Outsourcing child care,home cleaning and meal preparation

In this paper, the outsourcing of child care, home cleaning and meal preparation is analysed by means of a socio‐economic model that incorporates household‐economic, life cycle, lifestyle and health variables. The data (n = 700) were collected during a telephone survey in the Netherlands. About 10% of the households did not use any of the three outsourcing types. About 70 to 90% of households outsourced meal preparation at least once per month. In each household life cycle stage, the average monthly expenditures on outsourcing meal preparation were the highest of the three outsourcing categories. Factors affecting expenditures were generally the same for each type of outsourcing studied. In general, household economic variables including wage and working hours were unimportant in explaining the incidence and expenditures of outsourcing. The same holds for self‐reported health. All expenditure types were affected by life cycle variables. There was an indication that a traditional lifestyle and traditional family type affected outsourcing expenditures negatively. Education appeared as an important factor: regardless of gender, both medium‐ and higher‐educated people were more inclined to spend money on outsourcing than the lower educated. Especially, people younger than 44 years outsourced meal preparation. Outsourcing was neither restricted to nor especially practised by couples.     

Race,Gender, and Familial Status: Discrimination in One US Mortgage Lending Market

This paper, using data from the 1992 Boston Federal Reserve study of mortgage lending, reports preliminary evidence of patterns of gender and familial status discrimination that differ markedly by race in the US. White couples with children experienced familial status discrimination if the female partner was in the labor market, but not if she was at home raising her children. However, African-American or Hispanic couples with children suffered familial status discrimination if she stayed home to raise her children, but much less so, if at all, if she was in the labor market. This pattern of racial differentiation may reflect social norms dating back to slavery that have favored labor force participation for African-American and Hispanic mothers but not white mothers. On the other hand, it was true across racial groups that single women, more than single men, were disadvantaged in the mortgage market by children.     

Encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: the role of sustainability-focused events

Tourism is a potential setting for encouraging sustainable behaviour. One popular mechanism is to stage events with a sustainability focus, aimed at fostering behaviour change amongst attendees. This paper reports on a study of a sustainability-focused event in Australia. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) was used to explore if and how this event could potentially promote pro-environmental behaviour change amongst attendees. TTM provides a five-stage framework, linked to a series of 10 processes of change, with both attitudinal and behavioural dimensions. The stages comprise pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Findings suggest that this event attracts individuals already significantly committed to sustainable behaviour who are using the event as a source of encouragement and positive feedback for their lifestyle choices. They are not the audience that the organisers need to reach in order to achieve their aim of behaviour change on a broader scale. This event did, however, support the processes of change, particularly for those in the “action” and “maintenance” stages. This paper considers the implications of these findings and TTM as a research tool for the future promotion and marketing of these events to tourists, possible applications to tourism fairs and exhibitions, and to behavioural change in tourism generally.     

The Effectiveness of Post-Disaster Recovery Marketing Messages—The Case of the 2009 Australian Bushfires

An understanding of how best to communicate with the tourism market in the wake of a disastrous event is essential for destination marketing organizations seeking to manage the misperceptions and media-imposed attitudes held by potential visitors. To date, the literature remains silent in terms of the types of messages destination marketing organizations are best to employ when a disaster has hit and consequently marketers often take an “ad hoc” approach to their post-disaster communications that may or may not be effective in terms of encouraging visitation. In response to this knowledge gap, the research presented in this article adopted an experimental methodology to examine the effectiveness of nine disaster recovery message themes commonly used by destination marketing organizations. The messages were presented to respondents via a print advertisement promoting the Victorian region of Gippsland—a tourism region severely affected by the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires. The results revealed that a marketing message endorsed by a well-known and well-associated celebrity figure is likely to be most effective in encouraging tourists to return to or visit a disaster-affected destination 12 to 24 months following the event. The findings also revealed a significant relationship between past visitation and the time frame in which visitors will visit a disaster-affected region. Those who had visited the region four times or more were much more likely to return within 6 months of the event than less frequent visitors. A final important message revealed in this study was the fact that the tourism market is not averse to disaster recovery promotional activities, a concern often considered by destination marketers when planning their post-disaster recovery campaigns.     

Expectations,Strategies and Prospects of Farmers in View of Croatia’s Pending EU Accession

In Croatia, farmers prepare themselves for the impending EU accession and consider their future economic opportunities in and outside agriculture. This study on farmer's strategies reviews empirical evidence of a unique household survey conducted in early 2007 in Croatia. The main objective of this paper is to present new insights on the transition dynamics in one of the EU candidate states with good prospects to accede within the coming years. Based on empirical data we present a multinomial regression model on drivers of farm household’s livelihood strategies. Farm exit, farm expansion and the combination of farm and non-farm incomes are the main strategies which are tested against socio-economic variables with a potential influence on them.     

Economics at the FCC 2020–21: Closing the Connectivity Gap,COVID-19 and Telehealth,Spectrum Auctions,Communications Marketplace Report,and Economic Research

Review of Industrial Organization - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is responsible for regulation in the communications marketplace and for management of the nation’s non-federal...     

Planting food sustainability thinking and practice through STEM in the garden

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education has been identified as a keystone teaching and learning area for...