This study focuses on food waste generated by households in four Nordic countries: Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Based on existing literature we present comparable data on amounts and monetary value of food waste; explanations for food waste at household level; a number of public and private initiatives at national levels aiming to reduce food waste; and a discussion of ethical issues related to food waste with a focus on possible contributions from ecocentric ethics. We argue that reduction of (...) food waste at household level, which has an impact on issues such as climate change and unjust distribution of food resources, needs to be based on an appreciative and relational understanding of nature and food and not only on economic and moralizing arguments. This is done by drawing on an ecocentric perspective where food is seen as one of the areas where new narratives need to be developed to establish cultural habits replacing a focus on affluence and individual choice with a focus on participatory embeddedness in a more-than-human lifeworld. (shrink)

The fact that the permeability between family and work scopes produces work-family conflict (WFC) is well established. As such, this research aims to check whether the unequal involvement in household chores between men and women is associated with increased WFC in women and men, interpreting the results also from the knowledge that arise from gender studies. A correlational study was carried out by means a questionnaire applied to 515 subjects (63% men) of two independent samples of Spanish men (...) and women without emotional relationship, who lived with their heterosexual partner. As expected, results firstly show unequal involvement in household chores by women and men as it is higher in women that in men, and the perception of partner involvement is lower in women that in men. Secondly, those unequal involvements relate differently to men and women on different ways of work-family interaction. They do not increase WFC in women comparing to men, although there are tangentially significant differences in work conflict (WC) and statistically significant in family conflict (FC). However, perception of partner involvement on household chores increases WFC both in men and in women but not WC nor FC. Nevertheless, increase on marital conflict (MC) by domestic tasks neither affect in a significant way WFC in women nor in men, but increase WC in both women and men and FC only in women. Results also confirm that subject involvement on household chores is not a significant predictor of WFC in women nor in men, and that MC by domestic tasks is a statistically significant predictor in women of WFC and FC, but not in men. Thus, results show that traditional gender roles still affect the way men and women manage the work and family interaction, although the increased WFC due to involvement in housework is not exclusive to women, but also occurs in men. Personal and institutional recommendations are made on the basis of these results to cope with these conflicts. (shrink)

Food security is a fundamental element of community health. Informal house-lot food growing, by providing convenient access to diverse varieties of affordable and nutritious produce, can provide an important support for community food security. In this exploratory assessment of the contribution home food gardening makes to community food security, in-depth interviews were conducted with gardeners in two contrasting neighborhoods in Toronto, Canada. A typology of food gardeners was developed, and this qualitative understanding of residential food production was then assessed from (...) a community food security perspective. It was found that growing food contributes to food security at all income levels by encouraging a more nutritious diet. The sustainability of household food sourcing and gardeners’ overall health and well-being also increased with food production. Secure access to suitable land to grow food and gardening skills were the most significant barriers found to residential food production. (shrink)

We use data collected among Hadza hunter-gatherers between 2005 and 2009 to examine hypotheses about the causes and consequences of men’s foraging and food sharing. We find that Hadza men foraged for a range of food types, including fruit, honey, small animals, and large game. Large game were shared not like common goods, but in ways that significantly advantaged producers’ households. Food sharing and consumption data show that men channeled the foods they produced to their wives, children, and their consanguineal (...) and affinal kin living in other households. On average, single men brought food to camp on 28% of days, married men without children at home on 31% of days, and married men with children at home on 42% of days. Married men brought fruit, the least widely shared resource, to camp significantly more often than single men. A model of the relationship between hunting success and household food consumption indicates that the best hunters provided 3–4 times the amount of food to their families than median or poor hunters. These new data fill important gaps in our knowledge of the subsistence economy of the Hadza and uphold predictions derived from the household and kin provisioning hypotheses. Key evidence and assumptions backing prior claims that Hadza hunting is largely a form of status competition were not replicated in our study. In light of this, family provisioning is a more viable explanation for why good hunters are preferred as husbands and have higher fertility than others. (shrink)

The impacts of COVID-19 may be magnified in a shared environment like the household, especially with people spending extended time at home during the pandemic. Family resilience is the ability of a family to adapt to crisis and can be a protective factor against stress and negative affect. While there have been calls to address family resilience during the pandemic, there is a lack of empirical study on its benefit. In this dyadic observational study, we sought to investigate the (...) concordance of family members’ psychological responses to COVID-19, whether dyad members’ risk factors mutually affected each other’s psychological responses, and importantly, whether family resilience was a significant factor in these responses. A total of 200 family dyads from the same household completed the Family Resilience Assessment Scale and questionnaires on COVID-19 threat perception, impacts, and exposure. We found concordant dyad responses for COVID-19 threat perception, but not for psychological impact. Using the Actor-Partner-Interdependence Model framework, we found that one’s psychological impact was affected by the financial impact from both dyad members. After controlling for risk factors and demographic covariates, we found that family resilience significantly associated with lower COVID-19 psychological impact, though not with threat perception. The findings suggest that both family and individual factors need to be addressed and there may be benefit in addressing multilevel risk and protective factors using an ecological systems approach, which may help prepare the population for future crises. (shrink)

