Gasoline price reforms and households' consumption behaviour: evidence from household‐level survey data in Saudi Arabia

Background: Food waste and food insecurity may co-exist in various balances in developing and developed countries. This study aimed to explore the levels of food waste and food insecurity, the factors associated with them, and their relationships at the household and individual levels in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This study was a nationwide cross-sectional survey conducted via computer-assisted phone interviews in January 2021. Quota sampling was utilized to generate balanced distributions of participants by gender across all the administrative regions of Saudi Arabia. Data collection included household demographics, food waste and disposal, the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). Results: Out of the 2807 potential participants contacted, 2454 (87.4%) completed the interview. The mean age was 31.4 (SD = 11.7; range = 18–99) and 50.1% were female. The weighted prevalence of uncooked food waste in the last four weeks was 63.6% and the cooked food waste was 74.4%. However, the food insecurity weighted prevalence at the individual level (FIES) was 6.8%. In terms of food insecurity at the household level (HFIAS), 13.3% were in the “severely food insecure” category. Moreover, this study found that “moderately food insecure” households were associated with an increased likelihood to waste uncooked food (relative risk (RR) = 1.25), and the “mildly food insecure” (RR = 1.21) and “moderately food insecure” (RR = 1.17) households were associated with an increased likelihood to waste cooked food. However, “food secure” households were associated with a decreased likelihood to waste cooked food (RR = 0.56). Finally, this study identified four household factors associated with food waste and three household factors that were associated with “severe food insecurity.” Conclusions: This first national coverage study to explore food waste and food insecurity at the individual level and household level, identified household factors associated with food waste and food insecurity and identified new associations between food waste and food insecurity in Saudi Arabia. The associations found between food waste and food insecurity are potential areas of intervention to reduce both food waste and food insecurity at the same time, toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to food waste and food security.

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Men’s Economic Status and Marriage Timing in Rural and Semi-Urban Malawi

Social Forces ◽

10.1093/sf/soaa092 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Isabel Pike

Keyword(s):

Urban Communities ◽

Survey Data ◽

Economic Status ◽

Family Characteristics ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Urban Centers ◽

Marriage Timing ◽

Household Level ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

The Individual

Abstract In recent decades, qualitative research from across sub-Saharan Africa has shown how young men are often unable to marry because they lack wealth and a stable livelihood. With survey data, researchers have begun to study how men’s economic circumstances are related to when they marry in the continent’s capitals and larger urban centers. However, our understanding of these dynamics outside of large cities remains limited. Drawing on longitudinal survey data, this paper examines how men’s economic standing, both at the individual and household level, relates to their marriage timing in rural and semi-urban communities in the Salima district of Malawi. The findings show that men who have higher earnings, work in agriculture, and come from a household that sold cash crops were more likely to marry. In contrast, students as well as men from households owning a large amount of land were substantially less likely to marry. Additionally, men living in the semi-urban communities were around half as likely to marry as their rural counterparts. This negative association is largely explained by the greater proportion of men who are students in towns and trading centers and also the relatively less agricultural nature of these communities. These findings show the value of considering both individual and family characteristics in studies of marriage timing and also suggest that as sub-Saharan Africa urbanizes, the age of marriage for men will likely rise.

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Perceived and actual risks of drought: household and expert views from the lower Teesta River Basin of northern Bangladesh

Natural Hazards ◽

10.1007/s11069-021-04789-4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Roquia Salam ◽

Bonosri Ghose ◽

Badhon Kumar Shill ◽

Md. Aminul Islam ◽

Abu Reza Md. Towfiqul Islam ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Reduction ◽

Survey Data ◽

River Basin ◽

Perceived Risk ◽

Disaster Risk Reduction ◽

Risk Index ◽

Disaster Risk ◽

Drought Risk ◽

Household Level ◽

Risk Levels

AbstractDisaster risk perception and risk appraisal are essential in formulating an appropriate disaster risk reduction policy. This study examines the actual vs perceived drought risks by constructing risk indices at the household and expert levels using survey data from the lower Teesta River Basin in northern Bangladesh. The survey data were collected from 450 farmers using a structured questionnaire conducted between August and September 2019. A composite drought risk index was developed to understand households’ perceived and actual risks in the designated areas. The results show that the actual and perceived risk values differ significantly among the three case study sites locally known as Ganai, Ismail, and Par Sekh Sundar. The risk levels also differ significantly across the households’ gender, income, occupation, and educational attainment. People with insolvent socioeconomic status are more prone to drought risk compared to others. Results also reveal that the mean level of perceived risk agrees well with the actual risk, whereas females perceive comparatively higher risk than their male counterparts. Expert views on drought risk are similar to the individual household level perceived risk. The outcomes of this study would assist the policymakers and disaster managers to understand the concrete risk scenarios and take timely disaster risk reduction actions for ensuring a drought-resistant society.

