Search Results (19)

A robust body of research examines the association between socioeconomic status (SES), particularly its economic dimension, income poverty, and child maltreatment rates. However, several key questions regarding this relationship remain underexplored. Utilizing a critical literature review, this article finds that some forms of child maltreatment (i.e., sexual abuse) do not correlate with income poverty. Moreover, evidence about the effects of other dimensions of SES, including employment and education is not monolithic. The complexity of this relationship is further influenced by the data source and unit of analysis. Studies using administrative data and analyzing SES at the family or household level frequently report a strong correlation between SES and child maltreatment. However, this relationship weakens (or in some cases disappears) when examined at the neighborhood or regional level using self-report data. Our findings also suggest that the overrepresentation of minority groups in child maltreatment statistics can be, at least in part, attributed to economic disadvantages. Furthermore, social cohesion appears to buffer the effects of income poverty and material hardship, highlighting the role of inequality in weakening social networks and exacerbating socioeconomic stressors. A developing body of literature demonstrates the link between income inequality and child maltreatment rates and indicates that policies aimed at addressing the impact of SES on child maltreatment should not only focus on alleviating poverty-related factors, such as material hardship, unemployment, and housing instability, but also target broader class disparities as the common root of many social problems. Full article

Energy poverty is a significant barrier to sustainable development, limiting access to modern energy solutions and exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities in South Africa. This research identifies key socioeconomic factors contributing to energy poverty among off-grid households using the household-specific energy poverty line. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a well-structured questionnaire among 53 households. The findings reveal significant gender disparities, with female-headed households being more vulnerable to energy poverty, which continues to subject them to economic hardship and social marginalization. Additionally, while larger households generally face higher energy demands, they were found to be less likely to experience energy poverty. The findings also challenge the ‘energy ladder hypothesis’ by showing that education, while potentially enabling better energy awareness, does not guarantee improved energy access in off-grid areas due to infrastructural limitations. Social grant dependency was found to be strongly correlated with energy poverty, underscoring the inadequacy of income transfers in addressing the systemic barriers to energy access. The findings emphasize the need for multidimensional, gender-responsive policy interventions that address both infrastructural and socioeconomic barriers to energy access, particularly in rural South Africa. These insights are crucial for developing targeted interventions to alleviate energy poverty and foster sustainable development in off-grid communities. Full article

The study looks at the impact that the three dimensions of financial inclusion (FI) (i.e., access, usage, quality) may have on poverty alleviation. In doing so, the study relies on demand and supply-side data to measure Nigeria’s FI. The demand-side data were derived from the 2021 Global Findex data, and the supply side data were sourced from the IMF Access survey database (2004–2021). The supply-side data were analysed using the ordinary least squares regression (OLS), while the demand-side data were analysed using the probit regression model. The study outcomes revealed a negative and significant relationship between financial access and poverty rate, further indicating that those who use financial services are less likely to experience poverty. The study recommends that financial service providers tailor their financial products to align with the educational level of the target population to encourage savings. Full article

This study investigated the impact of the people category of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on sustainable and conventional economic growth in Asia and the Pacific region, using a sample of 52 selected countries between 2000 and 2023. Employing two distinct models, model A1 for conventional economic growth and model A2 for sustainable economic growth, we explained the relationships between five SDG indicators: employed poverty rate, stunted children, expenditure on health, expenditure of education, and % of women MNAs on economic growth. This study employed a fixed-effect model and random-effect model to investigate the impact of the people category SDGs on traditional and sustainable economic growth. The comparative analysis of each SDG in both models revealed valuable insights. SDG 1, “employed poverty rate”, has a positive impact on economic growth in both models, while SDG 2, “percentage of stunted child”, did not significantly influence economic growth in either model. Moreover, SDG 3 and SDG 4, relating to “government’s health expenditure per capita” and “government’s Education education expenditure per capita”, respectively, exhibited a positive impact on traditional and sustainable economic growth. Conversely, SDG 5, “percentage of women members of national parliament”, displayed an insignificant impact on traditional and sustainable economic growth models. In conclusion, this study suggests that policymakers should prioritize targeted interventions to alleviate employed poverty, enhance healthcare, and boost education spending. Moreover, promoting women’s representation in national parliaments should be approached with context-specific strategies to maximize its impact on economic growth. Full article

Micro-credit for poverty alleviation is an important financial measure of targeted poverty reduction and rural revitalization in China. This paper employs the OLS model and Logit model to empirically test the effect of micro-credit for poverty alleviation on the income level and stability of income growth of farmers based on the field survey data of 458 registered poverty-stricken farmer households in Fuping County and Quyang County of Hebei Province. The results suggest that micro-credit for poverty alleviation can increase farmers’ income, stabilize the growth of their income, and exert significant short-term and long-term effects on income growth and poverty alleviation. The specialized farmer cooperatives, the scale of production and operation, the proportion of family labor force, and the education level of the head of the farmer’s household exert a significantly positive effect on the farmers’ income and the stable growth of their income. There is a significant interaction between micro-credit for poverty alleviation and specialized farmer cooperatives. The physical conditions of family members exert a negative effect on the stable growth of their income, and other financing channels have no significant effect. Full article