The large numbers of children working in developing countries continue to provoke calls for an end to such employment. However, many reformers argue that efforts should focus on ending the exploitation of children rather than depriving them of all opportunities to work. This posture reflects recognition of the multiplicity of needs children have and the diversity of situations in which they work. Unfortunately, research typically neglects these complexities and fails to distinguish between types of labor market jobs, dismisses household (...) chores as irrelevant, and conceptualizes children’s needs largely in terms of the education they require for successful careers. Based on data collected in schools in Franca, Brazil, where children often combine school with work in the shoe industry, this study first examined the implications of labor market jobs and household work for their health, life satisfaction, and education. Analyses suggested that both forms of work negatively affected children’s welfare, but the effects of household work were more extensive, especially for girls. The second part focused on children with labor market jobs and examined how facets of their jobs as well as their after-work household duties affected their welfare. A lack of discretion on the job undermined the health of both boys and girls, higher pay adversely affected boys’ education, and housework had detrimental effects on all indicators of girls’ welfare. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for further research and suggests the needs for attention to different forms of work activities within families. It concludes with suggestions for multinationals sourcing in developing areas that go beyond the usual calls for ridding their facilities and supply networks of child workers. (shrink)

Medhātithi reduces Manu’s descriptions of the householder as support and source of the āśramas to his performance of the five great sacrifices. Patrick Olivelle characterizes Medhātithi’s interpretation as “radical,” but a strong preliminary case might be made in its favor. Nonetheless, there are a number of reasons to resist Medhātithi’s interpretation. The more plausible interpretation of these passages is also the most straightforward. The householder is the support of the other three āśramas because he is economically productive. He is the (...) source of the āśramas because he has children. The householder is the best of the āśrama, in turn, because the broad benefits that he produces by these means, in particular, are so essentially important. Descriptions of the householder as source and support of the āśramas appear in a wide range of texts. In most of these contexts, they play a central role in justifying the status of the householder. At the same time, these claims often betray the same kind of ambiguity that Medhātithi notes. The fact that Manu counts these descriptions as distinct reasons for the householder’s superiority does not imply that other texts say the same thing. His precedent, however, is worth keeping in mind when interpreting parallel passages in other contexts. (shrink)

This paper uses multilevel modelling and Demographic and Health Survey data from five African countries to investigate the relative contributions of compositional and contextual effects of socioeconomic status and place of residence in perpetuating differences in the prevalence of malnutrition among children in Africa. It finds that community clustering of childhood malnutrition is accounted for by contextual effects over and above likely compositional effects, that urban–rural differentials are mainly explained by the socioeconomic status of communities and households, that childhood malnutrition (...) occurs more frequently among children from poorer households and/or poorer communities and that living in deprived communities has an independent effect in some instances. This study also reveals that socioeconomic inequalities in childhood malnutrition are more pronounced in urban centres than in rural areas. (shrink)

Efforts to combat the COVID-19 crisis brought mountains of legislation and guidance to coerce or encourage people to stay at home and reduce the spread of the virus. During peak lockdown in the United Kingdom regulations defined when people could or could not leave their homes. Meanwhile guidance on social distancing advised people to stay within ‘households’. This paper explores the legislation under lockdowns in the UK from March to October 2020 and the implications for women’s gendered caring roles. The (...) regulations and guidance assumed that households were separate units and ignored the interdependencies which exist between households and between individuals and wider society. The continuing focus in the lockdown regulations has been on households as autonomous, safe, adequate and secure. This overlooks the interdependency of human life, gendered aspects of caring and the inequalities of housing and living conditions, highlighted by feminist scholarship. (shrink)

Food security is one of the major concerns in the Philippines. Although livestock and poultry production accounts for a significant proportion of the country’s agricultural output, smallholder households are still vulnerable to food insecurity. The current study aims to examine how livestock production and selling difficulties affect smallholder households’ food-insecure conditions. For this objective, Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Data in Emergencies Monitoring (DIEM) system. We found that production and (...) selling difficulties significantly adversely affect food insecurity in the Philippines. However, their effects vary according to the severity of food insecurity. In particular, production and selling difficulties affect the households’ likelihood of eating less healthy and nutritious food equally. However, the production difficulties have more negligible impacts on the possibility of skipping meals and even ambiguous impacts on the likelihood of not eating for a whole day compared to the effects of selling difficulties. Moreover, we also found that the market plays a crucial role in facilitating not only livestock trading but also livestock production (e.g., purchase of feed and medicines). Based on these findings, we suggest that the livestock market needs to be expanded and regulated to maintain the balancing prices between livestock products and products and services used for livestock production, and facilitate the product-exchanging mechanism. (shrink)

