Subsistence Requirements Research Articles

A microeconomic analysis of subsistence

We present a microeconomic analysis of subsistence in the consumer theory framework with two goods: the basic good (food) and the non-basic good (non-food). Subsistence results in two regions in the consumption set: the pre-subsistence zone in which the individual’s subsistence requirement is not met and he exclusively cares about the basic good, and the post-subsistence zone. This structure gives subsistence-induced (SI) preferences. Compared to Stone–Geary utility functions, SI preferences give a better understanding of consumption decision problems for people who are on the margins of subsistence and can be useful to clarify related issues such as the use of child labor for poor households.

Risk in Risk Aversion

Behind every investment portfolio, there are sources and uses of its funds, each with their own risks. Though funding risks are pervasive, their implication for setting appropriate risk aversion for portfolio construction is too little exploited. In this article, the authors extend single-period decision making to combine risk in assumed funding supply and uses with risk in investment returns to provide a joint optimization. Their approach uses expected utility maximization based either on the constant relative risk aversion property or on the generalized logarithmic utility model, the latter somewhat sharper in controlling tail risk. Mathematics is greatly simplified by matrix calculation using discrete preference states. The authors also employ investment leverage on surplus over subsistence requirements to estimate the need for conservatism. Examples are given for both the generic moderate errors in judging appropriate risk aversion and the more extreme funding risk arising from uncertainty as to retirement longevity.

Agricultural revolution and industrialization

This study explores how agricultural technology affects the endogenous takeoff of an economy in the Schumpeterian growth model. Due to the subsistence requirement for agricultural consumption, an improvement in agricultural technology reallocates labor from agriculture to the industrial sector. Therefore, agricultural improvement expands firm size in the industrial sector, which determines innovation and triggers an endogenous transition from stagnation to growth. Calibrating the model to data, we find that without the reallocation of labor from agriculture to the industrial sector in the early 19th century, the takeoff of the US economy would have been delayed by about four decades.

COVID-19, Indigenous peoples, local communities and natural resource governance

We report on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), especially those who govern, manage and conserve their lands and waters. We explore the themes of access and use of natural resources, solidarity, decision-making, the role of governments and IPLCs in managing COVID-19, and the uptake of traditional medicine. These themes are explored through a global online survey in English, Spanish and French. We collected and analysed 133 surveys from 40 countries, using SenseMaker®, a software that enables analysis of micronarratives based on how respondents classify their own stories. We explore the themes further through case studies from Benin, Fiji, France, Gabon, Guyana, Guatemala, India and Madagascar, highlighting challenges and opportunities in how IPLCs responded to COVID-19. Our study underscores the importance of selfempowerment and recognition of IPLC rights, which allows them to use traditional medicines, meet subsistence requirements during lockdowns, help community members and neighbours to sustain livelihoods, and to govern, defend and conserve their territories. We propose key actions to support IPLCs navigate future pandemics while protecting their lands and waters.

The Welfare Implications of Unobserved Heterogeneity

New conditions are derived for relating household financial well‐being to household utility. In particular, a one‐for‐one mapping between the equivalent incomes stemming from subsistence‐based utility functions and probabilistic models of financial well‐being is established. This is unique in the literature and enables estimates from reduced‐form models based on a cumulative distribution function (e.g. probit and logit models) to be given a formal welfare interpretation. In so doing, it is possible to use reduced‐form models of well‐being to evaluate welfare distortions associated with unobserved heterogeneity in subsistence levels and marginal utilities of consumption. An Australian household‐level data set is used as a case study for exploring the distortions associated with unobserved heterogeneity. The results are significant for better understanding the welfare implications of income and transfer policies, and indicate that the failure to account for unobserved heterogeneity results in large welfare distortions. Finally, I show that the distortions are primarily attributable to heterogeneity in subsistence requirements rather than heterogeneity in marginal utilities of consumption.