China has made remarkable reductions in absolute poverty. However, pressing questions remain of how to consolidate the existing achievements of poverty alleviation and prevent rural households from regressing back into poverty, especially in continuously poverty-stricken areas. This paper explores the spatiotemporal evolution of rural poverty and its influential factors under different poverty standards in three continuously poverty-stricken areas in Guizhou Province using 2003–2017 panel data and the spatiotemporal analysis method. The results show that decreasing poverty is an apparent spatial heterogeneity and there are area differences in the different research periods. The degrees of the average annual poverty reductions of all research counties were between 2.98–10.09%, 10.60–26.96%, and 11.46–43.19% in 2003–2007, 2008–2010, and 2011–2017, respectively; the poverty-stricken counties with high rates of poverty reduction are often adjacent to the nonpoverty-stricken counties. Influential factors vary in different areas over time, which is the result of the combination of leading influential factors (economy) and various influencing factors (natural location, social development, and education/labor) with regional characteristics. Although the effect of natural location on rural poverty in the research area is decreasing, its impact should not be ignored. Considering the complexity of poverty’s influential factors and the dependence on poverty alleviation policies, it’s essential for China to continue to strengthen its targeting of poverty in the continuously poverty-stricken areas, especially the counties in the inner areas. Devoting to building the coordination of regional development and ecological environment protection is an important way to achieve sustainable development goals with higher quality in the continuously poverty-stricken areas. Full article

After 2020, poverty alleviation in China will shift from eliminating absolute poverty to alleviating unbalanced and insufficient relative poverty. Based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, this article aimed to realize the freedom of “capability” of children and ensure the well-being and development of Chinese adolescents, who are often ignored in child poverty research. The study sought to estimate the 10–15-year-olds in a multidimensional capabilities poverty group. Our analysis was based on the adolescent capability methodology framework, using data from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to investigate the types and influencing factors of adolescent capability poverty in China. The result of latent class analysis showed that there are four types of capability poverty among the Chinese adolescents, namely, Extreme Capability Poverty Class, Goal Capability Poverty Class, Opportunity Capability Poverty Class, and Capability Non-Poverty Class. Multinomial logistic regression showed that the personal factors of gender, ethnic minority, hukou, and pocket money; the family factors of parents’ marital status, parents’ education level, and region of residence; and the family economic factor of per capita family income had a significant impact on the types of China’s adolescent capability poverty. The article provides empirical and quantitative evidence for the adolescent (ages 10–15) class of capability poverty. The findings provide a reference for policy makers to target poverty-alleviation efforts according to different types of poverty and to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Full article

Since the reform and opening-up in 1978, a remarkable achievement has been made in poverty reduction in China. Many previous studies have analyzed the poverty reduction effects of economic growth, fiscal expenditure, education levels, information technology, urbanization, foreign trade, industrial development and other factors. As a bridge between production and consumption, the agricultural products circulation industry has an important role on the income growth of rural residents. However, the construction level of China’s agricultural products circulation infrastructure lags behind, resulting in a decline in the efficiency and quality of agricultural products supply, and farmers are also facing the embarrassing situation of increasing production without increasing income. Therefore, in this study, we selected the China’s provincial panel data from 2003 to 2017 to analyze the effect of agricultural products distribution infrastructure in narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents and poverty reduction in China. First, we review the extant literature and elaborate the poverty reduction path of agricultural products circulation industry; secondly, we build models step by step and select nine variables; lastly, we carry out regression analysis on the overall poverty reduction effect of China’s agricultural products circulation industry, the poverty reduction effect of internal factors of agricultural products circulation industry and regional spatial heterogeneity with Stata software. Our results showed that the development level of the agricultural products circulation industry and the degree of opening-up have significant positive effects on narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents and poverty reduction varied, with different regions in China. Among all the internal factors of development of agricultural products circulation industry in poverty reduction, the core explanatory variable is the investment in agricultural products circulation infrastructure with the largest poverty reduction effect, followed by the human capital, informatization level and number of employees of the agricultural products circulation industry, and the poverty reduction effects of the four internal development factors have had significant regional differences in China. Our findings further complement the internal mechanism of agricultural product circulation infrastructure on poverty reduction in China, suggest that we should apply appropriate strategies and give priority to the internal development factor of the agricultural product circulation industry, with the largest poverty reduction effect according to local conditions in different regions, and so be better able to achieve the targeted poverty alleviation and offer insights for the rural poverty reduction in other countries, especially in the developing countries. Full article

