No description available.

Thesis (Master)--İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, 2006 / Keywords: Colours, electrical domestic appliances, colour theory, 20th century history of art and design, historic development of domestic appliances. Includes bibliographical references (leaves.86-90).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong,2005. / Typescript. Bibliographical references: leaf 283-294.

Thesis (M. Consumer Science)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Title from opening screen (viewed March 27, 2006). Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Consumer Science)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Title from opening screen (viewed March 27, 2006). Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

This thesis looks in detail at four small-holding households in a Chinese village that is experiencing the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation that has occurred in China over a number of decades. The research explores the dynamics of the households, which are at a point where traditional values and modes of living are challenged by the changing social, economic and cultural context. These small-holding village households are characterised by an interdependent set of family and household relationships and an intricate interplay between cultural expectations, resources dynamics, bonds of affect and economic and social activities. The research draws upon key literature concerned with household, family and economic life, to analyse the research data concerning these Chinese village households experiencing change. The research has been conducted within a narrative inquiry framework, as an appropriate approach for understanding the processes of adaptation to changes at the levels of households and individual members: what people do, how they feel, how they interpret ‘the self’ in the context of social, economic and cultural change, and how they talk about all of this. Fieldwork was carried out over the period from 2011 to 2014 in the village of Shang (a pseudonym) in the Huangshan area, Anhui province. In-depth interviews, informal interviews and conversations with household members were combined with long-term participant observation in the village, encompassing various households and many social events. The analysis of the resulting data is provided around three key topics: ‘Divisions of Labour, Household Work and Changing Economic Life’, ‘Resources and the Household’, and ‘Household and Networks’. People have a range of different ways of coping with changes, influenced by many factors including their roles and aspirations and bonds of love and caring; while at the household level, the different styles and layers of livelihood are influenced by and in turn influence the organisation of material and particularly non-material resources in the household. The stories that people tell about their experiences, feelings and understandings demonstrate that they are actively responding and adapting to change rather than being passive recipients or resistant to this. Both change and continuity are witnessed through focusing analysis at both individual and household levels. Combining ideas about the household as a resource system and a narrative inquiry approach provides detailed insights on Chinese village households in their changing social and economic context.

South Africa is acknowledged as having the highest Gini coefficient in the world. The Gini coefficient is a measure of income inequality in a country. The eradication of all forms of inequality was probably the most important aspiration for people pre-democracy. After two decades of democracy, not only has the eradication of inequality not materialised, but inequality has worsened. The aim of the research is threefold. Firstly, to understand the origins and the ensuing reasons for inequality as it is experienced in South Africa in 2013 and secondly, to investigate what the effects of this inequality are on the lives of South Africans, socially, politically and economically. Lastly, the research aims to find what, if anything, South Africans can do to address the issue, in order to determine if the aspiration is indeed attainable. Qualitative exploratory research was conducted by interviewing 16 prominent South Africans with the requisite knowledge of the topic and experience in their respective fields. Semi-structured, in-depth face-to-face interviews were performed. Content and theme analysis were carried out on the transcripts, followed by the recording of the responses in logically ordered tables. The literature informed the interpretation of the results in the tables. The reasons for and causes of South Africa’s high Gini coefficient were identified, with the apartheid legacy and the present government’s governance style as the two greatest contributors. The effects of the high inequality in the South African context were considered far more detrimental to society, than to the politics and the economy of the country. The research yielded a number of actions that could be considered to reduce inequality, thereby improving the Gini coefficient. The two most important proposals were addressing the current poor education system and finding a solution for unemployment. / Dissertation (MBA)--Gordon Institute of Business Science, 2013 / mn2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Please read the abstract in the 00front of this document / Thesis (PhD (Consumer Science))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Consumer Science / unrestricted

Until recently, much of the labour supply literature has been predicated on the assumption that all individuals are free to choose the amount of labour that they supply at the prevailing wage rate. However, empirical studies have shown that many individuals are rationed to work more or fewer hours than they desire. In this thesis we formulate and estimate two models of household labour supply behaviour which take account of the fact that constraints in the labour, market prevent some (male) household heads from supplying their desired amount of labour. In the first model we consider the case where a male is constrained in the number of hours of labour he can supply in a working week. In the second model we decompose male leisure into leisure during working weeks and leisure during non-working weeks, and consider rations on both. To be consistent with the economic theory of consumer behaviour we derive these models by assuming that households, based on their preferences, perform an optimization procedure to determine their desired quantities of male leisure (provided it is not rationed), female leisure and goods consumption. Since we model household behaviour, by jointly estimating demand equations for rationed and non-rationed households we are able to examine the effects that rationing of the labour supply of the household head has on the labour supply of his spouse and on household goods consumption. We find that there is no general pattern to the way in which the marginal budget shares and labour supply elasticities differ among rationed and non-rationed households. Further, the relationship between the rationed and non-rationed marginal budget shares and elasticities differs according to the demographic characteristics of the household. We also find that our estimates differ from those obtained when rationed households are either ignored or omitted from the sample. In view of this result, and the fact that marginal budget shares and labour supply elasticities for rationed households cannot be calculated using the misspecified models, we conclude that it is important to use the entire sample of rationed and non-rationed households to estimate the model in which each type of rationing is modelled appropriately. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate