The Determinants of Nonfarm Activities and Incomes of Rural Households in Mexico,with Emphasis on Education

This paper presents the main results of a study of the effects of education (as well as other household assets) on the choice of activities and incomes of rural Mexican households. Our study examines the various income sources, as well as the education of the household's head and its members. Implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment.     

Labor allocation in transition: Evidence from Chinese rural households

Empirical models are developed in this paper to quantitatively analyze households' participation in decisions on hiring labor and supplying labor off the farm, hired labor demand and off-farm labor supply of rural Chinese households. Econometric estimates use micro-level data from Zhejiang province over the period 1995–2002. The main results suggest that the decisions to hire labor and participate off the farm are made jointly and are positively correlated. A household's labor demand decreases with increasing wages for hired labor, whereas the effect of the wages of off-farm workers on a household's labor supply differs significantly depending on the household's kind of labor market participation. The results also indicate that the accumulation of productive assets, the development of livestock production and agricultural prices have increasing effects on labor demand but reducing effects on a household's off-farm labor supply. Land market integration enhances participation significantly but has no significant impact on time allocation. Finally, the results suggest non-separability between hired labor demand and household characteristics, indicating the rural labor market in Zhejiang province is still functioning imperfectly.     

Women's Economic Status in Rural China: Household Contributions to Male–Female Disparities in the Wage–Labor Market

Rapid industrial growth in China coupled with economic reforms in the rural areas has created a growing demand for rural women's labor, though often at substantially lower wages than those earned by men employed in the same sector. An analysis of data collected in rural Guangdong province suggests that households may contribute to the observed male–female market wage differential through their influence in the formation of individuals' reservation wages. Under these circumstances, external employment opportunities, while no doubt serving to increase the household's overall level of income, may, on their own, be a less effective mechanism for raising the economic status of women. On the contrary, market wage signals may serve to reinforce, rather than to ameliorate, sex-based differences that arise within the household.     

Retesting the Separability of China＇s Rural Households

This article retests the separability of China’s rural households in light of growing doubt about the sustainability of high economic growth in China.If a household’s production decisions are "separable "from the household’s consumption decisions,generally this suggests there is no surplus labor.Many scholars aver that China’s surplus rural labor has spurred rapid economic growth,but concerns have arisen as to whether China still has surplus labor available.We investigate this issue using rural household panel data from 1993 to 2009.The regression results confirm that households in rural China have progressed from being non-separable to separable.The estimation results for both the entire country and regions reject the separability hypothesis before 2004 but fail to reject the hypothesis after 2004(with the exception of the central region).These results suggest that China ’s surplus labor supply is dwindling,especially in the eastern and the western regions.The sustainability of China’s high economic growth is questionable in the absence of a large reservoir of surplus rural labor.     

Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Latin America: Overview and Policy Implications

Rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and incomes (RNFI) are crucial to Latin American rural households. The 11 rural household income studies in this volume, reviewed in this paper, use 1990s data and show that RNFI averages 40% of rural incomes. RNFI and RNFE have grown quickly over the past three decades. The review of evidence provided some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of Latin American rural households. In terms of shares of rural incomes: (1) nonfarm wage incomes exceed self-employment incomes; (2) RNFI far exceeds farm wage incomes; (3) local RNFI far exceeds migration incomes; (4) Service-sector RNFI far exceeds manufactures RNFI. These findings suggest the need for more development program attention to wage employment in the service sector, versus the traditional focus on small enterprise manufactures. Moreover, poor households and zones tend to have higher shares in their incomes but lower absolute levels of RNFI as compared to richer households and zones. The RNFE of the poor tend to be the low-paid nonfarm equivalent of semi-subsistence farming. Raising the capacity of the poor to participate in the better-paid types of RNFE is crucial — via employment skills training, education, infrastructure, credit. Finally, RNFE has grown fastest and been most poverty-alleviating where there are dynamic growth motors, in particular in the agricultural sector, but also in tourism, links to urban areas, mining and forestry. This means that developing RNF jobs cannot be done at the expense of programs promoting agricultural development.     

