Income Diversification and its Determinants among Households in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Abstract: Income diversification has been globally identified as a channel for household in reducing vulnerability to shocks, improve standard of living and reduce government fiscal burden. In poverty stricken Eastern Cape Province, the pattern and potential of income diversification for welfare improvement have not been explored. This study aims to examine the pattern of income diversification and investigate the factors that influence income diversification among households in the province. Utilizing the General Household Survey 2014, having 3033 households sampled from the province, the study employed descriptive statistics and Poisson regression model to examine determinants of income diversification. The result revealed that households in the Province are not diversified. It revealed that apart from transfers’, majority (51.5 percent) of households in the province obtain income from only one source. Male headed households tend to have more income sources than the female headed households. Regression result indicates age of household head, population group of the head, education attainment of the head, engagement in agriculture, recipient of remittance and number of economic active member of the household were found to be statistically significant in influencing livelihood diversification. Strategies that can help household in the province diversify their income base need to be promoted, continual engagement in agriculture need to be further encouraged, and individuals and households need to be more informed on government entrepreneurship initiatives like the Broad Black Base Economic Empowerment.Keyword: Income Diversification, Eastern Cape Province, Poisson Regressio

Impact of funding on academic performance: An exploration of two South African universities

Empirical evidence on the relationship between student funding and academic performance is unclear. Some studies have found a positive relationship and others have suggested a negative one, whilst even others, suggest no relationship. Acknowledging that a range of factors, other than funding, impact on student success, this paper contributes most explicitly to a small, but emerging, literature on the relationship between student funding and academic performance, proxied by the average individual academic mark for the year. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied on data of a sample of 29 619 students registered at two South African universities for the 2018 academic year. Results suggest overall that there is a moderately positive and significant relationship between the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) bursary funding and average scores. At institutional level however, we find that this relationship is no longer significant, and negative at one and weak at the other university. The results also show that the extent of the effect of other variables on academic performance differs across institutions and when funding types are taken into account. Relevant policy consideration from the findings are highlighted

Poverty, Food insecurity and livelihood diversification among households in Eastern Cape province, South Africa

Livelihood diversification have been thought to be a rural issue where agriculture is the main source of income, however in an era of dwindling global and national economic situations, livelihood diversification have been seen to be prominent among urban dwellers as well although literatures have focused more on rural households. There is also a growing evidence in literature showing that livelihood diversification is indispensable for improving household welfare. This study adopts the sustainable livelihood framework to investigate the pattern and determinants of livelihood diversification (number of income sources) and the welfare (poverty and food insecurity) effect of livelihood diversification on household in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Indicators of poverty and food security were computed using Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and FANTA’s Household Dietary Diversity Scores (HDDS). The study relied on data obtained from the Nation-wide annual General household Survey carried out in 2014 having 3033 households sampled from the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Poisson regression, Tobit regression and logistic regression models. The result of the Multidimensional Poverty Index headcount revealed that while majority (71.28 percent) of the households are not multidimensionaly poor, 20.51 percent, 6.89 percent and 1.32 percent are vulnerable to multidimensional poverty, multidimensionaly poor and severely multidimensionaly poor respectively. The study also revealed that while there is a significant differences between multidimensional poverty status in the both rural and urban area, there is no much differences when considering the gender of the household head. This indicates that poverty is still a rural phenomenon in the Province. Furthermore, the largest contributor (dimension and indicators) to household multidimensional poverty in the Province is standard of living dimension and specific indicator are the fuels use for cooking, water and space heating, toilet system, dwelling and asset accumulation are the most areas of highest deprivation. The household dietary diversity score show that household have a diverse diet with a mean score of 6.9; however the diversity is skewed toward food groups that do not give expected nutritional diets for a healthy and an economically active life. In General pulse diet and vegetables (spinach and wild green leaves) are least consumed in the province. Consumption of fruit is shown to be less consumed in the rural area as compared to the urban area. Descriptive analysis of livelihood diversification among households in the province revealed that majority of households are not diversified. Poisson regression estimate produced a good fit shown by the statistical insignificance of the deviance good of fit (p=1.09). Age of household head, population group of the head, education attainment of the head, engagement in agriculture, recipient of remittance and number of economic active member of the household) were found to be statistically significant (p<0.01) and were found to influence the probability of a household diversifying their livelihood base in the study area. The result of the Tobit regression on effect of livelihood diversification and other household socio-economic characteristics on household poverty suggest livelihood diversification has no statistically significant effect on the probability of being poor in the study area. Other variables found to influence poverty are, household head’s gender (male), age, education, employment status, access to electricity, engagement in agriculture, salary earning, economic active size of household and asset score) were found to be significantly (p<0.01) to influencing multidimensional poverty of the poor households. The result of the logistic regression indicates that livelihood diversification has no significant effect on the probability of a household being poor. Gender of head, age of household head, education attainment of the head, access to electricity, engagement in agriculture, recipients of pension, number of economic active and living in urban area were also found to be statistically significant in influencing household food insecurity in the province. The findings illustrates that livelihood diversification may not be relevant for household welfare in the case of South Africa. However promoting livelihood diversification remain imperative for household welfare in the South Africa in the long-run. It further illustrate that gender of head, education, access to electricity, home agriculture are imperative for the improvement of household welfare. Hence the study recommends policy relating to conditional granting of cash grant support, intensification of rural development programmes, education affordable and accessible at all level and support home stead or subsistence agriculture

