Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study examined the trends in household consumption expenditure among the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria within the context of Engel's law of consumption. The study specifically set out to achieve the following objectives: to determine the trends in household consumption expenditure in Nigeria; to examine the food, health, education and non-food expenditures of households in Nigeria; to estimate the food share of total household expenditure through the estimation of the Engel curve for the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria; to determine if there are consumption economies of scale among households by estimating the Working-Leser form of the Engel curve; and, to examine consumption inequality among households in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The study used the Nigeria General Household Survey data wave 1 (2010-2011) and wave 2 (2012-2013) to estimate the Working-Leser form of the Engel curve to determine households' budget share for food consumption and the scale of consumption among the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The study used the Gini coefficient to measure consumption inequality among and between the six geopolitical zones.

Since 1989, the Czech Republic has undergone many changes not only in politics and economics, but society has also undergone a major transformation. As a result of the second demographic transition, the number of complete family households has been decreasing and at the same time new forms of households such as singles or transitory urbanites have been emerging during the transformation period. The population has been going old. Since the end of socialism, together with urban processes such as suburbanization, gentrification, or international migration, Prague has undergone changes in the spatial differentiation of the city. The aim of this thesis is to find out changes of households deployment in the capital city Prague, in the period between 1991 and 2011 and reasons for these changes, as well. The first part of the thesis presents the theoretical background focused on the second demographic transition, processes that form today's city and theoretical concepts regarding residential mobility. The empirical part, based on data from the population census analyzes the change of individual types of households in Prague. According to the typology of the housing development in Prague, the evolution of the individual types of households in them is further interpreted, followed by an analysis of the...

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / For close to a decade, Zimbabwe has experienced a protracted socio-economic crisis. Although it is affecting both rural and urban areas, major forms of formal safety nets by the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations have been confined to rural areas. On the other hand the virtual collapse of the formal food marketing system in urban areas and the high formal unemployment rates have contributed to increased vulnerability of low income urban households to food insecurity. Using qualitative research methods, the study set out to understand livelihoods of low income urban households in Dzivaresekwa. In particular strategies low income households employ to cope with the negative macro-economic environment prevailing in Zimbabwe. / South Africa

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This case study of three rural villages in Matatiele district in the Eastern Cape, South Africa examines the extent to which the diversification of rural livelihoods and processes of social differentiation are interconnected. The study combines intensive and extensive research methods to explore livelihoods diversification and social differentiation in the villages of Litichareng, Mutsini and Thaba Chicha. The intensive research consisted of 36 life history interviews, a wealth ranking exercise and a focus group discussion. The extensive research consisted of a survey of 124 households. The study makes use of political economy concepts of class, power and inequality and argues that these concepts enhance the heuristic value of livelihoods approaches which have often been critiqued for under-theorising power and politics. In the contemporary capitalist world, particularly in the global ‘South’, livelihoods have increasingly become diversified as rural households combine agricultural and non-agricultural sources of income for both survival and accumulation purposes, often straddling the rural-urban divide. In the ‘ de-agrarianisation’ thesis, livelihood diversification has been interpreted as entailing a shift from agrarian livelihood systems to non-agrarian modes of existence in the context of increased urbanisation and industrialisation. These kinds of large-scale processes have been unfolding in rural Matatiele, but this study argues that rural households combine both agricultural and non-agricultural sources of income and emphasises the continued importance of agricultural sources of income in rural livelihood systems. De-agrarianisation is cyclical and not unilinear, as some components of farming have remained important and resilient (homestead garden cultivation and livestock production) while other have declined (dry-land cropping in large arable fields).These shifts in agriculture occur against the background of state-sponsored, large-scale agricultural development schemes introduced to commercialise agriculture and reverse de-agrarianisation and fragmentation of rural livelihoods, but which have largely failed to do so. The challenge for scholars is how to characterise rural households, small-scale farmers, or ‘peasants’ in the light of highly diversified livelihood systems and their straddling of the rural and urban divide. This study uses a political economy approach and defines rural households that engage in small-scale agriculture as petty commodity producers in capitalism, combining class places of capital and labour and subject to social differentiation. The study argues that the highly diversified livelihood systems characteristic of rural households reflect a ‘crisis of social reproduction’ as rural households struggle to survive and accumulate. In this study it is argued that rural households are part of growing ‘classes of labour’ within contemporary capitalism.