The Equilibrium Impact of Agricultural Risk on Intermediate Inputs and Aggregate Productivity

AbstractI consider the aggregate impact of low intermediate input intensity in the agricultural sector of developing countries. In a dynamic general equilibrium model with idiosyncratic shocks, incomplete markets, and subsistence requirements, farmers in developing countries use fewer intermediate inputs because it limits their exposure to uninsurable shocks. The calibrated model implies that Indian agricultural productivity would increase by 16% if markets were complete, driven by quantitatively important increases in both the average real intermediate share and measured TFP through lower misallocation. I then extend the results to consider the importance of risk in other contexts. First, the introduction of insurance decreases cross-country differences in agricultural labour productivity by 14%. Second, scaling the introduction of improved seeds to decrease downside risk reduces inequality by reallocating resources from rich to poor farmers via equilibrium effects. This reallocation substantially increases aggregate productivity relative to what would be expected from extrapolating the partial equilibrium impact.

Analysis of Households Food Insecurity in the Face of Climate Variability: Evidence from North Shewa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Food insecurity is more worrisome now than ever before due to unprecedented climate variability and widespread rural poverty. Research-based and policy relevant empirical evidence is crucial to design strategies to address food insecurity in the face of climate variability. Thus, this study examines the status of food insecurity among households’ and its determinants in North Shewa Zone of Amhara Region using cross-sectional data collected from 382 sample households. Households’ food insecurity status was determined by comparing the total calorie available for consumption per adult equivalent to the minimum level of subsistence requirement per adult equivalent of 2200 kcal. Logistic regression model was used to identify factors that influence food insecurity status of households in the study area. Accordingly, the results of the study show that majority (56.28%) of the sample households in the study area were food insecure. In addition, results revealed that age, literacy, cultivated land size, soil fertility status, number of oxen owned and irrigation water use were the major factors negatively associated with food insecurity. In contrast, sex, household size, distance to the main market and rainfall variability have increased the probability of being food insecure. The findings imply that majority of the households are food insecure where its improvement can be addressed through appropriate policy, institutional and technological options.

The daily grind: Cash needs and labor supply

The majority of people in developing countries are self-employed and can therefore set their own work hours. How do self-employed individuals motivate themselves to work hard day after day? We document four facts about the labor supply of Kenyan bicycle-taxi drivers: (1) drivers work more on days with higher cash needs; and (2) the quitting hazard increases once the driver earns enough to meet his day’s need; but (3) the needs are not binding subsistence requirements; and (4) randomized cash payouts have no meaningful effect on labor supply. These results are consistent with models in which workers have reference-dependent preferences over earning targets.

Fodder for Change: Animals, Urbanisation, and Socio-Economic Transformation in Protohistoric Italy

In central and northern Italy, the first millennium BC was characterised by the rise of urbanism and an expansion of nearly every area of production. Agriculture was no exception, and an increase in the scale and intensity of agricultural production sustained, and was sustained by, economic and population growth. Within this context, animal management also evolved to meet the needs of the changing protohistoric landscape. Pigs grew in importance as meat producers, and a greater emphasis was placed on animal-derived products like wool. These changes can be linked to the subsistence requirements of urban populations and the value of raw materials; however, beyond these functional explanations, the wider socio-economic context of animal husbandry is rarely explored.This paper aims to bridge the gap between the zooarchaeological evidence for livestock production and the socio-economic transformations that drove animal management. Three aspects of protohistoric husbandry are explored through discussion of pig, cattle, sheep, and chicken exploitation: greater differentiation in livestock production between different site types, specialisation of animals through selective breeding, and the adoption of new forms of livestock. These lines of evidence demonstrate the role of animals in socio-economic networks of distribution and dependence, and they highlight the importance of agricultural produce in the articulation of social hierarchies. As in the transformation of other forms for material culture during this of this period, livestock husbandry regimes were not simply the deterministic result of wider socio-economic change, but a medium actively adapted for its expression.