Local Farmers’ Perceptions about Covid-19 Impact on Agriculture: Case of Selected Rural Areas in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The outbreak of the Corona virus that ravaged most parts of the globe including Nigeria had impacted all sectors in all economies. Understanding the perception of rural farmers about Covid-19 pandemic impacts on agricultural activities becomes imperative as it will help local government authorities identify possible vulnerabilities and prioritize interventions. This study therefore seeks 1) to know farmer perceptions of the probable impacts of Covid-19 pandemic on agricultural production process of rural farmers and 2) to examine if this perception varies by the population subgroups of farmers? Using selected rural areas in five local government areas in Ekiti state as case study, primary data obtained through the administered questionnaire were analysed using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance. Results indicated that the two most potential and identified possible vulnerabilities are agricultural output and access to finance, and income with respect to production process and welfare, respectively. ANOVA results indicated that both age and gender are not statistically significant at 5 percent in explaining perceived impact of covid-19 on agricultural output likewise others such as educational attainment, years of farming experience and marital status. Hence, none of the levels in each of the chosen categorical variables is found to be statistically different from the other ones in impacting agricultural production. It is therefore recommended that government policies aimed at stimulating agricultural production should not be gender bias and age driven. Similarly, other factors such as years of farming experience, educational attainment and marital status should be de-emphasized when initiating such policies

Agro-processing Output and Agricultural Sector Employment: Evidence from South Africa

This paper empirically examined the relationship between agro-processing sub-sector output and agricultural sector employment in South Africa by using time series data from 1975-2015. The study employed ARDL-bounds testing approach to examine the existence long-run equilibrium relationship. The result of the ARDL test confirmed the existence of long-run relationship among the variables examined. The long-run estimate result revealed that the relationship between agro-processing output and agricultural sector employment is negative in the long-run. The study further examined the causality between agro-processing output and agricultural sector employment using TYDL causality test and it observed a unidirectional causal relationship running from agro-processing output to agricultural sector employment. While it is deduced that agro-processing sector output is found to be unable to promote agricultural sector employment, this study recommends stimulation of agricultural export for agricultural sector employment generation in South Africa

Impact of funding on academic performance : an exploration of two South African universities

Empirical evidence on the relationship between student funding and academic performance is unclear. Some studies have found a positive relationship, some have suggested a negative one, while others maintain that there is no relationship between them. Acknowledging that a range of factors, other than funding, impact on student success, in this paper, we aim to contribute to a small, but emerging, body of literature on the relationship between student funding and academic performance, proxied by the average individual academic mark for the year. We applied descriptive and inferential statistics to a dataset of 29,619 students registered at two South African universities for the 2018 academic year. The results highlight that in an examination of the impact of being funded by the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) in a bivariate context, it is possible to find a negative relationship with performance. However, at an aggregate level and controlling for the impact of other variables, a positive (albeit weak) and statistically significant correlation between being NSFAS funded and average academic performance emerges.http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joehj2021Sociolog

Determinants of Risk Behaviour in Livestock Development Programs: Evidence from South Africa's Kaonafatso Yadikgomo (Kyd) Scheme

