Symptoms and causes of poverty in a rural Vietnamese commune: Does ethnicity matter?

This study uses data from a sample survey of 200 households drawn from a mountainous commune in Vietnam’s North Central Coast region to measure and explain relative poverty. Principal components analysis is used to construct a multidimensional index of poverty outcomes from variables measuring household income and the value of domestic assets. This index of poverty is then regressed on likely causes of poverty including different forms of resource endowment and social exclusion defined by gender and ethnicity. The ordinary least squares estimates indicate that poverty is indeed influenced by ethnicity, partly through its interaction with social capital. However, poverty is most strongly affected by differences in human and social capital. Differences in the amount of livestock and high quality farmland owned also matter. Thai households are poorer than their Kinh counterparts even when endowed with the same levels of human, social, physical and natural capital considered in the study. This empirical result provides a rationale for further research on the causal relationship between ethnicity and poverty outcomes

Farmer-herder conflicts and food insecurity: Evidence from rural Nigeria

Food security in many developing countries has been threatened by several factors such as unequal land distribution, ineffective land reform policies, inefficient agricultural value chains, and an increasing number of climate disasters. In Nigeria, these threats are exacerbated by rapid population growth and extreme weather events, which have resulted in farmer-herder conflicts in most agrarian communities. This paper examines the differential impacts of the incidence and severity of farmer-herder resource use conflicts on food insecurity of rural households in Nigeria. We employ a two-stage predictor substitution model to estimate survey data collected from 401 rural households in Nigeria. The empirical results show that both the incidence and the severity of farmer-herder conflicts significantly increase food insecurity, and the severity of these conflicts has a larger impact than their incidence. The estimates of the conditional mixed process models confirm the robustness of our results. Additional analysis reveals that the incidence and severity of farmer-herder conflicts positively and significantly affect food insecurity, measured by the number of days with limited varieties of food eaten. Our findings highlight the importance of policy interventions that address ongoing farmer-herder conflicts in affected countries like Nigeria to enhance food security from a sustainable development perspective

Economic impact of poverty and social isolation: an exploration with US State data

A. Objectives: The policy debates surrounding the apparent trade-off between economic growth and income inequality, and consequent increase in poverty rate, have gained momentum since the financial debacle in 2008. In this paper, we explore the causal link between poverty, economic performance and social isolation. We contribute to the literature in two ways; first, our analysis overcomes the limitations of cross-country studies by using state-level data for three years-2000, 2005 and 2010; second, we include a variable for social isolation, to explain the differences in economic performances across the US states. We posit that social isolation, defined as poor English language proficiency, restricts economic integration and hence has a negative economic impact. B. Data and Methods: Employing data from the US Bureau of Census, we explore if differences in the poverty rate and linguistic isolation can explain the differences in Gross State Product (GSP) per capita across 50 US states. We estimate equation (1): [see presentation page 8 for equation] In equation (1), α2 represents state fixed effects (for state specific unobserved factors) ,D₁ and D₂ are time dummy variables for year 2005 and 2010, respectively, and s(s,t)is a vector of control variables (educational attainment, employment in manufacturing industries and density of population).The dependent variable is GSP per capita (in 2005 prices) and the main causal variable x s,t is defined as the headcount index. The interactive term measures the possibility that the marginal impact of poverty on GSP depends on social isolation z(s,t). We argue that the negative impact of poverty will be higher for states with a higher proportion of socially isolated people. C. Results & Concluding Remarks: We conduct a Breusch-Pagan (BP) Test and a Hausman test to check for Fixed Effect (FE) specification. Both tests reject the null hypotheses for pooled OLS and Random Effect model. FE estimation of equation (1) reports that the coefficients for x(s,t) and its interactive term with z(s,t)are negative and are statistically significant. Our estimates indicate that a 1% increase in poverty rate, GSP per capita reduces by 1.4%, and it could further reduce by a 0.08 % in states with a higher proportion of linguistically isolated people. We checked for model robustness, against omitted variables, and estimation with 48 continental states. Our results provide an economic rationale for reducing social isolation, as part of the poverty reduction strategies in the US, and countries like the UK, with large immigrant population

Reducing vulnerability and precarity of low-skilled women in short-term migration from the global south: Key policy recommendations for the G-20

Women migrant workers make significant contributions to the global economy, but face risks of being subject to forced labour and trafficking, heightened by COVID-19. As women migrate from low-income to G20 countries to undertake key service functions, the G20 should uphold women’s human rights and fair work conditions. G20 countries can support migrant women workers through technical and information exchange, giving voice, and partnership with source countries to certify migration agents, provide social assistance and establish reintegration programmes. G20 can also support migrants in their own countries by providing standard employment contracts, securing access to health services and ensuring accessible redress mechanisms