The large numbers of children working in developing countries continue to provoke calls for an end to such employment. However, many reformers argue that efforts should focus on ending the exploitation of children rather than depriving them of all opportunities to work. This posture reflects recognition of the multiplicity of needs children have and the diversity of situations in which they work. Unfortunately, research typically neglects these complexities and fails to distinguish between types of labor market jobs, dismisses household (...) chores as irrelevant, and conceptualizes children’s needs largely in terms of the education they require for successful careers. Based on data collected in schools in Franca, Brazil, where children often combine school with work in the shoe industry, this study first examined the implications of labor market jobs and household work for their health, life satisfaction, and education. Analyses suggested that both forms of work negatively affected children’s welfare, but the effects of household work were more extensive, especially for girls. The second part focused on children with labor market jobs and examined how facets of their jobs as well as their after-work household duties affected their welfare. A lack of discretion on the job undermined the health of both boys and girls, higher pay adversely affected boys’ education, and housework had detrimental effects on all indicators of girls’ welfare. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for further research and suggests the needs for attention to different forms of work activities within families. It concludes with suggestions for multinationals sourcing in developing areas that go beyond the usual calls for ridding their facilities and supply networks of child workers. (shrink)

This study examined two key dimensions of women’s status in Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region of Ethiopia based on regional data collected from five randomly selected zones and one city administration; namely, Sidama, Hadya, Gamo Gofa, South Omo, Bench Maji and Hawassa City Administration. The analysis revealed that while joint decision is fairly high, women’s independent decision making on key household domains is generally low. Significant proportions of women in the region are exposed to violence by their partners (...) ranging from insult to heavy physical injury. The fact that nearly half of the women experienced insult and close to a quarter of them faced beating is indicative of the low status of women in society. The regression analysis indicated that seven variables determine the occurrence of violent acts against women in the study area, namely household size, education, access to radio, value of children index, wealth index and level of women autonomy. On the other hand, decision making autonomy is affected by wealth status, household size, access to radio and sex preference index. Finally, the study highlighted the importance of addressing the limited technical and operational capacities to implement gender policy and legal frameworks effectively and efficiently. (shrink)

For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home and family for a celibate life and the search for liberation represent an enigma. The Vedic religion, centered on the married household, had no place for such a figure. Much has been written about the Indian ascetic but hardly any scholarly attention has been paid to the married householder with wife and children, generally referred to in Sanskrit as grhastha: "the stay-at-home." The institution of the householder is (...) viewed implicitly as posing little historical problems with regard to its origin or meaning. This volume problematizes the figure of the householder within ancient Indian culture and religion. It shows that the term grhastha is a neologism and is understandable only in its opposition to the ascetic who goes away from home (pravrajita). Through a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a wide range of inscriptions and texts, ranging from the Vedas, Dharmasastras, Epics, and belle lettres to Buddhist and Jain texts and texts on governance and erotics, this volume analyses the meanings, functions, and roles of the householder from the earliest times unti about the fifth century CE. The central finding of these studies is that the householder bearing the name grhastha is not simply a married man with a family but someone dedicated to the same or similar goals as an ascetic while remaining at home and performing the economic and ritual duties incumbent on him. The grhastha is thus not a generic householder, for whom there are many other Sanskrit terms, but a religiously charged concept that is intended as a full-fledged and even superior alternative to the concept of a religious renouncer. (shrink)

Niger is regularly affected by food insecurity, mainly due to the high sensitivity of its agricultural sector to climate variability. Despite the support from multiple development institutions and households’ willingness to address food security, hunger and malnutrition continue to challenge many vulnerable households. This study aims to analyze household livelihood strategies toward food security and assess factors determining their resilience. To address the issue, cluster analysis and the principal component analysis were used to identify the different livelihood strategies and (...) to construct a resilience index, respectively. Regression analysis was used to identify the most significant factors determining households’ resilience. The results indicate there were six different household types—pastoralist-extensive agriculturalists, farmers, agro-pastoralists, public service employees, entrepreneurs and wage employees—however, the majority of households obtained their livelihood from both agriculture and livestock (agro-pastoral systems). The principal component analysis highlighted that the pastoralist-extensive agriculturalists are the most resilient followed by public service employees, while households focused on wage labor are the least resilient, followed by entrepreneurs. In terms of gender, the study reveals that households headed by men are more resilient than those headed by women. However, the resilience components including income and food access, assets and adaptive capacity are the most correlated with the households’ resilience to food insecurity. Furthermore, the regression analysis results reveal that the household size, crop production, farming experience, livestock size and number of coping strategies are the most significant factors determining household resilience to food insecurity. Consequently, to face the challenges of climate change and food security, rational investments in agriculture are necessary to transit rural household land-use practices to climate-smart agriculture. (shrink)

