Welfare Schemes Research Articles

Female matters: Impact of a workfare program on intra-household female decision-making in rural India

Welfare schemes have since long been used as tools of poverty alleviation, particularly in the global South. Women have been targeted as beneficiaries of many of these schemes, given traditional gender norms often deprive them of opportunities for gainful employment, among others. In this paper, we study the effects of one of the largest welfare programs in the world, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in India. MGNREGS mandates a third of all employment for women and delivers wages directly into women's bank accounts, potentially triggering a change in household level outcomes in favour of women. This paper seeks to empirically investigate the impact of MGNREGS on female decision-making within the household in rural India. We use recently collected cross-sectional micro data in five states to examine whether the phased rollout of MGNREGS influences the share of female decision-makers across various categories of household decisions. We find strong positive effects of MGNREGS implementation on female decision-making power related to pattern of consumption of nutritious food, children's education, and female labour supply. Robustness checks show there is also substantial disagreement on the female as the key decision-makers on food consumption expenditures as well as male labour supply decisions. We argue that these effects are largely on account of changes to women's relative endowments. Implications for policy include refining program design to target female beneficiaries more suitably, thereby moving intra-household dynamics in their favour.

An unconditional basic income? How Dutch citizens justify their opinions about a basic income and work conditionality

AbstractThe article focuses on one of the core but controversial features of a universal basic income (UBI): its unconditionality. Using qualitative in-depth interviews collected in the Dutch municipality of Tilburg in 2018–2019, we examine the arguments underlying popular opinions about a UBI and work conditionality. The analysis suggests that these arguments can be interpreted from two theoretical perspectives. On the one hand, respondents make frequent use of deservingness criteria referring to the characteristics of welfare recipients, such as their need and work willingness. On the other hand, they justify their opinions using arguments related to the characteristics of welfare schemes, such as their administrative and financial feasibility. Our findings offer important insights concerning political actors who support (or oppose) the real-world implementation of a UBI.

The Legal Struggle of Gujarat Muslims to Access Pre-Matric Scholarships

Social and economic backwardness of Muslims in India in various fields, such as employment, education, housing and access to infrastructure, is well-documented, particularly in the Sachar Committee Report. Despite the constitutional promise of equality and non-discrimination, discrimination in various forms is the lived reality of Indian Muslims. Growing anti-Muslim prejudice in society and in the institutions of the State is responsible for Muslims’ inability to realise their rights to equality and non-discrimination. Often there is a legal struggle to enforce constitutionally guaranteed rights and access benefits in welfare schemes. This article discusses the legal struggle to access the pre-matric scholarship under the Prime Minister’s 15 Point Programme when the State of Gujarat refused to implement the scheme.

Big Data Analytics for Enhancing Students Experience in Higher Education – A Case Study

Big Data analytics in the recent past has evolved as an innovative branch in the field of information technology that has contributed in a significant manner to various areas of human endeavor. Some of the evident sectors in which big data is contributing in huge manner are natural disaster management and forecast, healthcare, agriculture, insurance, welfare schemes, cyber security, banking and many others. The education sector one amongst the other areas which has huge scope for enhancement by implementation of big data analytics. Big data analytics can provide insights about various unknown facts which can result in enhancement of student learning, better classroom planning, enhancement in lecture delivery and overall enhancement of student experience. Moreover, it can also result in easy decision making for management in a higher education institution and less administrative work for academic staff. This research is aligned in the same direction where a sample group of students in higher education are monitored with sensing devices to observer their attention levels while various pedagogical approaches are adopted for the comparison. This research yields specific facts about student attention levels based on the analysis that is done using SPSS analysis tool. This research considers students at different levels of bachelors study program in a higher education institution and monitors same cohort of student with various pedagogical methodologies. This research work is a mere effort to enhance student experience in higher education institutions by analyzing different learning approaches with student’s attention levels.

