Women's producer groups in rural KwaZulu: Limits and possibilities

Non‐agricultural ‘self‐help’ initiatives tend to be synonomous with handicraft activities. This paper addresses the potential of such initiatives in terms of income generation and developmental impact.

An outline of the context within which these initiatives may be understood is followed by an analysis of how rural producers respond to their conditions in an organizational sense. The paper's conclusions are derived from a discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of various organizational forms which includes the perceptions of the producers.     

Unwrapping a technology package: Burley,fertiliser, and hybrid maize in Malawi

Burley, fertiliser, and hybrid maize form a technology package designed to combine growth and the alleviation of poverty in Malawi. Adoption of the technology package was explored using hierarchical decision trees. The results showed that the three components formed a distinct package, although they were adopted neither simultaneously nor continuously. However, poorer smallholders, particularly women, generally lacked sufficient land and labour to adopt burley, and adoption of fertiliser and hybrid maize was constrained by lack of cash or credit. The scale of the technology package therefore meant that it was not adopted by smallholders cultivating 0,5 hectares or less, who constituted 48 per cent of smallholder households.     

Measuring low skills in Europe: how useful is the ISCED framework?

This paper aims to find a suitable definition of a low skilledworker, that can be applied in a consistent way across the variouscountries of the European Union. The International StandardClassification of Education (ISCED) is identified as the mostsuitable means of measuring skills over time and space, as thoseindividuals categorised as less than ISCED 3 are labelled ‘low-skilled’.The paper then uses three international surveys of educationalperformance to justify this choice. It is shown that those inthe <ISCED 3 group are likely to have a limited grasp ofthe skills needed in the modern workplace, and that this definitionalgroup captures most individuals who are categorised as low-skilledby more objective means. Thus this definition of low-skilledworkers appears to be useful and appropriate.     

A qualitative response analysis of UK firms' employment and output decisions

This paper investigates firms' employment and output decisions and presents some empirical evidence concerning the rationality of firms' expectations. The dymanic model is based on the assumptions of convex adjustment costs and monopolistic competition in the product market. The results are obtained using categorical information on individual firms contained in business surveys collected by the Confederation of British Industry. Ordered probit models are used to estimate the employment and output equations. We find that expected demand is a critical determinant of firms' decisions, the effect of changes in cost conditions is not as well determined, and the data are not consistent with the rational expectations hypothesis.     

Trade unionism and the employer in hotels and restaurants

This paper outlines George Bain's research findings on the employer's role in influencing white-collar union growth and development. It argues that the conclusions he draws from his research have validity in other industrial sectors and in hotels and restaurants specifically. Some parallels are drawn between the employment characteristics of private white-collar and hotel and restaurant employees paying particular attention to predominant management attitudes and arguing that these represent a major obstacle to future trade union growth. The suggestion is examined that trends in the ownership of the sector are influencing management policies and practices to become more supportive of trade unionism but it is concluded that these trends do not offer any substantial potential for unionisation.     

Subsistence and semi‐subsistence farming in selected EU new member states

Factor analysis and cluster analysis are used to analyze the attitudes and perceptions of agricultural households toward farming, commercialization, and barriers to and drivers for increased integration in agricultural markets. Data come from farms in five EU New Member States. The contribution of unsold output to total household income is valued. Stepwise linear regression is employed to detect variables useful in explaining the degree of agricultural market integration of farm households. The analysis indicates that subsistence farming is of utmost importance for the rural poor, particularly in Bulgaria and Romania. The proportion of consumption from own production, manual cultivation techniques, and distance to an urban center are negatively correlated with output sales. Rural development policies targeted at rural physical and market infrastructure might relieve some of these constraints.