Crop choice, trade costs, and agricultural productivity

I argue that the agricultural productivity puzzle is in large part a staple productivity puzzle. Using detailed data from Mexican farms, I show that most farmers grow staple crops, despite the fact that labor productivity in cash crops is substantially higher. To explain this pattern I develop a quantitative general equilibrium framework with multiple regions and crop types, subsistence requirements of staple food, and interregional trade costs. In equilibrium, most farming production is in staple crops because subsistence constraints and high trade costs prevent most farmers from specializing in cash crops. Reducing trade costs in Mexico to the U.S. level would raise the ratio of employment in cash crops to staples by 15 percent and generate a 13 percent increase in agricultural labor productivity.

Female Domestic Workers: Income Determinants and Empowerment Correlates—A Case Study

This paper deploys the information of 300 female domestic workers who work to make up the difference between subsistence requirements and the total earnings of the family. The determinants of monthly income of the workers are age, type of work, total family members, per-capita monthly household income, year of schooling and number of houses serviced. Low wages, low level of education, less control over assets and income, verbal and physical abuse and the absence of social security are reflected in their weak bargaining power which results in a low level of empowerment. Women’s earnings do not always ensure empowerment, especially when the wages are low. Meaningful legal safeguards, welfare measures and other provisions for empowerment must be inducted in modern society to reduce injustices, deprivations and indignities towards female domestic workers.

The Gender Wage Gap in Early Modern Toledo, 1550–1650

We exploit the records of a large Toledan hospital to study the compensation of female labor and the gender wage gap in early modern Castile in the context of nursing—a non-gendered, low-skill occupation in which men and women performed the same clearly defined tasks. We employ a robust methodology to estimate the value of in-kind compensation, and show it to constitute a central part of the labor contract, far exceeding subsistence requirements. Patient admissions records are used to measure nurse productivity, which did not differ across genders. Female compensation varied between 70 percent and 100 percent of male levels, with fluctuations clearly linked to relative labor scarcity. Contrary to common assumptions in the literature, we show that markets played an important role in setting female compensation in early modern Castile. The sources of the gender disparity are, therefore, likely to be found in the broader social and cultural context.

Coping Strategies of Food Insecure Households: The Case of Offa District, Wolaita Zone, South Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region

Background : Ethiopia is one of the low income countries encountering food insecurity for decades due to unsatisfactory livelihood strategies and in the long run it may cause severe damage to livelihoods of the poor, thereby reducing self-sufficiency. Objective : To assess and generate specific data on coping strategies of food insecure households in Offa district wolaita zone, SNNPR. Methods and materials : Cross sectional community based study comprised of both primary and secondary data. A sampling procedure was used to randomly select representative farm households from each kebeles. The study was applied a simplified formula of Yamane and 125 farm households were selected as sample and primary data were collected using questionnaire. Result : The study revealed the major perceived causes of food shortage were shortage of land, shortage of water, climatic problem, and lack of input supply. The traditional farming practice, poor performance and health condition of farmers, unemployment, lack of soil fertility etc also affect them. As study predominantly the first victims are children. According to the study, the actual household income in the study area did not meet the average minimum subsistence requirement. The major coping mechanisms and people solve their temporary problem of food shortage by using different types of coping mechanisms such as engaging in labor work, livestock sale, migration to urban areas, relaying on remittance from relatives, sale of wood and charcoal, reducing food consumption and requesting grain loan. Beyond these some local NGOs and GOs providing them by giving financial aid, credits services, participating in small business, job opportunity for unemployment’s, awareness rising on use of technology, saving and family planning in the study area. Conclusion : The current coping strategies are not sufficient because of they are also predominantly top down, and fail to bring the desired change in the life of the households. The findings of this study ensured that household livelihoods are highly diverse and policy-makers need to reflect on the most suitable ways of supporting this diversity. Keywords:- causes, challenges, coping strategies, food insecurity, production, vulnerable group DOI : 10.7176/DCS/9-8-03 Publication date : August 31st 2019

Poverty chains and global capitalism

The proliferation of global value chains is portrayed in academic and policy circles as representing new development opportunities for firms and regions in the global south. This article tests these claims by examining original material from non-governmental organizations’ reports and secondary sources on the garment and electronics chains in Cambodia and China, respectively. This empirical evidence suggests that these global value chains generate new forms of worker poverty. Based on these findings, the article proposes the novel Global Poverty Chain approach. The article critiques and reformulates principal concepts associated with the Global Value Chain approach – of value-added, rent and chain governance – and challenges a core assumption prevalent within Global Value Chain analysis: that workers’ low wages are a function of their employment in low productivity industries. Instead, it shows that (1) many supplier firms in the global south are as, or more, productive than their equivalents in the global north; (2) often predominantly female workers in these industries are super exploited (paid wages below their subsistence requirements) and (3) chain governance represents a lead firm value-capturing strategy, which intensifies worker exploitation.

