Population growth, urbanization, degrading water quality, and climate change are making management of scarce water resources an increasingly difficult task for the domestic sector. It is recognized that in order to manage urban water resources demand management is requisite. Demand management has been experimented with in large cities of developing countries but continued focus on expanding supply overshadows its potential benefits and ultimate success. In order to manage demand, it must be measured and understood. Intermittent water services are prevalent in developing countries, but unmetered domestic water use under such conditions has not been carefully studied. This study conducted 1,149 household surveys in a small, growing, coastal city (population est. 35,645) in La Libertad, Peru. The objectives were to 1) characterize current household water use behaviors, perceptions and values as they vary among three user groups (two distinct unmetered intermittent water services and well users) and reveal the existing water use and potential household demand for water, and 2) propose demand management tactics applicable to conditions of the study site that may be generalizable to small, developing, cities. Survey results show daily per capita water use in the range of 35 to 90 L with more water being used by the group that receives water for a longer duration of time. The distribution of water was inequitable and, on average, households received water for less time than the service providers' reported duration. Demand is likely to grow due to increasing water-related infrastructure, established water behaviors, and a lack of understanding regarding regional scarcity and water conservation. Households are not satisfied with existing service conditions, particularly water quality, but due to an apparent distrust in their water providers are unwilling to pay for improvements. For domestic service to remain sustainable under the pressures of increasing water scarcity, demand management strategies, particularly education and awareness building, are likely achievable and should be adopted, complementary to supply-minded management.

Research into the material culture of the household and the domestic interior has increased rapidly during recent years. It has primarily focused on the appearance and use of domestic space leaving household management and maintenance a neglected area of study. Furthermore the relationship between the ownership of goods, the domestic interior and the use of the home has not been studied in conjunction with the management and maintenance of the household. Additionally, research into the material culture of the household has predominantly focused on quantitative changes experienced during the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth. It has long been established that the ownership of household goods increased in this period, but similar research has not taken place to explore the nature of these goods, nor to extend this work to the subsequent period. This thesis brings these aspects of research together for the first time to create a synthesis between the ownership of goods and the changing nature and use of the home and household maintenance and management. The argument proposed here suggests that the changing nature of the material culture of the household and developments to the use of the home had an impact upon the way that the household was managed and maintained. The complex inter-woven relationship between the material culture of the domestic interior and the ways in which it was maintained and managed reveals that both elements were a part of an emerging middle class culture of domesticity. Therefore, this thesis makes a significant contribution to a holistic understanding of the household by looking at the ownership of goods and the use of domestic space within the context of maintenance and management.

This thesis examines an effort to increase energy conservation in low-income housing communities through an educational program. The Saving Green Program offered at Foundation Communities in Austin, Texas attempts to educate residents about their energy usage and ways to reduce it. Activities include a class, an in-home energy visit, and energy feedback reports. We take several approaches in analyzing the program’s impact. First, we conduct a descriptive characterization of participants with regards to income, household makeup, and electricity usage. We then interviewed program participants in order to assess impact and participant reaction. Finally, we conduct two quantitative analyses to measure effectiveness. These include a comparison between groups of participants and non-participants, and a comparison of participants’ electricity usage after the program against their own usage before the program. Our descriptive assessment shows that most in our sample are either single seniors or households with multiple children. Their electricity usage varies however nearly half of load usually goes to cooling and their usage appears to be uncorrelated with income. Load patterns are dictated more by apartment size than anything else. Interviews show that participants readily absorbed and disseminated information regarding plug loads, but had poor understanding of the importance of cooling load. Finally, our quantitative analysis shows, in accordance with the interviews, that participants did not exhibit any systematic change in electricity consumption in summer, however there is some evidence that winter load decreased after the program. / text