An in-depth study is conducted into ten female-headed households in the township of Rini, an underprivileged section of Grahamstown in the Eastem Cape region of South Africa. The study provides information on the way in which such households function in conditions of poverty and underemployment. The meaning of the term 'household' is clearly defined. A household consists of a group of people, who may or may not be kin-related, but who usually live under the same roof, eat together and share resources. Household members may be absent for varying periods of time, but are still considered to have rights in the household to which they belong. The female-headed household usually contains a core of adult women who are often uterine kin. Men are frequently members of these households and are usually related to the women who form the core. Their status and roles in such households are defined and intra-household relations between household members are discussed. In this study, female headship is observed to occur in conditions of poverty when an elderly woman is widowed, receives a regular income in the form of and old age pension, and when her status as the senior member of the household is acknowledged. The presence of men in female-headed households has not been widely emphasised in other studies, either of the female-headed household itself, or in research done in this area of South Africa. An attempt is therefore made to illustrate the way in which men function in these households and the varying roles they play. An attempt is also made to describe other structures and practices which support the female-headed household in a rapidly changing urban environment. These include church membership, burial society membership, the informal economy, wider kinship networks and, in the case of the men, the rite of circumcision.

This study focused on the policy responses formulated by the government of Zimbabwe and their implementation to meet the social needs of the people with special emphasis on the Zimbabwe National Orphan Care Policy (ZNOCP) of 1999. The challenges this policy is facing from the newly evolving structure of the child headed households was the centre of this study. At independence, the government adopted the incremental approach to policy making and extended formal social policy to the previously marginalized black majority. The ZNOCP was introduced in 1999 during the second phase of ESAP. The same period saw the spread of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. HIV and AIDS led to an increase in the number of orphans some of whom ended up in CHH without adult supervision. The day to day challenges of this group of orphans was investigated in Masvingo rural district. For this study both the qualitative and quantitative methodology paradigms were used. Secondary sources such as journal articles, published books and computer databases helped in complementing the field work. Four sets of questionnaires were administered to four groups of people which were the heads of CHH, extended families, community leadership and government officials. The analysis of this study led to the following conclusions about social policy and the plight of children in CHH. Firstly, that social policy has failed in Zimbabwe due to the incremental approach to policy making which was taken by the government because of its nature of being reformist as opposed to being transformative. Secondly, that the xiii ZNOCP is not being properly implemented therefore it does not have any impact on the lives of children in CHH. These children are struggling for basic social services like food and nutrition, clothing, education health, shelter and birth registration. Thirdly, the extended families and the community have been weakened by HIV and AIDS and impoverished by ESAP such that they cannot take care of their own families, let alone their deceased relatives‟ orphaned children as stipulated by the ZNOCP. Finally, the passive role being taken by the government in the care and protection of the children in CHH is detrimental to their welfare. The comparative case study of the Slangspruit informal settlement in South Africa shows that challenges faced by orphans are common. This study therefore recommends that there is need for the review of the ZNOCP. The new policy should come up with child care strategies which take into cognizance the evolutionary nature of the community. A human rights based approach ought to be the basis of child protection interventions in Zimbabwe. The study recommends that all stakeholders from the government down to the community need to fully participate in their various capacities in child care and protection. Resources in terms of finance and human resources should be made available and channeled to the intended beneficiaries. There is also need for capacity building in the communities and to intensify HIV and AIDS prevention, mitigation, care and treatment interventions to reduce the prevalence of orphans.

This thesis occupies with analysis of indebtedness of households in the Czech Republic at the bank institutions and this results compare with indebtedness of households in the other Central European countries, namely in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Austria. It focuses also on effect of the financial crisis on development of indebtedness in household's sector and mainly on their ability to pay for their debts. The target of this thesis is the evaluation, if the size and development of indebtedness is in the Czech Republic already excessive and poses a threat to financial stability of bank institutions or if the current development of household's indebtedness isn't detrimental to banking market and economical development in the Czech Republic.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the experiences of black, married, working, South African women in relation to financial decision-making processes within private households from a working-woman’s perspective. The focus was on married women in middle and senior management positions in their workplaces. Following a literature review to accumulate empirical evidence from similar studies in the areas of Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Feminism and Economic Psychology, eight, individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted with black South African women in managerial positions to establish the women’s understanding of the meaning of money, concepts and practices of sharing of monetary resources between husband and wife in the household, the allocation of money as a resource in the household, control of money between husband and wife in the household, and decision-making processes between husband and wives. The key findings of the study were: · The diverse construction of the meaning of money. Women’s views on money had an impact on how they viewed their roles in household financial management and decision-making. · The absence of equal sharing of money and the existence of breadwinning/caregiver ideologies. Three patterns of money management were identified. Joint pooling, where equality of sharing, control and decision-making was greatest, was associated with higher income levels and availability of personal spending money. The female whole wage system, with minimal control and joint decision-making, was associated only with women with high-level income and minimal personal spending money. The independent managed system was associated with completely separate money management, unequal sharing of money, increased power, inequality in decision-making, and increased personal spending money by the breadwinner. · The pattern of financial allocation adopted had an influence on control and decision-making in the household. In all the systems of financial allocation adopted, women indicated that their partners had a final say in the financial decision-making processes. The study highlights some policy implications of inequality in financial decision-making. Due to the fact that household based analysis assumes that financial decision-making is shared equally in the households, women and children will most of the time lose out when this is not the case. It was therefore recommended that a deeper understanding of household decision-making may help the policy makers and researchers alike to focus on women in a more effective way, for example, by designing empowering programmes that will assist women to be involved in the financial planning and decision making in their households. / Dissertation (MA (Research Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Psychology / unrestricted

