Coping with food price hikes: strategies of the poor in Kandy, Sri Lanka

The objectives of this study are to assess: (i) the resource profile of the vulnerable households in Kandy district in Sri Lanka, (ii) food consumption pattern of the households, (iii) the coping strategies adopted by the households during the times of food price hikes, (iv) the usefulness and effectiveness of coping strategies adopted by the household, and (v) the factors that influence the decisions made by households to change their food consumption patterns in crisis situations.Food hikes, Kandy, Sri Lanka

Income Inequality and Consumption Pattern Among BOP Consumers in India

Marketing discipline has evolved through the context of the industrialized or developed world. However, the largest groups of consumers are also the poorest (Bottom of the Pyramid category) and economic inequality is still persisting among BOP consumers. Using the Gini co-efficient, economic inequality was measured with the help of World Bank report. The main aim of this paper is to know about the trends that took place in income inequality and consumption pattern among BOP consumers based on household surveys (from NSSO and World Bank). It shows that income inequality among BOP consumers has been increasing simultaneously with increase in consumption pattern among BOP consumers because income growth would leads to truly middle-class led one with growing of consumer spending from $1.5 trillion to$6 trillion by 2030. Further, income growth lifts 25 million households from poverty and in 2030 among that fewer than 5 per cent of households will be in below poverty

The...Tinderverse?: Opportunities and Challenges for User Safety in Extended Reality (XR) Dating Apps

Dating apps such as Tinder have announced plans for a dating metaverse: the incorporation of XR technologies into the online dating process to augment interactions between potential sexual partners across virtual and physical worlds. While the dating metaverse is still in conceptual stages we can forecast significant harms that it may expose daters to given prior research into the frequency and severity of sexual harms facilitated by dating apps as well as harms within social VR environments. In this workshop paper we envision how XR could enrich virtual-to-physical interaction between potential sexual partners and outline harms that it will likely perpetuate as well. We then introduce our ongoing research to preempt such harms: a participatory design study with sexual violence experts and demographics at disproportionate risk of sexual violence to produce mitigative solutions to sexual violence perpetuated by XR-enabled dating apps.Comment: Accepted to CHI 22 Workshop "Novel Challenges of Safety, Security and Privacy in Extended Reality