Over the past 20 years, a small but productive number of scholars have examined the mechanics and implications of the relationship between foreign-born, female domestic workers, and their employers, both in the USA and around the world. Although they have drawn compellingly on ethnographic methods and sociological theory to understand this relationship within the context of a global economy, few scholars have considered its sociolinguistic dimensions and the ways in which the differential of power between employer and employee is maintained (...) through particular linguistic strategies. In this paper, I seek to redress this lacuna by studying household Spanish handbooks, artifacts designed to teach a register of the language composed of formal commands and commonplace lexical items. I perform discourse analysis on three such handbooks published in the USA between 1959 and 2012, highlighting the different ways in which they attempt to facilitate communication between English-speaking employers and their Spanish-speaking employees. Separated by the span of a generation, these handbooks instantiate popular ideologies regarding the Spanish language and its speakers at the time of their publication – ideologies that have remained largely unchanged over the course of 53 years. At the same time, this sequential analysis illustrates the dynamic ways in which domestic relationships have been conceived over time, ensuring their asymmetry through discursive tactics that have become increasingly covert. (shrink)

Household structure may have strong effects on reproduction. This study uses household demographic data for 59 women in a Caribbean village to test evolutionary hypotheses concerning variation in reproductive strategies. Father-absence during childhood, current household composition, and household economic status are predicted to influence age at first birth, number of mates, reproductive success, and pair-bond stability. Criterion variables did not associate in a manner indicative of r- and K-strategies. Father-absence in early childhood had little influence on (...) subsequent reproduction. Household wealth and alloparenting were positively associated with age at first birth. Alloparenting was negatively associated with reproductive success. Women in long-term conjugal unions had higher reproductive success than did single women. Number of adult male kin resident in the household was negatively associated with women’s number of mates. (shrink)

Female entrepreneurship is steadily increasing around the world especially in developing countries where lack of job opportunities has forced people toward self-employment, Pakistan being no exception. Females in Pakistan are now actively participating in economic activities to get recognition of their abilities and to generate employment opportunities. Given the changing role of females over time, the study seeks the answer to a very important question i.e Are females in Pakistan are motivated towards self-employment then being employed if yes then what (...) is the magnitude and areas/sectors they are mainly engaged in? Specifically, this study aims to analyze the magnitude of the female-headed household enterprises in Pakistan by sector province, and region. In addition study evaluates the socio-economic background influencing their decision to own and operate household enterprise – or becoming self-employed. For, the assessment purpose study has used cross-sectional data of the PSLM/HIES for the period 2018-2019. Finings indicates that the majority of self-employed females in Pakistan are engaged in small-medium enterprises. Province wise break up shows, Punjab has the most female-owned household enterprises. The present study is unique in the sense that sector-wise magnitude by province and region for female entrepreneurs has not been comprehensively documented earlier. (shrink)

This study analyzes the influence of grandmothers’ household residency on the presence of low height-for-age and excessive fat, waist circumference, and sum of triceps and subscapular skinfolds in a sample of 247 6- to 8-year-old urban Maya children from Yucatan, Mexico. Between September 2011 and January 2014, we obtained anthropometric and body composition data from children and mothers, as well as socioeconomic characteristics of participants and households. Grandmothers’ place of residence was categorized as either in the same household (...) as their grandchildren or in separate households. Multiple logistic regression models were used to analyze the association between grandmothers’ residency and outcome variables. Models were adjusted for maternal anthropometric characteristics and the following socioeconomic variables: family size, location, maternal education, monthly family income, and household crowding. Models showed that the presence of grandmothers in their grandchildren’s households was not associated with any of the outcome variables. In contrast, larger family size, overcrowding in the household, and lower family income predicted low height-for-age in children. Larger family size decreased the risk for being overweight based on the three parameters of body composition. Overcrowding in the household increased the risk for greater skinfolds thickness, while low family income increased the risk for higher fat mass index. The residency of grandmothers in their adult daughters’ households is not significantly associated with the outcome variables in this sample of urban Maya families. Instead, maternal anthropometric characteristics and socioeconomic conditions of the family have a greater influence on the overall growth of children. (shrink)

SummaryMalaria is a major cause of under-five mortality in Mali and many other developing countries. Malaria control programmes rely on households to identify sick children and either care for them in the home or seek treatment at a health facility in the case of severe illness. This study examines the involvement of mothers and other household members in identifying and treating severely ill children through case studies of 25 rural Malian households. A wide range of intra-household responses (...) to severe illness were observed among household members, both exemplifying and contravening stated social norms about household roles. Given their close contact with children, mothers were frequently the first to identify illness symptoms. However, decisions about care-seeking were often taken by fathers and senior members of the household. As stewards of the family resources, fathers usually paid for care and thus significantly determined when and where treatment was sought. Grandparents were frequently involved in diagnosing illnesses and directing care towards traditional healers or health facilities. Relationships between household members during the illness episode were found to vary from highly collaborative to highly conflictive, with critical effects on how quickly and from where treatment for sick children was sought. These findings have implications for the design and targeting of malaria and child survival programming in the greater West African region. (shrink)