Gender-sensitive Risks and Options Assessment for Decision making (ROAD) to support WiF2

The Gender-Sensitive Risks and Options Assessment for Decision Making (ROAD) to Support WiF-2 (ROAD migration project), a partnership coordinated by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Australian National University, American University Beirut, Lincoln University, and University of Dhaka, evaluated the ILO-DFID Partnership Programme on Fair Recruitment and Decent Work for Women Migrant Workers in South Asia and the Middle East (Work in Freedom, Phase 2 project [WiF-2]), which operated from 2018 to 2023. The WiF-2 project specifically aimed “to reduce vulnerability to trafficking and forced labour of women and girls across migration pathways leading to the care sector and textiles, clothing, leather and footwear industries (TCLFI) of South Asia and Arab States” (ToC WiF-2)

Reducing vulnerability to forced labour and trafficking of women migrant workers from South- to West-Asia

Millions of short-term, low-skilled women migrant workers from South-Asia to West-Asia experience exploitative and unsafe conditions. We review evidence from literature and interview 18 key informants to assess the exploitation migrant women face, and highlight the impacts of past interventions to determine their potential, and realised effectiveness, in reducing forced labour and trafficking. We find that women face varied precarious situations along the migration pathway, including interactions with recruiters in the home country, incurring debt, pre-departure formalities and training, withheld wages and mobility restrictions. We discuss varying degrees of success of mechanisms that aim to reduce vulnerability to forced labour

Reducing vulnerability to forced labor and trafficking of short-term, low-skilled women migrant workers in the South Asia to Middle East corridor

Millions of female migrants experience various forms of exploitative and unsafe conditions when migrating for employment and income generation, both in countries of origin and in destination countries. Vulnerabilities increased further due to the Covid-19 pandemic, causing income and job losses, entrapment in countries of destination without financial or social support and stigmatization upon return. One of the key migration routes travelled by millions of migrants is from South Asia to the Middle East. We examine this migration route for low-skilled female migrant workers highlighting the impacts of interventions along the migration pathway to determine the effectiveness of alternative mechanisms for reducing forced labour and trafficking. We draw lessons from the literature as well as from interviews with key informants in the field, including academics, development partners, NGO workers, and policymakers, to identify promising interventions that successfully reduce the vulnerability of women migrants. We find that, while Covid-19 has increased migrant vulnerability, it has also exposed the current system’s violations in facilitating trafficking and exacerbating poor working conditions

Responding to global challenges in food, energy, environment and water: Risks and options assessment for decision-Making

We analyse the threats of global environmental change, as they relate to food security. First, we review three discourses: (i) ‘sustainable intensification’, or the increase of food supplies without compromising food producing inputs, such as soils and water; (ii) the ‘nexus’ that seeks to understand links across food, energy, environment and water systems; and (iii) ‘resilience thinking’ that focuses on how to ensure the critical capacities of food, energy and water systems are maintained in the presence of uncertainties and threats. Second, we build on these discourses to present the causal, risks and options assessment for decision-making process to improve decision-making in the presence of risks. The process provides a structured, but flexible, approach that moves from problem diagnosis to better risk-based decision-making and outcomes by responding to causal risks within and across food, energy, environment and water systems

Denying the pleasure of scrumptious downtowns? : evidence on economics of diversity in the US

This paper investigates whether barriers to communication due to social diversity influence labour productivity across metropolitan areas in the United States. We contend that some forms of social diversity can increase the cost of communication and, thus, retard the diffusion and creation of productivity enhancing knowledge. We investigate this hypothesis using a panel dataset for three census years: 1980, 1990 and 2000, to estimate the economic impact of diversity on labour productivity (measured as average wage) across American cities. As part of the estimation we use three measures for diversity – racial, cultural or linguistic, along with a set of control variables including educational attainment, and demographic variables. Our initial findings indicate: one, racial diversity reduces labour productivity; two, linguistic diversity and cultural diversity enhance labour productivity, but barriers to communication mitigate the positive effects of linguistic diversity. The robustness of the ordinary least-squares results is supported by Instrumental Variable Estimation to account for potentially endogenous variables. Overall, the results provide insights regarding ‘state-sponsored’ multiculturalism and the economic impacts of social capital

Diversity and 'economic assimilation' of immigrant workers: evidence from cities in the USA

We examine if barriers to communication, created through differences in language, culture, religion or race, retard economic assimilation of immigrants workers in American metropolitan areas. Employing a panel dataset for three census years: 1980, 1990 and 2000; we estimate the impact of diversity on labour productivity (measured as average wage). Our findings indicate: one, racial diversity reduces labour productivity; two, linguistic diversity and cultural diversity enhance labour productivity, but barriers to communication mitigate the positive effects of linguistic diversity. We also discuss preliminary results of the investigation on the impact of diversity on wage gaps between immigrant and native workers