in families, the health care system, and the larger society. HIV stigma was present within kothi and aravani communities as well. Consequences of disclosure, including rejection by family, eviction from home, social isolation, loss of subsistence income, and maltreatment (although improving) within the health care system, presented powerful disincentives to accessing ART. Given the multi-level barriers to ART access related to stigma and discrimination, interventions to facilitate ART uptake should address multiple constituencies: the general public, health care providers, and the kothi and aravani communities. India needs a national policy and action plan to address barriers to ART access at family/social, health care system, and individual levels for aravanis, kothis, other subgroups of MSM and other marginalized groups.

Forest income and dependency in lowland Bolivia

Forests contribute to livelihoods of rural people throughout the tropics. This paper adds to the emerging body of quantitative knowledge on absolute and relative economic importance, through both cash and subsistence income, of moist forests to households. Qualitative contextual information was collected in six villages in lowland Bolivia, followed by a structured survey of randomly selected households (n = 118) that included four quarterly income surveys. We employed a novel data collection approach that allows detailed estimation of total household accounts, including sources of forest income. We estimated the average forest income share of total annual household income (forest dependency) at 20%, ranging from 18 to 24%. Adding environmental income increased the average to 26%, being fairly constant across income quartiles at 24–28%. Absolute levels of forest income increased with total household income, while forest dependency was the highest in the best-off income quartile—the primary harvesters of forest products are better-off households. The pattern of high forest dependency among better-off households has also been reported from other countries, indicating that this pattern may be more common than advocated by conventional wisdom. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions, we found significant determinants of absolute forest income to be household size, sex of household head and area of cultivated land; the significant determinants for forest dependency were level of education, whether household head was born in village and whether household was food self-sufficient. Better-off households were able to realise cash income from forests, while poorer households—in particular if headed by women—were more reliant on subsistence forest income. We argue that the differential patterns of forest income across income quartiles should be considered in future development interventions and that findings indicate a potential for forests to contribute to moving households out of poverty.

Striking at the Roots of Crime: The Impact of Welfare Spending on Crime during the Great Depression

During the Great Depression contemporaries worried that people hit by hard times would resort to crime. President Franklin Roosevelt argued that the massive government relief efforts “struck at the roots of crime” by providing subsistence income to needy families. After constructing a panel data set for 81 large American cities for the years 1930–40, we estimate the effect of relief spending by all levels of government on crime rates. The analysis suggests that a 10 percent increase in relief spending during the 1930s reduced property crime by roughly 1.5 percent. By limiting the amount of relief recipients’ free time, work relief may have been more effective than direct relief in reducing crime. More generally, our results indicate that social insurance, which tends to be understudied in economic analyses of crime, should be more explicitly and more carefully incorporated into the analysis of temporal and spatial variations in criminal activity.

Is Anywhere Stuck in a Malthusian Trap?

SUMMARY The key features of the Malthusian model are that (i) income determines population growth, with rising wages increasing survival rates and (ii) there is a vital factor of production (land) which is fixed, implying decreased returns to scale for all other factors. The equilibrium state in such a model is a population living on subsistence incomes. The country-level analysis in this paper suggests that (i) the link between income and population growth is (almost) everywhere broken and (ii) there is little evidence of declining returns to scale because of constraints imposed by land carrying capacity anywhere. Population dynamics are being driven by non-income factors in a manner that is reducing population growth rates everywhere. At the same time, output is increasing everywhere, in a manner inconsistent with significantly declining returns to scale based on land being a vital factor of production.

Regional Difference‐in‐Differences in France Using the German Annexation of Alsace‐Moselle in 1870–1918

The evaluation of labor market policies has been an expanding field in the last decades. This is partly due to the increasing availability of survey data and computing power and partly to the recognition that even complex phenomena such as the impact of laws and regulations on labor markets can be rigorously tested thanks to new empiricalmethodologies, such as the so‐called difference‐in‐difference approaches (also called double differences). In this approach, the outcome (education, access to employment, unemployment rate) of a treated group, that is, a group subject to a policy change, is compared to that of a control group, that is, a group made up of individuals (or any other unit of observation) as close as possible to the treated group but unaffected by the treatment. The strategy of the researchers consists in finding a sudden change in policy and building a relevant comparison group. A recent paper by Imbens and Wooldridge (2008) discusses the issues associated with the choice of the groups and surveys the literature. In countries with a federal structure such as the United States or Canada, it is straightforward to use this technique to evaluate policy changes. Indeed, many laws are specific to a state (for the United States) or a province (for Canada). When states experiencing a reform are compared to states with no change, it is straightforward to obtain inferences about the causal effects of the reform. In contrast, researchers studying French labor laws typically face cases in which there is no geographical variance in policy changes since the main law is supposed to apply equally to all the French territory. Therefore, policy evaluation has to rely on other control groups. A consequence of this “universal”character of the law is that the evaluation of the reduction in working time in France—from