ArgumentUntil the fifteenth century, celibacy was the rule among Christian scholars of northwestern Europe. Celibacy was a major element of the codified cultural representation of the scholar and his specific way of life, sustained by peculiar institutional arrangements and daily routines. Founding family households implied therefore a major reorganization of the scholar’s way of life. Broadly speaking, this involved refashioning the scholarly habitus, redefining social relations, and developing the necessary material infrastructure. The paper focuses on three aspects of this process (...) during a period characterized by uncertainty and experimentation. It discusses the structure of scholars’ families, arguing that at least until the middle of the sixteenth century, received models still persisted, while new viable models for articulating family reproduction with the transmission of scholarly dispositions had not yet crystallized. It then turns to the reorganization of domestic space, focusing on the different uses of the study to manage social distance and regulate domestic relations. Finally, among the different manifestations of the scholarly habitus, it argues that the emotional detachment of learned men was itself a learned habit. The well-documented discussion of competing options for organizing scholars’ family households and cultivating an acquired nature in academic settings provides an exceptional occasion to examine the way a group habitus is reshaped and, explore the cultural work involved in this process. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics V.6 Aristotle contrasts political justice with household justice, paternal justice, and despotic justice. My paper expands upon Aristotle’s sometimes enigmatic remarks about political justice through an examination of his account of justice within the oikia or ‘household’. Understanding political justice requires explicating the concepts of freedom and equality, but for Aristotle, the children and wife within the household are free people even if not citizens, and there exists proportionate equality between a husband and wife. (...) Additionally, Aristotle’s articulation and defence of political justice arises out of his examination of despotic justice in the first book of the Politics. Not only are the polis and the oikia similar insofar as they are associations, but Nicomachean Ethics VIII.9–11 suggests they are even isomorphic with respect to justice and friendship. Thus, in this paper I explore the relationships between father and son, husband and wife, master and slave, and between siblings in order to see what they tell us about Aristotle’s understanding of freedom, equality, and justice. (shrink)

Financial literacy is essential for every individual concerned with public welfare and household portfolio choices. In this study, we investigate the impact of household financial literacy on individuals’ financial behavior using the China Household Financial Survey Data of 2015 and 2017. The results show that financial knowledge has significant current, long-term, and dynamic effects on financial behavior. This finding suggests that financial literacy is an important factor in shaping and improving financial behavior. Second, financial literacy can improve (...) residents’ limited attention, and residents with high attention tend to have formal bank accounts, participate in the stock market, and engage in financial behaviors in situations such as risky financial markets. High attention also helps to improve residents’ financial behavior. This relationship suggests that financial literacy positively impacts formal bank account holding, participation in financial markets, participation in commercial insurance, participation in pension plans, and credit card holdings through limited attention channels that facilitate access to specific financial information. In addition, heterogeneity analysis showed that the impact of financial literacy on financial behavior differs significantly between urban and rural households, between men and women, and between high and low education levels. The study provides valuable insights for policy implications to enhance financial literacy, such as carrying out financial training to improve residents’ knowledge about financial aspects, which further helps to optimize household financial decision-making. (shrink)

American bankruptcy law has offered a "fresh start" in every state for over one hundred years. As a result, econometric studies of consumer bankruptcy often focus on one of the few aspects of the law that has varied significantly across time and across states: exemptions. Professors Gropp, Scholz and White published the first article to test the effect of exemptions on credit markets. Consistent with theory, they found that residents of states with larger exemptions pay higher interest rates than (...) those in states with lower exemptions and face an increased probability that they will be denied credit. These effects were most pronounced for poor households. This result is surprising because exemptions only allow a household to keep what it has. The difference between a $100,000 exemption and an exemption with no dollar limit should not matter if the household has little or no assets to exempt. This essay examines alternative explanations for why exemptions appear to have a disproportionate impact on the poor. Unfortunately, however, none of these alternative explanations proves entirely satisfactory. (shrink)

Xenophon’s Cyropaedia is a fictional account of the life of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. This article argues that reading the Cyropaedia through an Aristotelian lens provides a useful means by which to understand Xenophon’s analysis of Cyrus’s empire. On an Aristotelian reading, a crucial facet of Cyrus’s knowledge is his view that the household provides an appropriate model by which to found and govern an empire. By incorporating many nations into what I call his (...) ‘imperial household’, Cyrus finds a way to avoid what Xenophon sees as the fundamental problem of political rule, which is that human beings do not wish to be ruled by others and eventually revolt against their rulers. But in contrast to all previous rulers known to Xenophon, Cyrus secures his subjects’ obedience. He does so by treating them as women, children, and slaves, each of whom looks to him as the head of the household. Under Cyrus, the perpetual political revolutions Xenophon describes thus become a thing of the past, at least so long as Cyrus is alive to preside over his imperial household. But Xenophon also suggests that order, peace, and security in the empire come at a cost. In order to keep his subjects in line, Cyrus as leader must distort and do violence to their humanity. Read carefully, the Cyropaedia thus provides a thoughtful critique of imperial ambition and empire. (shrink)

The article examines the convergence of studies on the Pastoral Epistles, with greater attention to the theme of education as a key to the purpose of the documents. The close association between the household and education is considered in an effort to shed light on the presentations of Timothy and Titus, emerging leadership roles, intergenerational instruction, and constructions of gender.