'I could not join because I had to work for pay.': A qualitative evaluation of falciparum malaria pro-active case detection in three rural Cambodian villages.

BackgroundPro-active case detection (Pro-ACD), in the form of voluntary screening and treatment (VSAT) following community mobilisation about ‘asymptomatic malaria’, is currently being evaluated as a tool for Plasmodium falciparum elimination in Preah Vihear Province, Cambodia.MethodsA qualitative study was conducted to explore community understanding, perceptions, expectations and acceptability of the Pro-ACD intervention in order to identify aspects that could be improved in future Pro-ACD activities. This was ancillary to a three-round VSAT campaign, carried out in three villages between December 2015 and March 2016. Qualitative data collection began shortly after the end of the three rounds of screening. Purposive sampling was used to select participants. Nine focus group discussions with participants (n = 46) and non-participants (n = 40) in the Pro-ACD screening were conducted, in addition to in-depth interviews with key village figures (n = 9).ResultsHealth promotion messages were well delivered and received, but it was difficult for many villagers to understand the messages around ‘asymptomatic malaria’. Overall, villagers and village leaders had a positive opinion about the VSAT intervention. Acceptability was high, as a direct consequence of favourable perceptions towards the screening activity: the Pro-ACD intervention was seen by the local population as an effective, inexpensive, reliable and readily available tool to protect individuals and the community from the insurgence of malaria. Physical absence and lack of time (both linked to work-related activities) were the main reasons for non-participation.ConclusionsAlthough VSAT was generally well perceived and accepted, the ‘time factor’ related to the need to satisfy essential daily subsistence requirements played a significant role in determining participation in the screening. More well-adapted and meaningful Pro-ACD approaches could be implemented by improving the timing of the testing activites, and strengthening community participation and engagement to increase acceptability.

Magnitude and associated factors of household food insecurity in Fedis Woreda East Hararghe zone, Oromia region, Ethiopia

BackgroundPoverty and food insecurity remain as the major challenges to achieve economic development in Ethiopia. Explaining the household food insecurity situation and identifying associated factors will help in making better decision and resource allocation. This study aimed to determine the magnitude and identify the associated factors of household food insecurity in Fedis Woreda that has been affected by food insecurity for the quite time with a total population estimated to be 133,382 persons, of which the estimated urban population is 26,575 and estimated rural population is 127,877. The Woreda is in food deficit every year where the food gap is covered by food aid amounting to 15–25% for the poorest households of Ethiopia. Cross-sectional study was used to collect data on calorie availability at household level, demographic characteristics, socioeconomic factors and coping strategies from 743 households. Household food insecurity was obtained by comparing the total food calorie available for consumption in the household per adult equivalent to the minimum level of subsistence requirement per adult equivalent of 2200 kcal. Data were analyzed using Statistical Product and Service Solution. Binary logistic regression analysis is used to determine the association between dependent and independent variables.ResultsAbout 58% of the sampled households in the study area were food insecure. The binary logistics regression analysis identified educational status of the household head [AOR, 95% CI 0.59 (0.38–0.91)], annual farm income [AOR, 95% CI 0.44 (0.287–0.675)], sufficient crop production [AOR, 95% CI 0.45 (0.274–0.748)], dietary diversity [AOR, 95% CI 0.548 (0.382–0.786)] and oxen ownership [AOR, 95% CI 0.454 (0.323–0.639)] were the major factors inversely associated with food insecurity status. On the other hand, large family size [AOR, 95% CI 6.143 (2.40–15.0)], lower than average monthly off-farm income [AOR, 95% CI 1.85 (1.18–2.91)] and small land size [AOR, 95% CI 3.04 (2.04–4.52)] were increased the chance being food insecure household in the study area.ConclusionsThe findings imply that more than half of the community was food insecure where improvement in food security situation needs to promote family planning, undertake different income generating activities and improve access to farmer’s education. These areas could provide entry points for policy intervention to reduce food insecurity and create community livelihood opportunities.