THE VEGETABLE SECTOR IN TROPICAL ASIA: IMPORTANCE, ISSUES AND A WAY AHEAD

The vegetable sector is a key industry for food security, trade development, income generation and livelihood improvement in tropical Asia. This paper provides an overview of the industry, the production systems and crops, the value and outputs for the region. It articulates the key issues in 5 focal countries (India, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam), which together represent about 75% of the population, more than 65% of the land area and 87% of vegetable production in tropical Asia. These countries display a broad spectrum of policies and responses to vegetable industry development and together face a range of socioeconomic and marketing challenges. While the vegetable sector plays an important role in each of these countries, we argue that industry growth and development has not fully capitalized on the demand potential for the region, nor fully met existing and emerging opportunities for export and processing to supply customers within and outside tropical Asia. To more fully realize the potential and boost benefit flows to industry and consumers, an ‘Action Agenda’ is proposed. Key themes include improving farmers profits, facilitating industry restructuring, enhancing industry professionalism, focusing market development and increasing consumption. INTRODUCTION In the last 50 years, the Green Revolution has improved food security within tropical Asia. Supplies of staple foods are generally adequate, with many countries selfsufficient in grains. As the vision of ‘Food for All’ is being realized, the focus is shifting towards ‘Nutrition for All’. Vegetables, as a key source of micro-nutrients, play an integral role in the realization of this goal. Demand for fruit, vegetables, meat and fish products is increasing (Table 1), along with urban tends for increased consumption of processed and ready-to-eat food and food away-from-home. Population growth has slowed, absolute poverty levels have dropped (Wiesmann, 2006), incomes and education levels have increased, and consumers have become more aware of nutrition and safety. Trade in agricultural products, modern retailing through supermarkets, and the food industry are booming and becoming increasingly globalized. Collectively, these factors indicate a bright future for the vegetable sector. However, in parallel with these changes, consumer expectations, urbanization and the marginalization of some communities and industry members, has also increased. This means that for optimal development, the vegetable industry needs to focus on the emerging challenges of: (i) assuring food security, while meeting increased expectations for variety, quality and safety in food supplies; (ii) helping farmers to diversify and improve rural and subsistence incomes; and (iii) being part of the modernization of production, processing and marketing, with sustainable and pro-poor strategies which enhance incentives for investment, improve supply chain efficiencies and boost incomes. This paper reviews how the vegetable sector in tropical Asia can make a greater contribution to global development. Proc. IS on Socio-Economic Impact

Non-timber forest product dependence among the Jah Hut subgroup of Peninsular Malaysia’s Orang Asli

Non-timber forest products (NTFP) represent key sources of cash and subsistence income for millions of rural and indigenous peoples living in tropical developing countries throughout the world. The current study investigates the use and significance of NTFP within a sample of Peninsular Malaysia’s Orang Asli (indigenous people). Data collected via household surveys across three sampling phases reveals that more than 75% of the population is actively engaged in NTFP collection. Household responses indicate diversity in both the types and uses of products collected. NTFP collection participation, frequency of collection, and collection reliance are found to be significantly negatively related to village proximity to the market, as well as to income level relative to the Malaysian poverty line. When collection variables are examined by different product categories, relationships with market access and income group are variable. Implications for different approaches to forest conservation and rural development are discussed.

Making poverty mapping and monitoring participatory

The real experts on poverty are poor people, yet the incidence and trends in poverty are usually measured by the use of official economic indicators assumed by researchers to be relevant. Poor householders themselves distinguish between subsistence and cash income. In a ‘self-assessed poverty’ exercise, poor villagers in rural China specified and weighted key poverty indicators. Eight key indicators describing three basic types of poverty were isolated and used to construct a participatory poverty index (PPI), the components of which provide insights into core causes of poverty. Moreover, the PPI allows direct comparison of the incidence of poverty between villages – differences in social, cultural, and environmental characteristics of each village notwithstanding. As a result, the PPI offers an objective method of conducting poverty monitoring independently of physical and social features. This article provides a brief description of the PPI and the data needed to construct a village-specific PPI.