The significance of enset for thefood and livelihood security of ruralhouseholds in Southwestern Ethiopia, where thiscrop is the main staple, raises two majorquestions. The first concerns the relatedissues of household food security andlivelihood security and the contribution of theenset farming and food system in achievingthese. The second deals with the issue ofbiodiversity in enset cultivation. What roledoes biodiversity play in food and livelihoodsecurity and how is it perceived and measured?To answer the latter question, it is necessaryto look at the (...) issue of classification of ensetvarieties, comparing indigenous and scientificclassifications. In answering the questions, aninterdisciplinary approach is used, and bothetic and emic perspectives are applied. Agender perspective is applied as well becauseof the gendered division of labor in ensetcultivation and the gendered nature ofindigenous knowledge. The analysis draws mainlyon the findings of a recent study on ensetcultivation in Ethiopia [Negash PhD thesis,Wageningen University, The Netherlands]. Thefindings show that enset farming guaranteeshousehold food security to a large extent, butthat household livelihood security depends onthe cultivation of additional crops andhousehold ownership of livestock and otherassets. It was also found that maximizingdiversity in enset is of importance to farmers,and that the farmers' classification of ensetvarieties yields a finer grid than theclassification of enset clones on the basis ofmolecular analysis. (shrink)

There is, at present, little precise understanding of the relative contributions of the various income streams used by impoverished rural households in southern Africa. The impact of household profiles on overall income also is not well understood. There is, therefore, little consideration of these factors in national economic accounting. This paper is an attempt to reduce this gap in knowledge by reflecting on the relative contribution of agro-pastoralism, secondary woodland resources, and formal and informal cash income streams to households (...) in the semi-arid rural village of Thorndale, Limpopo Province, South Africa. In the absence of jobs and confronted with high migrant labor, households with open access to natural resources derived more benefits from land-based livelihoods than cash income streams (i.e., 57.5 % vs. 42.5 %). Total livelihood income was valued at US$2887 per household per annum. A significant correlation between monetary values derived from crops and formal wages was established, and it was found that households with high cash incomes tended to invest more in crop production. Over 80 of households were male-headed. Of these heads of household, more than 60 were long-term migrants to urban areas, leaving household decision-making to the women. The low literacy rates of women have deprived them of paid jobs outside the area and, therefore, have increased their dependence on crops (62%) and secondary woodlands resources (60%). This was further reflected in the proportion of households in which females were the main contributors of cash income (9.7%), or joint contributors with men (24.4%). Various positive correlations were established between the number of women per household and the three land-based livelihoods. This implied that women’s total control over such activities was mostly a result of the absence of men and not a typical phenomenon. In spite of this control, it was not positively reflected in the lives of majority of the women. Households differed in their participation in livelihood activities. Household size influenced the level of production and was positively correlated with the value of secondary woodland resources and crops. The study shows the interdependence of land-based livelihood sources and the impact of household features on production and consumption. Policies that focus on livelihood options need to recognize and accommodate associated household dynamics. (shrink)

A nationwide survey that included personal interviews in 1,021 households studied the incidence, species, and numbers of nonhuman animals kept in Costa Rican households. A total of 71% of households keep animals.The proportion of households keeping dogs is 3.6 higher than the proportion of households keeping cats . In addition to the usual domestic or companion animals kept in 66% of the households, 24% of households keep wild species as pets. Although parrots are the bulk of wild species kept as (...) pets, there is vast species diversity, including other birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, fishes, and invertebrates - typically caught in their natural habitat to satisfy the pet market. The extraction from the wild and the keeping of such animals is by-and-large illegal and often involves endangered species. Costa Ricans, in a conservative estimate, keep about 151,288 parrots as pets. More than half the respondents have kept a psittacid at some point in their lives. Pet keeping is a common practice in Costa Rican society, and its incidence is high by international standards. (shrink)

This study uses the Locke and Okali gender analysis framework to explore gender relations surrounding grain storage management and marketing in Binga District of Zimbabwe. The study was conducted during one grain storage season and involved multiple visits to selected households, which were used as case studies. The main question that the study sought to address was: “What bargaining goes on between men and women in the area of stored grain management and marketing?” Data were collected from four households, (...) fitting into the following categories: simple monogamous, complex monogamous (two scenarios), and polygamous. Participatory rural appraisal tools and techniques were extensively used and formed the backdrop of all the data collection. The study established that much bargaining and strategizing occurs within the household in order for women to exercise control over the use of stored grain. The bargaining process was found to be a complex one of give-and-take without an immediately recognizable winner. There is evidence that women use this bargaining power to exert influence on their relative position in the household in terms of independent income generation and management, seniority, and overall household food security policies. While bargaining between and within gender remains shrouded in subtleness, individuals in a household consciously use their skills to manipulate the situation to their best advantage. This article is expected to initiate broader debate in the area of gender roles and bargaining in grain post-harvest management, an area often kept private by smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. (shrink)