Human Capital and Hours Worked of Children in Cambodia: Empirical Evidence for Policy Implications*

This study uses data from the Cambodian Child Labor Survey 2001/02 (CCLS‐2001/02) to investigate the trade‐off between child labor and their human capital formation. It also investigates the determinants of child schooling and that of the income earned from child labor. This study finds that children's education is a significant determinant of their wage rate, which implicitly explains the logic behind the household's decision to allow a child to both work and study, and thus explains why parents keep investing in their children's education. We also find that non‐poor households and fathers’ and mothers’ education have statistically significant effects on child schooling. Finally, this study has found that if children's average working hours are below the threshold level of 22 h per week, then education is not affected. These research findings have policy implications for the human capital development of children, as well as for broader social policy in Cambodia.     

Investment challenges in the hotel industry in Kigali,Rwanda: Hotel managers' perspectives

Developing countries today compete to attract foreign direct investment to their local hotel industry. Many have therefore already changed their policies on foreign investment in order to compete effectively. Recovering from the 1990s genocide, the Rwandan Government has created an environment conducive to investment, to attract both local and foreign investment finance. This paper discusses the tourism investment policy context in Rwanda. It describes a survey of Kigali hotel managers' perceptions and opinions on challenges for investment in the country's hotel industry. The survey found that the perceived weaknesses of investing in the hotel sector are closely related to problems faced by the Rwandan tourism sector in general, such as the perception that Rwanda is not a safe tourism destination, the lack of skilled labour in tourism services, the lack of finances in the form of loans to potential investors and the lack of adequate tourism infrastructure.     

The effect of spouses' relative education on household time allocation

Does spouses' relative education explain their household's distribution of labor? This paper analyzes the effect of spouses' education on time allocated to housework and paid work. To address endogeneity concerns, I exploit changes in spouses' relative education due to remarriage to identify its effects on their time allocation. I find that when a husband marries a wife with a higher relative education than their previous spouse, his share of time on housework increases while his share of time on paid work decreases. In contrast, I find nonsignificant results when a wife remarries a more educated husband than her previous one. I also find that changes in the spouse's education reduce the probability of a spouse staying at home. These findings show that relative human capital plays a role in household labor distribution and motivates a more gender-neutral division of labor within households due to a more evenly distributed time allocation.     

Cooperative patronage: The National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi in Kasungu District

This paper estimates the determinants of farmers' decisions to join a rural producer organisation, the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi (NASFAM), in Kasungu District. Data for the study were collected in June and August 2003 using household-level questionnaires and stratified random sampling, where strata were membership status and gender. Probit analysis of 250 farmers shows that off-farm sources of income, distance of the farmer's household from Kasungu District centre, age of the farmer, tobacco farming, education, household level land holding and gender determined the decision to join NASFAM. These results suggest that farmers should be informed of the potential benefits of participating in rural development efforts, and that rural communication and information infrastructure should be improved so as to reduce the costs of information access and transactions in general, if participation in organisations such as NASFAM is to be enhanced.     

Like father,like son? Parental input,access to higher education,and social mobility in China

This paper studies the role of parental input in university access in the context of a 10-fold expansion of China's higher-education sector since 1999. Using a Logit regression, we find that an increase in a parent's education level significantly raises their child's probability of entering university. Moreover, the effects of parental involvement and children's trust towards their parents on university entrance are highly significant. The results are robust to Probit and Linear-Probability-Model specifications. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that for rural and/or worse-educated families, parental involvement significantly affects the child's access to university, while for urban and/or better-educated families, the child's own study attitude is key for progression to university. To address the confounder of genetic inheritance, we use regression discontinuity and two-stage least squares and find that the nine-year compulsory education policy launched in 1986 not only increased the education years of the first generation by about 1.66 years, but has also had a lasting effect by raising the second generation's probability of access to university by 11.77%.     