Industrial output fluctuations in developing countries: General equilibrium consequences of agricultural productivity shocks

This paper shows that a negative shock to agricultural productivity may increase food prices, and labor and capital can move away from manufacturing into agriculture to meet the subsistence requirement for food. This effect depends on income levels and openness to trade. Using annual manufacturing data and rainfall shocks as the instrument for crop yields (proxy for agricultural productivity), I find that an exogenous decline in yield decreases manufacturing output as well as employment and capital investment in manufacturing. Overall, crop yield variation can explain up to 44% of industrial output fluctuations in developing countries (rainfall shocks cause 31% of the fluctuations). Lastly, this paper shows that such perverse phenomena, in which resources move toward the sector with declining productivity, can lead to a significant reduction in aggregate productivity.

Agricultural Intensification on the epiClassic northern Mesoamerican frontier: The La Quemada Terraces

The underlying paradigms of Boserup, Chisholm and risk management theories are used as frameworks to present and interpret findings from our excavations on the La Quemada agricultural terraces in southern Zacatecas, Mexico. Boserupian models are based on population pressure; Chisholm models are based on distance, and risk management focuses on environmental challenges and the varied human responses to them. The data suggests a greater congruency to risk management, especially in terms of diversification and the cultivation of agave as a key buffer throughout the region. Distance also plays an important role, and underscores the local-level concentration of production. A distinction is shown between the La Quemada terraces and those associated with individual settlements. The former implies top-down decision making; the latter reflects bottom-up or collective group decisions. Finally, an alternative consideration to these paradigms lies in the extractive nature of the primate settlement system. Here additional subsistence requirements for large labor groups and specialists could indirectly encourage increased agricultural productivity.

Sheep in Wealth's Clothing: Social Reproduction across the Bronze Age to Iron Age Transition in Wiltshire, Southern England

The circulation of bronze is considered to be the principal vehicle of social reproduction for the later Bronze Age, with significant social investment in trade networks, systems of exchange, and social alliances. Substantial social upheaval is implied by the decline of bronze, as attested by the widespread deposition of hoards towards the end of this period. This article aims to fill a lacuna between the period of peak bronze hoarding and other vectors of change such as the manipulation of grain surpluses or the creation of hillforts. The reorganization of the Wiltshire landscape signifies transformation to a transhumant regime. Animals became increasingly important at the end of the Bronze Age, with daily life revolving around their management, dictating seasonal movement, and interaction. Investment in the social value of animals beyond pure subsistence requirements was a major factor filling the social gap left by the demise of bronze. This was accompanied by changes in the mode of production and the scales of social engagement.

Examining pediatric care for newly immigrated families: Perspectives of health care providers

ABSTRACTRespect for the ethnicity and cultural background of families are important components of health care delivery. However, the needs of new immigrants in pediatric care systems remain under-addressed in the literature. This study utilized a qualitative approach of interpretive description to elicit the pediatric health care experiences and needs of new immigrants to Canada, from the perspective of health care providers who worked extensively with newcomers. Two focus groups of multidisciplinary health care providers were conducted in a tertiary-level pediatric hospital.Results identify that the needs of new immigrant families are often insufficiently met by existing pediatric care practices. Needs include subsistence requirements such as income, transportation, and family understanding about the complex processes of health care in the new society. Newly immigrated families reportedly experience emotional adjustment and social support struggles and needs. Information and support to navigate the health care system are warranted. These formidable challenges invite proactive approaches, including navigation and resource finding supports as well as culturally responsive family-centered care.