The emergence of personal assistants in the form of smart speakers has begun to significantly alter people’s everyday experiences with technology. The rate at which household Intelligent Personal Assistants such as Amazon’s Echo and Google Home emerged in household spaces has been rapid. They have begun to move human–computer interaction from text-based to voice-activated input, offering a multiplicity of features through speech. The supporting infrastructure connects with artificial intelligence and the internet of things, allowing digital interfaces with domestic (...) appliances, lighting systems, thermostats, media devices and more. Yet this also constitutes a significant new production of situated and sensitive data. This study focuses on how users negotiate and make choices about household Intelligent Personal Assistant use in connection with their data. This study is based on empirical research in Europe with early adopters in Germany and potential users in the Netherlands. This examination of users’ early stage technology acceptance considerations highlights particular practices and choices of users to either preserve their privacy or determine what is acceptable use for their data. Drawing on a simplified version of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2, a quantitative model for technology acceptance, we demonstrate how acceptance of a household Intelligent Personal Assistants does not imply access to all household data, how users see usefulness in relation to a proliferation of devices, and note the recognition by users regarding the efforts needed for full use and acceptance. The study highlights the complexity of data production at a household level and how these devices produce myopic views of users for platforms. (shrink)

This article examines the early modern household's importance for producing experimental knowledge through an examination of the Halifax household of Margery and Henry Power. While Henry Power has been studied as a natural philosopher within the male-dominated intellectual circles of Cambridge and London, the epistemic labour of his wife, Margery Power, has hitherto been overlooked. From the 1650s, this couple worked in tandem to enhance their understanding of the vegetable world through various paper technologies, from books, paper slips (...) and recipe notebooks to Margery's drawing album and Henry's published Experimental Philosophy. Focusing on Margery's practice of hand-colouring flower books, her copied and original drawings of flowers and her experimental production of ink, we argue that Margery's sensibility towards colour was crucial to Henry's microscopic observations of plants. Even if Margery's sophisticated knowledge of plants never left the household, we argue that her contribution was nevertheless crucial to the observation and representation of plants within the community of experimental philosophy. In this way, our article highlights the importance of female artists within the history of scientific observation, the use of books and paperwork in the botanical disciplines, and the relationship between household science and experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Publication date: 15 October 2018 Source: Author: Jude Nwafor Eze, Coleen Vogel, Philip Audu Ibrahim Flood is known to cause devastating livelihood impacts, suffering and economic damages. To reduce the impact of floods, it is very important to identify and understand the socio-economic factors that determine people’s ability to cope with stress or change. Consequently, the study assesses the social vulnerability of the households to floods in Niger State, in order to provide the empirical evidence necessary for flood adaptation policies (...) and strategies in the state. The data for the research were obtained from the household survey and Dartmouth Flood Observatory. The data obtained were analysed using descriptive and statistical analysis. The results show that flood events in the study area were caused by heavy rainfall, compounded by the opening of the Shiroro dam gate to release the excess flood in the reservoir. Moreover, results of Student “t” test and One-Way Analysis of Variance on socio-economic characteristics show that households’ major economic activities, educational status, household size, income distribution, and membership of cooperative society were significant at p 10, do not belong to cooperative society and earn less that N21000 per month have higher mean frequency, thus, the predominant households were, therefore, farmers, illiterate, have large family size, poor, and have no access to loan. Thus, the socio-economic characteristics of the households in the study area contribute to their vulnerability to floods by reducing their coping capacity. Based on the results of the assessment, it is recommended that measures are taken to mainstream flood adaptation into the development process. (shrink)

There are many theories of the drivers of energy use in buildings and how this evolves over different timescales. Moezzi and Lutzenhiser (2010, p. 4) characterized these perspectives as technology—in which energy use is determined by the characteristics of buildings and technologies; economics—in which the consumer is conceived as an economically rational utility maximizer; psychology—in which individuals' mental processes give rise to consumption choices; and sociology, anthropology, and social studies of technology—in which patterns of consumption are socially-negotiated and larger (...) social systems exert substantial influence. With these differences in theoretical approach come differences in epistemology, ranging .. (shrink)

This article is contextualized within the recent evolution of household employment in Spain. In the context of the strong demand for personal care services – due to rapid population ageing, mass incorporation of women into the labour market and insufficient collective provision of care services – the growth of domestic work is closely related to the overall social organization of care and specific migration policies that have eased, both implicitly and explicitly, the labour supply of foreign women into Spanish (...) households. In line with ongoing debates in the academic literature as well as in the political sphere, this article seeks to explain the extent to which domestic work can or should be considered as any other job in terms of social and employment rights and obligations. To that end, it evaluates changes in the regulation of household employment in Spain since the creation of the Special Regime for Household Employees in 1969 until the most recent 2011 reform. Following the recommendations of the ILO Convention for Domestic Workers, this latest reform puts domestic workers on equal footing with other dependent employees. It thus implies a sea change in relation to the discriminatory treatment embedded in previous legal frameworks. The main hindrance to the effective transposition of the norm however remains the strong presence of the informal economy and a dubious political commitment to ensure its application. (shrink)