Indonesia's Trade and Price Interventions: Pro-Java and Pro-Urban

In 1987 and 1995 Indonesia's price and trade policies (intervention regime) increased the income of Java's urban centres and reduced that of people living in rural Java and the other islands. This happened because the regime protected manufacturing activities, most of them located in Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya, and taxed primary sector based activities, located outside urban Java. It protected some primary sector based activities directly, but the entire intervention regime, with manufacturing protection included, taxed them. As a result, regions deriving income from primary sector based activities lost. Indonesia's intervention regime is regressive: it transfers income from poorer to richer regions. This regime and its effects on regional incomes continue. Governments have designed programs to raise the income of Eastern Indonesia, but have omitted the most effective instrument: opening the economy to international competition. A serious attempt to reduce regional income disparities should begin by eliminating barriers to international trade.     

Decomposing inequality and poverty in post-war Rwanda: The roles of gender,education, wealth and location

This paper provides an overview of poverty and inequality in post-war Rwanda. Rwanda is one of the poorest countries in the world, and has recently become one of the most unequal. High levels of poverty and inequality have important implications not only in terms of evaluations of social welfare, but also for management of social tensions and the propensity for violent conflict in the future. This paper uses the first two available and nationally representative rounds of household surveys –EICV1 2000 and EICV2 2005 – to decompose and identify the major ‘sources' of poverty and inequality in the country. I find stark differences in vulnerability to poverty by region, gender and widow status of the head of household. I additionally find important changes in the ‘income generating functions' of Rwandan households, and that distribution of land and financial assets are increasingly important in determining the inter-household distribution of income.     

农村居民生活垃圾处理中的亲环境行为研究——以河南省文留镇为例

随着农村现代化进程的不断加快,农村的人居环境问题日益突出,农村人居环境的恶化严重制约了农村的城镇化发展。农村居民是农村生活垃圾处理的主体,只有农村居民提升自身的环保意识,才能让农村居民产生更加积极的亲环境意愿和行为。依据计划行为理论和规范激活理论的整合框架,运用结构方程模型分析方法。结果表明：农村居民亲环境态度、感知行为控制、主观规范、个人规范都对农村居民生活垃圾处理中的亲环境意愿产生正向的影响;后果意识和责任归属对个人规范产生正向的影响;亲环境意愿对亲环境行为产生正向的影响。以此提出相关对策建议来提升农村居民在生活垃圾处理中的亲环境意愿和行为。     

Rural Nonfarm Activities and Poverty in the Brazilian Northeast

This paper combines two complementary data sets to present a disaggregated spatial profile of poverty in the Brazilian Northeast, and to investigate the importance of nonagricultural activities for its rural dwellers. We present both univariate and multivariate profiles of nonagricultural employment and discuss its determinants. While the main occupational difference between the rural poor and the rural nonpoor in Brazil seems to be the greater reliance of the former on paid agricultural employment (vis-à-vis own cultivation), rather than access to nonagricultural activities, the evidence nevertheless suggests that diversification into this growing sector provides both an important complement to the budgets of the poor, and possibly a self-insurance mechanism against negative shocks. Despite the substantial heterogeneity of the sector, two general findings are robust: returns to education are comparatively high; and location in relation to urban areas is an important determinant of both employment and earnings in rural nonagricultural activities.     

Parental Education and child Nutrition in Indonesia

This study uses 1989 Susenas household data to examine the impact of parental education on pre-school children's nutritional status, as measured by weight-for-age Z-scores. Reduced form regressions are estimated separately for boys and girls in rural and urban areas; explanatory variables include mother's and household head's education; per capita household expenditure; and aspects of the household sanitary environment. The analysis controls for influence of unobserved heterogeneity at village level, e.g. differences in prices and medical service provision. The estimates show a significant effect of parental schooling on child health status, varying between urban and rural areas, and by child gender and age. Mothers with secondary education typically have healthier boys than those with less schooling, while this effect is seen for girls only if the mother has more than secondary education. Maternal schooling significantly affects 2–5 year olds' health, but has little direct effect on that of younger children.     