Couples make dynamic joint decisions, including how much each spouse works at home and in the market throughout life. By building a dynamic model of taxation, I quantify the welfare gains of moving to a gender-based tax. Further, I explore the implications of a gender-based income tax for labor market and time-use choices within a couple, taking into account changing labor market attachment through life. The key finding is that while gender-based taxation always improves household and social welfare, the model-specific household time allocations and government policy implications depend on underlying assumptions about gender differences. I model the inefficiency of income tax due to pooling old individuals and young individuals who differ in their skill distribution and use of time. Because age is correlated with ability and time investments in education, allowing tax rules to vary with age shrinks labor distortions. I use an overlapping generations model to study the effect of an age-based income tax on efficiency. I analytically show the efficiency gains and I numerically estimate a welfare gain equivalent to 5% of aggregate consumption when age-based taxes are implemented. Adult women generally, and married women in particular, spend more time than men doing housework and childcare activities. While gender differences in time-use patterns among adults at home are readily accepted and well documented, the onset and development of gender time-use differences over the adolescent years and into early adulthood are not well understood. In this research, I describe the development of time-use gender differences over the teenage years and into the early adult years using American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data, with a focus on activities relating to family duties and child care activities. I find gender divergence in home duties prior to the teenage years, which sharply stratifies upon high school graduation. Further, I find that time-use outcomes disproportionately impact women from disadvantaged socio-economic and family backgrounds. / text

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

In 1816 a group of white, affluent women in Natchez, Mississippi founded the Female Charitable Society, one of many ladies' associations in the early republic devoted to the care of poor and orphaned children. Born during a pervasive evangelical awakening, the Society established a charity school then, after a few years, constructed an orphan asylum. In doing so, benevolent women created not only a shelter for parentless boys and girls but a "civic household" of which they served as a collective head. Supported by charitable contributions rather than tax revenue, the orphan asylum functioned as a model environment, one that would rear prepubescent white children to be moral and industrious in trades that befit their born condition. The asylum also represented an opportunity for personal spiritual renewal on the part of donors as well as a landmark of municipal refinement. By promoting themselves as the natural caretakers of poor young children and fostering a culture of sympathy for them, benevolent women challenged the primacy of the statutory system of juvenile relief, which dated back to the earliest days of colonial settlement. Gradually, the Female Charitable Society raised the standard of relief for prepubescent indigent minors, diverted them from bound apprenticeship, wrested jurisdiction over them from male county officials, and gathered them into the household. The female-run orphan asylum largely supplanted apprenticeship as the preferred system of juvenile relief in Natchez, mirroring developments in other cities around the country. This study investigates why and how the orphan asylum emerged as a prominent form of juvenile relief in the United States. Using Natchez as a case study, this work underscores the role of benevolent women in effecting concrete transformations within the community as well as the impact of changes in domestic familial relations on child welfare. This study also expands the notion of "republican motherhood" to include "civic motherhood," that is, the public cultivation of maternal authority over poor children. Members of the Natchez Female Charitable Society positioned themselves as the rightful guardians of white, indigent boys and girls and was eventually granted legal authority over them by the State of Mississippi. / text

The purpose of this study is to fill the gap in research about women in Venezuela by investigating the determinants of their labor force participation between 1995 and 1998. The Central Office of Statistics and Information in Venezuela provides cross-sectional data collected semiannually about individual, demographic, socio-economic and geographical characteristics of individuals living in Venezuela during this period. This study uses binomial and multinomial logit models to test a number of hypotheses. First, the full sample of women between 15 and 60 years old is used to investigate the importance of individual, demographic, socioeconomic, and geographical characteristics in the labor force participation decision, also controlling for a time trend. The same decision is also analyzed for three subsamples: married women, single women, and women heads of household. Comparisons are made between each subsample and the full sample, and also among the different subsamples. Next, multinomial regressions using the same explanatory variables are performed to examine labor market behavior when there is a three-way choice: whether to participate in the formal sector, the informal sector or not to participate in the labor market at all. The multinomial regressions are also performed on the three subsamples as well as on the full sample. Again comparisons are made between each subsample and the full sample and also among the three subsamples. The results of these analyses show considerable differences in motivating factors among the three groups. The conclusion that must be drawn from this research is that one cannot generalize about the women's labor force participation just by studying the behavior of women in the aggregate. The relative importance of motivating factors depends strongly on the specific subsample to which a woman belongs, a fact unrevealed by previous empirical work. The more detailed analyses produced by this dissertation provide deeper understanding of the labor force participation of Venezuelan women. This information will make a valuable contribution to policy-makers who seek to encourage the important economic contribution of women to this previously under-studied labor market.