Political discourse is saturated with metaphor, but evidence for the persuasive power of this language has been hard to come by. We addressed this issue by investigating whether voting intentions were affected by implicit mappings suggested by a metaphorically framed message, drawing on a real-world example of political rhetoric about the federal budget. In the first experiment, the federal budget was framed as similar to or different from a household budget, though the information participants received was identical in both (...) conditions. When the federal budget was described as similar to a household's, people considered the personal finances of a presidential candidate more relevant—a finding we replicated in a larger, pre-registered study. In a follow-up experiment, we presented participants with a more explicit rhetorical argument and found a similar effect, moderated by political affiliation. These studies illuminate how metaphorical comparison affects cognition for important real-world issues, sometimes in unintended ways. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to determine the profile of an average Polish household and the possibility of satisfying average housing needs thereof as well as to indicate the role played by the bank in their implementation. The characteristics of an average household, the value of income and expenses thereof, the prices of residential properties and the data of the credit market were determined. statistical studies, The research material was obtained from reports and including data from (...) the Statistics Poland, Eurostat, the database of residential property prices of the National Bank of Poland and the average offer prices of the rental market – for 2018, which reflects the current economic situation. The research was of a quantitative nature (statistical measures, housing availability index, credit simulations). The results indicate that as of 2018 an average household cannot afford to buy or rent a flat. The bank’s role in satisfying housing needs is not only important but rather necessary. (shrink)

A survey of recent literature would suggest that Aristotle has become a whipping boy for philosophers who would advocate equality between the sexes. What I hope to show is that we can actually advance the cause of sexual equality by treating him more judiciously. Aristotle does argue that men and women by nature have different psychologies, and even that men are psychologically superior to women. But contrary to what many today think he himself does not conclude from this proposition that (...) men and women ought to have roles entirely different within a city. Indeed, he leaves ample room in his theory for women to participate in political rule. We shall see by his own arguments that all women ought to have a vote in general assemblies, and that some women ought to hold high political office. (shrink)

Fieldworkers (FWs) are community members employed by research teams to support access to participants, address language barriers, and advise on culturally appropriate research conduct. The critical role that FWs play in studies, and the range of practical and ethical dilemmas associated with their involvement, is increasingly recognised. In this paper, we draw on qualitative observation and interview data collected alongside a six month basic science study which involved a team of FWs regularly visiting 47 participating households in their homes. (...) The qualitative study documented how relationships between field workers and research participants were initiated, developed and evolved over the course of the study, the shifting dilemmas FWs faced and how they handled them. Even in this one case study, we see how the complex and evolving relationships between fieldworkers and study participants had important implications for consent processes, access to benefits and mutual understanding and trust. While the precise issues that FWs face are likely to depend on the type of research and the context in which that research is being conducted, we argue that appropriate support for field workers is a key requirement to strengthen ethical research practice and for the long term sustainability of research programmes. (shrink)

Digital tools may help to study socioeconomic aspects of agricultural development that are difficult to measure such as the effects of new policies and technologies on the intra-household allocation of time. As farm technologies target different crops and tasks, they can affect the time-use of men, women, boys, and girls differently. Development strategies that overlook such effects can have negative consequences for vulnerable household members. In this paper, the time-use patterns associated with different levels of agricultural mechanization during (...) land preparation in smallholder farming households in Zambia were investigated. A novel data collection method was used: a pictorial smartphone application that allows real-time recording of time-use, which eliminates recall bias. Existing studies analyzing the intra-household allocation of resources often focus on adult males and females. This study paid particular attention to boys and girls as well as adults. The study addressed seasonal variations. Compositional data analysis was used to account for the co-dependence and sum constraint of time-use data. The study suggests a strong gender differentiation for land preparation activities among mechanized households; for households using manual labor, such differentiation was not found. There is some evidence that the surplus time associated with mechanization is used for off-farm and domestic work. The study cannot confirm concerns about negative second-round effects: mechanized land preparation is not associated with a higher workload for women and children during weeding and harvesting/processing. The study provides a proof-of-concept that smartphone applications can be used to collect socioeconomic data that are difficult to measure but of high relevance. (shrink)

Research in the Unites States concerning the relative access of women and men to financial resources has focused on the influence of women's increasing market work but has largely overlooked the also critical issue of what happens to money after it enters couple households. To fill this gap, this article employs a typology of household allocative systems developed in Great Britain to analyze money management and control in a sample of U.S. couples drawn from the Fragile Families and Child (...) Wellbeing Study. I find that the use of these systems varies substantially across socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, and relationship status groups, as well as by partners' relative household contributions. The patterns suggest that many women, already disadvantaged in earnings, either absolutely or relative to their partners, are in couples in which men's control over or withholding of income may reproduce or exacerbate their earnings disadvantage. (shrink)