As part of the 2030 maternal and child health targets, Ethiopia strives for universal and equitable use of health services. We aimed to examine the association between household wealth, maternal education, and the interplay between these in utilization of maternal and child health services. Data emanating from the evaluation of the Optimizing of Health Extension Program intervention. Women in the reproductive age of 15 to 49 years and children aged 12–23 months were included in the study. We used logistic regression with marginal effects to examine the association between household wealth, women’s educational level, four or more antenatal care visits, skilled assistance at delivery, and full immunization of children. Further, we analyzed the interactions between household wealth and education on these outcomes. Household wealth was positively associated with skilled assistance at delivery and full child immunization. Women’s education had a positive association only with skilled assistance at delivery. Educated women had skilled attendance at delivery, especially in the better-off households. Our results show the importance of poverty alleviation and girls’ education for universal health coverage. Full article

The rural wealth-leader is one of the 10 projects of targeted poverty alleviation in the period of poverty alleviation. As the “leading wild goose” in rural areas, the personal characteristics of the rural wealth-leader directly affect the effect of stabilizing poverty and increasing income of poor farmers. Based on the survey of the rural wealth-leader in 10 cities and 21 counties, this paper systematically analyzes the path of poverty reduction by the rural wealth-leader, combs out the key individual characteristics that affect farmers’ poverty reduction, and puts forward a research hypothesis. Through empirical analysis, the research hypothesis is tested and the influencing mechanism is analyzed. The model results show that: The rural wealth-leader has a significant effect on increasing farmers’ income and eliminating poverty. The rural wealth-leader with high education level and engaged in e-commerce has a significant effect on increasing farmers’ income. Party members and the skilled rural wealth-leaders have a significant impact on rural households’ poverty alleviation. The income increasing effect of culture and education is negatively affected by corporate loans, and the income increasing effect of e-commerce is negatively affected by corporate profits. Therefore, we should improve the profit distribution mode of e-commerce related enterprises to avoid farmers being marginalized in the process of e-commerce development. The skills, management and financial knowledge training of the rural wealth-leaders should be strengthened to improve their knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, supporting fiscal, financial and tax policies should be improved. Full article

There are many factors affecting poverty, among which education is an important one. Firstly, from the perspective of digital statistics, this research quantitatively analyzes the correlation between average education years (AEY) and Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDP/C), and finds that there is a significant positive correlation between AEY and GDP/C in provinces of China. Furthermore, from the perspective of spatial distribution and geostatistics, this research analyzes the correlation between AEY and the distribution of poor counties, revealing the inherent connection between education and poverty. Based on the data processing of nighttime light remote sensing images, this research adopts the machine learning method of random forest to extract the distribution status of spatio-temporal sequences for poor counties. Through the analysis, it is found that poor counties are characterized by centralized distribution and spatial autocorrelation spatially, and the number of poor counties decreases year by year in temporal evolution. On this basis, we analyze the correlation between education levels and the distribution of poor counties. It is found that, on the spatial scale, AEY in poor counties is relatively low, while AEY in non-poor counties is relatively high, showing a significant negative correlation between the two. On the temporal scale, the number of poor counties gradually decreased from 2000 to 2010, and at the same time, the education levels of poor counties also gradually improved. Finally, from the perspective of improving education levels to promote poverty elimination, we analyze the main factors affecting education using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and other methods and obtain a regression model. This research proposes the Linear and Residual Integration Model (LRIM) to more accurately predict AEY in each province in 2020 based on historical data, and identifies the regions with low AEY as key regions for targeted poverty alleviation through education (TPAE) in the future. This research provides a decision-making basis to achieve TPAE means, helping to achieve the victory of the national education poverty elimination battle. Full article