Social insurance participation and urban settlement intentions of China's floating population

AbstractSince the expansion of social insurance to migrants and the abolition of unequal regulations and controls related to the rural–urban migrants in recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the determinants of migrants' settlement intentions. Using the 2016 National Floating Population Dynamics Monitoring Survey (NFPDMS), this study examines the associations between migrants' urban social welfare participation and their settlement intentions, including long‐term settlement intention and transfer of one's hukou status. Results from logistic regression show that participation in urban social welfare schemes increases migrants' intention to have a long‐term residence in the city and to convert to urban hukou. Results also suggest that the impact of social insurance coverage on long‐term settlement intention as well as urban hukou intention increases as migrants spend more time in the destination city. Our study highlights the salient role of urban welfare coverage as a strong determinant of migrant workers' settlement intentions in urban China.

The Convergence of Crowd Funding and Zakat System in India: An Integrated Approach for Human Welfare

The impact of the Zakat system on human welfare is well established. In India, there is a significant development in terms of localised management of zakat system. However, the targeted delivery of zakat funds, unorganised collections and lack of transparency remain a matter of concern. There is no formal institutional mechanism for efficient Zakat distribution, and problems of circularity are at mostly affecting the progress of welfare mechanisms. Problems of circularity of Zakat funds are still, largely, incoherent and practically disconnected with the mechanics of philanthropic institutions. In our theoretical model, crowdfunding for welfare scheme is being treated as the determinant, which could mediate and alter the performance of zakat welfare. Further, make it more accessible and catering to more comprehensive economic benefits for the community. In this exploratory theoretical paper, we also examine the nature of a common platform for the Zakat distribution. In addition to this, how it could reduce the scrutiny of Government intervention and proper channelisation of Islamic philanthropic activities.

Socio-economic condition, welfare schemes, and occupational structure of ‘pattachitra’ artisans in Odisha, India

The aim of this paper is to examine the socio-economic conditions, welfare schemes, and occupational structure among pattachitra artisans in Puri district, Odisha (Eastern India). This study also tries to identify several barriers in the contemporary scenario, which hinders the sustainability of craft by limiting artisan’s livelihood. The field survey assisted in representing both the quantitative and qualitative results. With the use of purposive sampling, the sample size is 112 respondents (n) out of 350 total population (N). The application of inconsistency test, attribution theory, and correlation assisted in data analysis. The results indicate that low capital base, less decision-making power in the hands of women artisans, interference of machine products, and the problem of intermediaries block the development of this traditional craft in the current era. This study will be helpful for policymakers to understand the barriers encountered by traditional artisans. It provides suggestions concerning subsidy on raw materials, establishing fair price wholesale shops, giving financial support to build showrooms, initiating hassle-free promotional activities, and others to generate a sound and sustainable livelihood for the artisans. The uniqueness of this study lies in its qualitative findings that are unknown, and it is necessary to bring it to the forefront.

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH ON INEQUALITY IN INDIA

The rate of economic growth in India fluctuates with the world economic scenario. The developed countries being economically stable and highly advanced by technology, like U.S.A, France, Germany, Japan, and China faced the problem of economic crises. At the same time, the world comes to fluctuate their efficiency and empowerment to the leadership engagement in stabilizing the economy. In this paper, data taken from the Indian States as per capita income at the state level and compare it with all India average data. The Net State Domestic Product Per Capita Income (NSDPPCI), had taken on a current price for the short period 2011-2012 to 2016-2017. This paper compared the regional variation in state performance and compared the most riches states to inferior ones. The factors which affect economic performance are like stabilize the political stability in the state. We also focus comparison on the different political party announcements of the welfare scheme for the farmers and other poor people living in these states. Another factor like the level of education at states and center level, total population, and its growth rate, the public expenditure on the health sector. We measure income inequality, income distribution with the economic growth of India. KEYWORDS: Economic Growth; Inequality; Income Distribution; Political Stability.