Human Resource Underutilization in an Era of Poverty Reduction: An Analysis of Unemployment and Underemployment in Ghana

Abstract: Unemployment is more prevalent in urban than rural Ghana, while underemployment is pervasive in rural Ghana. The paper analyses trends in these two forms of human resource underutilization and examines their major determinants. It is found that a positive association exists between the underemployment rate and the incidence of poverty in specific industries. The data supports the importance of demographics, education and firm sizes as major determinants of unemployment. Furthermore, these factors together with type of employment are the factors influencing underemployment. To reduce the level of unemployment and underemployment, the government should provide support for: (1) growth of private sector firms and informal sector activities; and (2) rural alternatives to agricultural activities. These implications are also relevant to other African countries trying to combat the twin problems of unemployment and underemployment.     

A Model of a Padi Farming Household in Central Java∗

A model of a padi-producing household is developed permitting effects of changes in exogenous variables to be traced through simultaneous changes in household production and consumption behaviour. The model, applied to a village in Central Java, incorporates both a Cobb-Douglas function to represent production of padi for a representative household, and a linear expenditure system to describe the household's consumption behaviour. Assuming a perfect labour market, the model is used to estimate some elasticities of policy significance. An important finding is that padi output, market surplus, employment and rural wages are all positively related to padi price.     

城乡义务教育服务非均衡问题研究——基于“投入-产出-受益”三维视角的实证分析

本文基于“投入-产出-受益”的三维视角,通过构建结构方程模型,实证分析城乡义务教育服务投入差距、产出差距和受益非均衡的相互关系。结果显示：城乡地区普通初中和小学师资力量的差距以及义务教育服务的生产效率差距,是导致城乡义务教育服务产出差距的重要原因;而城乡义务教育服务的产出差距以及城乡居民义务教育服务的偏好差异,又是导致城乡义务教育服务受益非均衡的重要原因。据此,本文认为,应着力改善农村教师的工作和生活条件,吸引人才充实农村地区的师资队伍;同时,进一步提高农村教育资源的利用效率,并增强农村居民对义务教育服务的偏好强度,最终实现从多维的角度推进城乡义务教育服务的统筹和均等化。     

Liberalizing rural-to-urban construction land transfers in China: Distribution effects

China's land market is characterized by a dual urban-rural system, with the government in control of rural-urban land transfers. In recent years, different types of pilot projects have been implemented to experiment with liberalizing markets for rural-urban construction land transfers. The objective of this study is to gain insights into the distributional effects of three different types of land liberalization rules by making a comparative analysis of three pilot projects carried out under each of these liberalization rules. We find that transfers facing more liberalized rules result in higher shares of land revenue flowing to the rural sector and thereby reduce the ruralurban income gap. But direct transfers between rural and urban land users also contribute to growing income inequality within the rural sector, as households living in urban fringes benefit relatively more from such transfers. A tradable quota system can reduce the impact of location on the price of land, and thereby contribute to a more equal distribution of the revenues of rural-urban land transfers within the rural sector.     

The level of poverty in South Africa: Consideration of an experiential measure

Poverty is usually measured on a basis that is either subjective (respondent's perceptions) or objective (relating to some externally set standard). This article draws on an ‘experiential’ measure of poverty in which respondents with children report on whether or not they have had sufficient money to feed their children. Data from South Africa's 1994 October Household Survey showed that this and other measures revealed similar levels of poverty. However, the picture drawn of the social distribution of poverty suggests a higher incidence amongst those in squatter settlements and a lower incidence in rural areas.