Introduction: Globally, women’s empowerment is one of the important factors impacting the development of the nation. However, several women in developing countries, including Pakistan, experience a high level of gender discrimination and inequity. In this study, data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) were used to measure empowerment and its predictors among women in Pakistan. Methods: Pakistan’s 2017–2018 DHS dataset was used to measure women’s empowerment using two indicators, i.e., participation in decision making and views on wife beating among 4216 married women. The determinants of empowerment, such as age, place of residence, regions, wealth index, education, partner’s education, partner’s occupation, number of children, consanguinity, the age difference between husband and wife, house and land ownership, and house inheritance, are reported as prevalence ratios (PRs) with a 95% confidence intervals (CI). Multivariate regression models were used to produce covariate-adjusted PRs and 95% CIs. Results: More than half of all women were empowered (52.5%). Upon multivariate analysis, we identified that women from the province of Punjab (adjusted PR (aPR), 1.44; 95% CI, 1.20–1.73), Sindh (aPR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.35–1.96), and KPK (aPR, 1.09; 95% CI, 0.91–1.31) compared to those living in Baluchistan; from the richest quantile (aPR, 1.65; 95% CI, 1.37–1.99), followed by the richer quantile (aPR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.28–1.84), the middle quantile (aPR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.28–1.81), and the poorer quantile (aPR, 1.24; 95% CI, 1.04–1.47) compared to women who were from the poorest quantile; who were highly educated (aPR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.25–1.67), followed by those who had a secondary education (aPR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.16–1.50) and a primary education (aPR, 1.17; 95% CI, 1.02–1.35) compared to women who were not educated; and had exposure to mass media (aPR, 1.20; 95% CI, 1.06–1.36) compared to those who had no exposure were more empowered. Conclusion: To conclude, women’s empowerment in Pakistan is affected by various socioeconomic factors, as well as exposure to mass media. Targeted strategies are needed to improve access to education, employment, and poverty alleviation among women, particularly those living in rural areas. Various mass media advertisements should be practiced, targeting community norms and supporting women’s empowerment. Full article

The Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) mechanism has been pursued as a means to provide incentives for achieving conservation goals while also promoting rural development by alleviating poverty. However, the degree to which these goals are met depends on the implementation of the programs, which depends on the desirability and accessibility of programs targeting rural communities. Understanding the factors motivating or dissuading PES is vital for successful implementation. This paper evaluated the determinants of locals’ preference for PES implementation in the Begnas Lake Watershed. We interviewed 180 residents representing upstream and downstream. Factors such as income, the distance between house and lake, knowledge about PES, education, and duration of living in the area significantly determined locals’ attitude towards PES implementation. Their decision to take a stake in the PES program, if implemented, was influenced by income, family size, the distance between house and lake, education, and knowledge about PES. The majority of the household prefer community forestry as an institution and indirect payment as a compensation mechanism. The study suggests that the implementation of PES can contribute to uplifting the livelihood of local communities and conservation of Begnas lake watershed. The study further recommends the involvement of multi-stakeholders for ground-level awareness. Full article

Safeguarding the environment and its citizens’ health remains one of the key policy priorities of the governments of many developing and emerging countries. Using the 2017 General Household Survey (GHS) dataset, this study examines the driving factors affecting households’ recycling behaviour and payment for waste disposal in South Africa. The methods of data analysis were based on descriptive statistics and a Bivariate Probit regression model. The descriptive statistics results indicate that there are 56.29% male-headed and 43.71% female headed households, with an average age of 49 years. In addition, the study shows that 89.97% of household heads had formal education with a mean monthly income of 11,099.07 ZAR/650.504 USD. The study also revealed that 22% of the households sampled had access to social grants. The results from the Bivariate Probit regression model show that household’s income, access to social grants, formal educational attainment and the age of the household were significant (p < 0.01) driving factors affecting households’ recycling behaviour and payment for waste disposal. The study concludes that the households’ socio-economic factors affect their recycling behaviour and willingness to pay for waste management in South Africa. Actions targeted at poverty alleviation and environmental sensitization programmes are key for facilitating environmental conservation behaviours of households in South Africa in order to achieve the environmental sustainability Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of the United Nations. Full article

Objective: China’s targeted poverty alleviation policy has a profound impact on the country’s rural economic and social development now. This study aimed to learn about the health status and health equity of rural poor residents under the implementation of the policy. It further explores the factors affecting the health status and health equity of rural poor residents in order to contribute to the improvement of the policy. Methods: The data of 1233 rural poor residents were collected from a questionnaire survey from 12 prefecture-level cities and areas of Shaanxi province in 2017, and the self-reported health was used to reflect the health status. A concentration index was applied to measure the inequity of the health status of rural poor residents. The decomposition method was employed to explore the source of health inequity. Results: The results showed that 44.56% of rural poor residents in Shaanxi province had a poor or very poor health status, which was affected by their economic level, gender, age, degree of education, and marital status. Additionally, participation in agricultural industry development, relocation, health poverty alleviation, and basic living standards were significantly correlated with health status. The concentration index of the health status of rural poor residents was 0.0327. The primary contributors to the health inequity in different regions varied, but the economic level and the degree of education were the most significant factors, and the targeted poverty alleviation policy had a significant impact on health equity. Conclusions: The results indicated that the health status of rural poor residents in Shaanxi province was generally poor, there was a pro-rich inequity in the health status, and the degree of education and economic level were the primary factors affecting the health status and health equity. The targeted poverty alleviation policy greatly impacted the health status and health equity of rural poor residents, and the difference in health status would lead to the inequity of benefits of the targeted poverty alleviation policy. In the future, the policy should focus on ensuring the sustainable development ability of rural residents with poor health status. Full article