Policy recommendations for enabling transition towards sustainable agriculture in India

Aligning existing agricultural polices with UN-Sustainable Development Goals is imperative for the transition towards a cleaner and planet friendly food production, especially for a geographically and demographically diverse country like India. In this context, the present study focuses on ascertaining the major social and environmental challenges affecting agriculture in India, while evaluating the potential of efficient policy restructure in boosting growth within this sector. The methodology incorporates a quantitative assessment of social, ecological and economic indicators of agricultural sustainability in India, coupled with a co-relation analysis between several nutrition and land-based indicators for leading agriculture states across the country. The results highlight that despite attaining sufficiency in terms of food production, access to food by all in the country remains a major challenge along with incoherence between certain Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators and their corresponding data values. Furthermore, a critical analysis of operational as well as recommended agriculture and farmer welfare policies indicate that formulation of an overarching policy influencing sustainable management of agricultural systems, combined with proper implementation of social welfare schemes, would lead to the timely realisation of SDG 1 (no poverty), SDG 2 (zero hunger), and SDG 3 (good health and well-being) in India. Consequently, an umbrella policy (National Policy on Eco-Agri-Food Systems) has been proposed by authors for sustainable management of the country’s entire agricultural value chain. Recommendations related to agricultural waste management and adoption of planetary healthy diets have also been suggested for enabling the smooth transition of agriculture as a sustainable enterprise in India.

How does the welfare state reduce crime? The effect of program characteristics and decommodification across 18 OECD-countries

PurposeThe article revisits the negative effect of welfare state schemes on crime rates with a focus on the pathways of that effect. Social support theory (SST) and institutional anomie theory (IAT) are two related theoretical approaches to explain why – and how – the welfare state might prevent criminal behavior. This article tests the relevance of these theories for cross-country and over-time variation in homicide rates with more precise disaggregated welfare state indicators than used previously. MethodsWe use panel regressions with country fixed effects and data for 18 OECD countries between 1990 and 2011. Disaggregated cross-national social expenditure and benefit generosity data is used to discriminate between pathways of welfare state influence on cross-national homicide. ResultsThe welfare state suppresses crime particularly through social support via generous unemployment benefits. Overall decommodification, the key measure to test IAT, however, does not have any effect on homicide. ConclusionsOnly some welfare state interventions matter for homicide rates.

Determinants of households' food insecurity with severity dimensions in Pakistan: Varying estimates using partial proportional odds model.

This study is conducted to determine the impact of some selected socioeconomic and demographic factors on households' food insecurity in Pakistan. Data are taken from national-level survey Household Integrated Income and Consumption Survey 2015-2016. Inclusion of gender dimensions of some important factors and estimation of varying estimates at four severity levels of households' food insecurity status using partial proportional odds model may be considered unique features of the study. It is concluded that household's income, employment, agricultural income, donations, parental education level and some households' characteristics are important factors for improving food security in Pakistan. Maternal education, and maternal paid employment compared to paternal education, and paternal paid employment show strong positive effects to improve severe food insecurity. Couple paid employment, livestock ownership and operating agricultural land seem to have the most effective role for improving food security. Social welfare programmes and religious institution of Zakat are helpful to cope with severe food insecurity in Pakistan. Some special efforts or development strategies are recommended to improve food insecurity of rural households and Baluchistan province. Moreover, the observed U-type quadratic impact of household size and the adverse impact of dependency ratio induce effective policies to control high birth rate in Pakistan. Hence, creation of employment opportunities especially for women, appreciation of couple paid employment, easy access to education for women, steps to raise level of education, growth of agricultural sector, rural development, social welfare and development schemes for Baluchistan, and continuation of Benazir Income Support Program are recommended to overcome severe and moderate level food insecurity in Pakistan. Since socioeconomic conditions and food insecurity issues of developing countries and especially in South Asian countries are homogeneous and therefore, the analysis in this study might be relevant to South Asian region.