Risk plays a significant role in input use decisions and production of output in agricultural production. Understanding farmer risk attitudes and their responses to risk is significant in designing effective intervention programmes. Few studies have tried to identify how the introduction of a livestock programme has tended to influence farmer risk profile. The objective of the study was to highlight the determinants of risk behaviour in participants of a livestock development programme. The study was carried out in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province of South Africa, utilising a purposive sample of 164 respondents who are part of the Kaonafatso Yadikgomo (KYD) Scheme. The cross-sectional survey collected data pertaining to the risk attitudes of the livestock farmers from an attitudinal scale as well as socio-economic and farm biophysical characteristics. Descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression were used to analyse the data. The results show that the livestock farmers were risk loving, with the risk attitude being influenced by the age of household head, monthly household income and experience in rearing cattle at the ð‘ &lt; 0.1 level. Furthermore, the source of income, herd size, reason for slaughtering cattle distance to the nearest water source and access to a dip tank had significant influence of attitude towards risk at the ð‘ &lt; 0.05 level. The study concludes that being part of a livestock development programme tends inflto uence the risk attitudes of the participants as the determinants were against a priori expectations.&nbsp

Household Cooking Energy Situation in Nigeria: Insight from Nigeria Malaria Indicator Survey 2015

The lingering electricity energy crisis in Nigeria which is beyond the control of most households necessitates making decision and choice on alternative energy pathways for households' sustenance and welfare. This study assessed households' energy situation with respect to choice of cooking fuel and cooking energy poverty status in Nigeria. Further investigation was sought to isolate the main factors influencing households' choice of individual fuels as main cooking fuels using data from Nigeria's Malaria Indicator Survey of 2015 with the application of descriptive and multivariate probit analyses. Findings revealed that wood and kerosene fuels remain the major fuels utilized by most households in Nigeria for cooking purposes. Meanwhile, level of education, household size, wealth status and regional factors are significant predictors driving choices of fuels among households, though the impact of these factors differs across the highlighted choices. Based on these findings, mass enlightenment campaign on the safe use of clean energy is recommended while the need for economic diversification by rural households to aid their wealth status is also emphasized. Also, there is need to gear up corporate social responsibilities by the available private establishments in ensuring rural accessibility, availability and affordability of modern and cleaner fuel (such as LPG). Keywords: Cooking Energy Choice, Multivariate Probit Model, Nigeria JEL Classifications: D10, I30, Q40 DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.691

Behavioral Risk Factor and Primary Healthcare Utilization in South Africa

(1) Background: An effective and efficient primary healthcare service is one of the reforms designed to achieve universal healthcare coverage. The success of the reform however depends on the ability to identify factors that could undermine through avoidable use, the effectiveness of various deployed scarce resources. The prevalence of unhealthy lifestyle risk factors that have been identified as a critical public health issue, which stimulate vulnerability and mortality through the development of non-communicable diseases, also have implications for government health spending through healthcare utilization. (2) Objective: This study aims to investigate the effect of behavioral risk factors on primary healthcare utilization in South Africa. (3) Methods: Using the NIDS wave 4 data set and a binary logistic estimation technique, the study is premised on a modified Anderson model of health service utilization. (4) Results: The binary logistic regression estimation results clearly show the intercepting effect of smoking in public primary healthcare utilization. Equally, the effect of these lifestyle behavior risk factors on public PHC is evident in urban communities. (5) Conclusion: This study suggests that there is a need to intensify awareness on the health effect of smoking; strengthen and broaden law that bans smoking; and introduce the screening of smoking patients for recurring counselling sessions and intervention at primary healthcare facilities in the country&rsquo;s urban communities

Does Urbanization Matter For Poverty Reduction in Nigeria: An Empirical Evidence From Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Estimation

Urbanization has been argued to be having an impact on several other development challenges. To this end, this paper aims to contribute to the empirical literature by exploring the effect of urbanization and its' magnitude on poverty, both in the short run and long run in Nigeria. The macroeconomic analysis was conducted using data from 1982 to 2017 which was obtained from the World Bank. Bound Test and autoregressive distributed-lag (ARDL) estimation techniques were used to test the existence of a cointegration relationship and to estimate the short and long-run effect of urbanization and other variables on poverty reduction. Results from the study and an economic standpoint, provide strong evidence that urbanization remains an important factor in poverty reduction in Nigeria. The analysis further shows that while international remittances have a positive and significant effect, foreign aid and government expenditure have significant negative effects on poverty reduction in the long-term period. While findings from this study suggest that urbanization remains a valid tool in the fight against poverty, the need for sustainable urbanization policies and efforts by the Nigerian government is highly imperative