In 1997, DVD was introduced to the American public, beginning the fastest diffusion of any consumer electronics product in history. In this dissertation, I show how DVD, via favorable conditions in industry, technology, culture, economics, and the regulatory environment, replaced existing home video and computing technologies while transforming home entertainment. I analyze how DVD was successfully developed and commercialized by member firms in the filmed entertainment, consumer electronics, and computing industries from 1994-2002. I demonstrate how a new industry developed around DVD through unprecedented cooperation between these three industries. This study uses trade publications, mainstream press reports, industry data, advertisements, depositions to congress, and published interviews with industry members to analyze a process that has been understudied by scholars. Through the use of these resources, I explore how demand for the technology developed within existing contexts and how myriad forces aligned to enable the emergence of a new disc technology. Furthermore, I demonstrate how DVD reshaped these contexts while transforming the nature and business of filmed content distribution. DVD initiated a new era for digital content distribution. This era was marked by the convergence of three industries, new levels of access to filmed entertainment, mobilized viewing opportunities, the conflation of the computer and the television set, and heightened efforts to protect content through a variety of legal, regulatory, and technological strategies.

After surveying the literature on the economics of household decision-making, we employ data from the 2010 European Union Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) to study the relationship between personal characteristics such as gender and decision-making power and responsibility. We find that across Europe, women more often make decisions about everyday spending and purchases for children, while it is mainly men who make the financial decisions in a household. Greater intrahousehold inequality in income and education is correlated with a lower probability of couples making decisions together, as is having a housewife in the home. Interesting patterns of household decision-making across countries emerge; in the Southern European countries, for example, educational differences do not seem to be strongly related to decision-making power and responsibility, and women in Eastern European countries are more likely to make financial decisions when the household reports facing difficult economic conditions. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Access to clean and safe drinking water is a fundamental human requirement. However, in many areas of the world natural water sources have been impacted by a variety of biological and chemical contaminants. The ingestion of these contaminants may cause acute or chronic health problems. To prevent such illnesses, many technologies have been developed to treat, disinfect and supply safe drinking water quality. However, despite these advancements, water supply distribution systems can adversely affect the drinking water quality before it is delivered to consumers. The primary aim of this research was to investigate the effect that water distribution systems may have on household drinking water quality in Christchurch, New Zealand and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Water samples were collected from the source water and household taps in both cities. The samples were then tested for various physical, chemical and biological water quality parameters. The data collected was also used to determine if water samples complied with national drinking water quality standards in both countries. Independent samples t-test statistical analyses were also performed to determine if water quality measured in the samples collected from the source and household taps was significantly different. Water quality did not vary considerably between the source and tap water samples collected in Christchurch City. No bacteria were detected in any sample. However, the pH and total iron concentrations measured in source and tap water samples were found to be significantly different. The lower pH values measured in tap water samples suggests that corrosion may be taking place in the distribution system. No water samples transgressed the Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand (DWSNZ) MAVs. Monitoring data collected by the Christchurch City Council (CCC) was also used for comparison. A number of pH, turbidity and total iron concentration measurements collected by the CCC in 2011 were found to exceed the guideline values. This is likely due to structural damage to the source wells and pump-stations that occurred during the 2011 earthquake events. Overall, it was concluded that the distribution system does not adversely affect the quality of Christchurch City’s household drinking water. The water quality measured in samples collected from the source (LTP) and household taps in Addis Ababa was found to vary considerably. The water collected from the source complied with the Ethiopian (WHO) drinking water quality standards. However, tap water samples were often found to have degraded water quality for the physical and chemical parameters tested. This was especially the case after supply interruption and reinstatement events. Bacteria were also often detected in household tap water samples. The results from this study indicate that water supply disruptions may result in degraded water quality. This may be due to a drop in pipeline pressure and the intrusion of contaminants through the leaky and cross-connected pipes in the distribution network. This adversely affects the drinking water quality in Addis Ababa.