Analysis of Retirement Benefits in Nigeria: A Case Study of Some Selected Federal Establishment

Retirement benefits due retirees has been so clouded with emotion and morality that the empirical facts around it have been neglected or overlooked. Most of the time, the justification people give for benefit of retirees is that a labourer deserve his wages or that having served for years, they deserve to retire with good benefit package. Little have been done around the benefits of package of the retirees to the employer. This study has been geared towards that direction. The study aimed to find answers to: what are the welfare packages available for retirees in Nigeria? What are the limitations inherent in the old and new pension schemes in Nigeria? What are the effects of the 2004 Pension Reform Act on the benefit of retirees? And, are there other benefit options for retirees in Nigeria? Using the descriptive survey method of research with the questionnaire method of data collection, 90 respondents were drawn from three purposefully selected federal establishments in Rivers State Nigeria. Data was presented in tables and analysed with percentage. The result of the study shows that the old welfare schemes is filled with many limitations which the new scheme have tried to cover; that the administrative process of the new pension scheme have given the pensioners hope and faith in the system; that both the old and new pension schemes could not be seen as containing enough benefit package for the retirees, since it does not cover health insurance, entrepreneurial roles of the retirees after retirement, creative and recreational facilities for retirees and housing scheme for retirees. The study also found that these packages lacking in both the old and new pension scheme will boost the welfare package of retirees in Nigeria if introduced into the new pension scheme, and the study so recommends.

COMPASSIONATE APPOINTMENT: AN EXCLUSIVE SOCIAL SECURITY SCHEME OF DEPENDENT BENEFIT IN INDIA

Compassionate appointment is a welfare scheme that facilitates Indian Government to provide employment to the legal heirs of government servants on compassionate basis upon fulfilling various other circumstances like eligibility, financial stance of the family, availability of vacancy and other criteria stipulated in the scheme or any other conditions decided time to time by the state or its agencies. This dependent benefit finds its scope purely from welfare scheme of India which is not compatible with universal labour system. The article provides a comprehensive view of the compassionate appointment. The article explores the significance of compassionate appointment in addressing the social security issues in India.

EMPOWERMENT OF DALITS IN THE POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA

Dalits constitute about 25% of the population in India. The Directive Principles of State Policy emphasize the role of State in the delivery of social justice, distributive justice and natural justice to Dalits and other marginalized sections of society. The State is also responsible for allocating judicious funds under various plan periods for undertaking various welfare and development schemes for the empowerment of Dalits. Since national independence, the governments have been taking certain remedial steps for the upliftment of the socio-economic status of Dalits in India. The state has put in place laws, policies and programmes without which even the modest progress in the overall situation would not have been possible. However, these welfare measures are quite inadequate and have to be more effectively implemented to enable the Dalits to overcome the continued subordination, exclusion and exploitation in India. The empowerment of Dalits in India is amplified in this paper on the basis of qualitative research methodology.

Tribal Welfare and Development Schemes – Impact on the Scheduled Tribes of Sittheri Hills Dharmapuri District in Tamilnadu

Tribal Welfare and Development Schemes – Impact on the Scheduled Tribes of Sittheri Hills Dharmapuri District in Tamilnadu

INCOME GENERATION SCHEMES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF TRIBAL WOMEN

Purpose of the study: The study tried to evaluate two issues which are socio-economic conditions of tribal women and the impact of welfare schemes financing by banks for income generation among tribal women.
 Methodology: This empirical research adopted a quantitative method by distributing a schedule to 120 tribal women located in a rural-based Khammam district of Telangana state. The data analyzed by using the one-way ANOVA, mean, regression analysis and standard deviation (S.D.) with the assistance of Statistical Package for Social Sciences to determining the impact of income generation schemes on socio-economic conditions.
 Main Findings: This study found that incomes are improved phenomenally after availing welfare schemes targeted at tribal women. However, the tribal women are needed to facilitate awareness of various schemes on circulation by the Government. The known income generation schemes were impacted positively among few tribal women and they have expressed satisfaction as there was significant empowerment in their livelihoods.
 Applications of this study: The findings of the study are useful for the government in implementing income generation activities to strengthen tribal women economically, socially and politically. It would be relevant to apply solutions for the problems encountering by tribal women.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: The impact of income generation schemes has been addressed categorically concerning empowerment. Therefore a determined plan of implementation of further action can significantly empower the tribal women in all respects.