Orientador: Álvaro de Oliveira D'Antona / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T22:00:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DelGuercio_FaustoMartinsFontes_M.pdf: 9224993 bytes, checksum: 3ee5882b7862c19ccf4881a52cdd5fcd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: Este trabalho insere-se no campo de pesquisa de População e Ambiente e avalia a influência da composição do domicílio no consumo doméstico de energia, tanto total, quanto per capita. O aspecto priorizado é a heterogeneidade das características demográficas dos filhos ¿ idade e sexo - e o uso energético. A hipótese principal é a de que quanto mais diferirem estas características ¿ por exemplo, maior a diferença de idades e número de alternâncias de sexo nos nascimentos ¿ maior tende a ser o consumo de energia, via alocação em diferentes dormitórios e diminuição na utilização de bens de uso comum (luz elétrica, por exemplo). A fonte de dados utilizada foi o conjunto de 1499 questionários sociodemográficos aplicados em Lucas do Rio Verde-MT, Santarém-PA e Altamira-PA, parte do projeto Desflorestamento da Amazônia e Estrutura das Unidades Domésticas, uma parceria entre o Núcleo de Estudos de População Elza Berquó da Universidade de Campinas (NEPO/UNICAMP) e o Anthropological Center for Training and Research da Universidade de Indiana (ACT/IU). Para verificação das hipóteses foi utilizada regressão linear múltipla, relacionando média e desvio padrão da idade dos filhos, diferença de idade entre o filho mais novo e mais velho, número de alterações de sexo nos nascimentos, densidade de filhos por dormitório e índice de Shannon. Os resultados mostraram que há efeitos no consumo de energia dado o maior grau da heterogeneidade das características demográficas dos filhos, mas que este efeito se manifesta principalmente pelo aumento do número de dormitórios e consequente perda de economia de escala, não aparecendo de forma direta nos coeficientes das equações encontradas. O trabalho mostra, também, que é pertinente a realização de pesquisas na área de população e ambiente sem a ênfase no volume e no crescimento populacional, dando continuidade à análise da variável consumo, já verificada em parte da literatura na área / Abstract: This study is part of the Population and Environment field and evaluates the influence of household composition in the household energy consumption, both as a total and per capita. The highlighted focus is on the heterogeneity of the demographic characteristics of children - age and sex - and energy use. The main hypothesis is that the more these characteristics vary - for instance, the higher the age difference and number of changes in the sex of born children - the higher will be the energy consumption, considering that children are likely to be allocated in different rooms, yielding a lower share of common utilities (such as electricity). Data source was provided by a set of 1499 socio- demographic questionnaires applied in three Brazilian municipalities - Lucas do Rio Verde, MT, Santarém, PA, and Altamira PA - as part of the project Amazon Deforestation and Household Structure, a collaborative research between Núcleo de Estudos Elza Berquó, from the University of Campinas (NEPO/UNICAMP) and the Anthropological Center for Training and Research from the University of Indiana (ACT/IU). Hypothesis verification was made using multiple linear regression, relating mean and standard deviation of the age of children, the age difference between the youngest and the oldest child, number of sex alternations in births, child density per room, and the Shannon index. Results show that energy consumption is affected due to the higher grade of heterogeneity in the demographic characteristics of children, but such effect is mostly noticeable in the number of rooms and the consequent loss of economy scale. However, it is not directly observed in the coefficient of the resulting equations. This work also shows that it is possible to conduct research in the population and environment field without having to include population volume and growth, by keeping the analysis of the variable consumption, which has already been validated by other studies in the field / Mestrado / Demografia / Mestre em Demografia

abstract: Recent research finds that there is significant variation in stock market participation by state and suggests that there might be state-specific factors that determine household stock market participation in the United States. Using household survey data, I examine how accounting quality of public companies at the state level affects households’ stock market participation decisions. I find that households residing in states where local public companies have better accounting quality are more likely to invest in stocks. Moreover, those households invest greater amounts of their wealth in the stock market. Cross-sectional tests find that the effect of accounting quality on stock market participation is more pronounced for less affluent and less educated households, consistent with prior findings that lacking familiarity with and trust in the stock market is an important factor deterring those types of households from stock investments. In state-level tests, I find that these household outcomes affect income inequality, which is less severe in states where high public-firm accounting quality spurs more stock market participation by poorer households. Conversely, in states where public firms have lower accounting quality, stock market participation among poorer households is less common, and a larger share of high equity returns accrues to richer households, exacerbating income inequality. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Accountancy 2020