Optimal Strategies for Reducing Number of People in the Social Security System.

Providing social security to the population in need has become a major expenditure for many governments. Reducing the number of dependents in the social security system and maintaining a dynamic economically active population is a high priority concern for policymakers. A good understanding of the dynamics of the social security system—specifically, who enters and who exits the system—would be helpful for formulating effective interventions. Here, we made use of the data of Hong Kong’s Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA), which is currently a basic welfare scheme in Hong Kong that provides supplementary payments to households that cannot support themselves financially. We proposed a stochastic model to examine the in- and out- movement in the CSSA scheme and conducted elasticity analyses. The elasticity analyses allowed us to identify the potential target groups of people that would lead to the largest reduction in the number of the CSSA recipients in the system. This analytical method can also reveal whether policies would be more effective in preventing people from entering the CSSA system or helping them leave the CSSA scheme. Our analyses suggest that targeting those aged 30–49 with children would have the largest impact. Additionally, we found that policies that aim to prevent this group from entering the CSSA system would be more effective in reducing the number of CSSA recipients compared with policies that aim to help them exit. In contrast, for the younger age group of 10–29, policies that help them leave CSSA would be more effective than policies that prevent them from entering CSSA. Providing employment for those unemployed in this younger group would be more effective. The results indicate that by tailoring measures to specific subgroups, the overall number of CSSA recipients would be reduced, thereby improving the efficiency of Hong Kong’s social security system, which has accounted for more than 16.5% of Hong Kong government expenditure in 2018, amounting to more than HKD 92 billion.

Social issues and Gerontological Health Changes among Elderly Population: A Review Study

India’s aging population is gradually increasing day by day. The elderly population faces multiple problems such as social, medical and psychological. There is a need to change social-life style for healthy ageing by increasing awareness and utilization of geriatric welfare schemes as well as accessibility to government health services for the elderly. The major needs of elderly were found to be economic dependence, ignorance to their advice, sad attitude towards life, loneliness, distant government health facilities and lack of awareness as well as utilization of geriatric welfare services. Therefore, it is required to recognize these problems and carry out regular IEC activities to increase the awareness for more utilization of geriatric welfare services. Further research, especially qualitative research, is needed to explore the depth of the problems of the elderly.

How to Achieve 'Sustainable Growth' for Rural India

Non-inclusive growth, faulty implementation and limited reach of various welfare schemes, lack of proper monitoring system at ground level, absence of functioning social infrastructure, low penetration of institutionalized credit, peculiarities of rural set-up are the reasons for less than optimal growth in the rural sector. While rural India presents immense growth potential, challenges in the agriculture sector drag it down; from structural and market deficiencies to issues of the water crisis, the Indian agriculture sector is faced with challenges that put a question mark on the sustainability of the current farm practices. This paper analyses the challenges in the rural sector to find ways and means for a long term sustainable growth to achieve goals in poverty reduction and human development index.

A Novel EN-TLBO-SVR Model for Analyzing Achievements of Government Schemes

Forecasting physical achievements of welfare and developmental schemes offered by government is always a challenging assignment. Studies undertaken to address this problem using data mining techniques are not fully efficient when the number of features is more than that of samples. This paper presents a novel hybrid machine learning model based on support vector regression, which exhibits magnificent generalisation capability on small samples with proper selection of hyper-parameters using teaching-learning-based optimisation along with elastic net for feature selection. For predicting achievement, a dataset pertaining to housing scheme of Government of India is used where number of samples available is small. It is observed that the proposed hybrid model EN-TLBO-SVR has not only outperformed the use of particle swarm optimisation for hyper-parameter selection, but also kernel principal component analysis and sequential forward floating selection for dimensionality reduction with an additional advantage of identifying significant features present in the samples.