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Middle Eastern Beliefs about the Causal Linkages of Development to Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights

Sociology of Development ◽

10.1525/sod.2017.3.1.70 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 70-94 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Arland Thornton ◽

Shawn Dorius ◽

Jeffrey Swindle ◽

Linda Young-DeMarco ◽

Mansoor Moaddel

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Saudi Arabia ◽

Survey Data ◽

Middle Eastern ◽

Significant Proportion ◽

Economic Changes ◽

Developmental Models ◽

Personal Freedom ◽

Developmental Idealism

This paper investigates the extent to which people in five Middle Eastern countries endorse key beliefs of developmental idealism that associate development with freedom, democracy, and human rights. Developmental idealism is a set of beliefs concerning the desirability of development, the methods for achieving it, and its consequences. The literature suggests that these beliefs have diffused worldwide among elites and lay citizens and posits that when such beliefs are disseminated they become forces for social and economic changes. Although developmental idealism research has primarily examined family and demographic issues, developmental idealism has tremendous potential to influence other aspects of society. This paper extends knowledge by considering societal aspects not addressed previously in the developmental idealism literature: personal freedom, democracy, and human rights. Using survey data from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, we investigate how publics of these countries associate development with these elements. We find that majorities believe development brings greater personal freedom, democracy, and human rights. Conversely, the data show that in four of the countries majorities believe more personal freedom contributes to development. These findings provide support for the idea that developmental idealism beliefs concerning freedom, democracy, and human rights have diffused to lay publics in these five Middle Eastern countries. We also find evidence of uniquely Islamic developmental models; a significant proportion of people in these countries believe that more religion will bring more development.

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Representativeness of individual-level data in COVID-19 phone surveys: Findings from Sub-Saharan Africa

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0258877 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (11) ◽

pp. e0258877

Author(s):

Joshua Brubaker ◽

Talip Kilic ◽

Philip Wollburg

Keyword(s):

Survey Data ◽

Adult Population ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Sampling Weights ◽

Household Level ◽

Individual Level ◽

Level Data ◽

Phone Survey ◽

General Adult Population ◽

Household Heads

The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgent demand for timely data, leading to a surge in mobile phone surveys for tracking the impacts of and responses to the pandemic. Using data from national phone surveys implemented in Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda during the pandemic and the pre-COVID-19 national face-to-face surveys that served as the sampling frames for the phone surveys, this paper documents selection the biases in individual-level analyses based on phone survey data. In most cases, individual-level data are available only for phone survey respondents, who we find are more likely to be household heads or their spouses and non-farm enterprise owners, and on average, are older and better educated vis-a-vis the general adult population. These differences are the result of uneven access to mobile phones in the population and the way that phone survey respondents are selected. To improve the representativeness of individual-level analysis using phone survey data, we recalibrate the phone survey sampling weights based on propensity score adjustments that are derived from a model of an individual’s likelihood of being interviewed as a function of individual- and household-level attributes. We find that reweighting improves the representativeness of the estimates for phone survey respondents, moving them closer to those of the general adult population. This holds for both women and men and for a range of demographic, education, and labor market outcomes. However, reweighting increases the variance of the estimates and, in most cases, fails to overcome selection biases. This indicates limitations to deriving representative individual-level estimates from phone survey data. Obtaining reliable data on men and women through future phone surveys will require random selection of adult interviewees within sampled households.

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Valued Added Tax (VAT) Impact on Economic and Societal Well-Beings (Pre-and Post COVID19): A Perception Study From Saudi Arabia

International Journal of Financial Research ◽

10.5430/ijfr.v12n1p92 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 92

Author(s):

Siti Norwahida Shukeri ◽

Faisal D Alfordy

Keyword(s):

Saudi Arabia ◽

Income Inequality ◽

Value Added ◽

Tax System ◽

Income Source ◽

Oil Reserves ◽

Consumption Behaviour ◽

Younger Generation ◽

Legislative Changes ◽

The Impact

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has realized that merely relying on oil reserves, as the main income source will stop the country from achieving sustainable economic growth due to the instability of world oil market prices and its uncertainties. Hence, the first Value Added Tax (VAT) has been introduced in KSA in 2018 following to the urge by International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, VAT implementation in the Kingdom is not free from criticisms since its citizens, particularly younger generation, have been used to tax-free livings. In addition, the global health pandemic of COVID19 has hit major economies worldwide. In correspondence, KSA has decided to increase its VAT rate to 15% from 5% by the 1st of July 2020, which may suggest a different pattern of consumption behaviour since the rate has been drastically increased. Therefore, this study aims to examine the perception of Saudi younger generation on the acceptance of VAT based on five categorical factors underlying Saudi younger generation’s level of acceptance or rejection of VAT, namely; tax system effectiveness (TSE), income generation sources (IGS), income inequality (II), system knowledge (SK) and global practice (GP). The study also is set to examine the impact of VAT on Saudi younger generation’s consumption behaviour. Using a sample of 460 respondents, the findings reveal that most of the respondents (89.6%) are aware of VAT implementation. However, the negative perceptions found from the analysis shows that VAT is not an efficient tax system to be implemented (average TSE = 45.6% less favourable) as the VAT system does not provide income inequality among citizens (average II= 45.3 percent less favourable). Moreover, the results also show that VAT implementation does not affect the consumption behaviour, suggesting that Saudi younger generation still spends regardless of VAT. Limited studies among the GCC academics on VAT has motivated this research to be among the first attempt to document such impact and to consider it in lights of new legislative changes due to COVID-19. Hence, this study is both timely and relevant to provide new understandings to responsible authorities regarding its VAT system, its acceptance and impacts on consumption behaviour in lights of COVID-19.

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Household level determinants of food insecurity in rural areas of Dire Dawa, eastern Ethiopia

African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development ◽

10.18697/ajfand.30.3740 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 9 (30) ◽

pp. 1914-1926

Author(s):

Ayalneh Bogale ◽

◽

Shimelis A ◽

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Food Insecurity ◽

Survey Data ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Rural Households ◽

Household Head ◽

Household Food Insecurity ◽

Household Level ◽

Household Food ◽

Dire Dawa

Even though the struggle to achieve food security at the household level in the rural areas of Ethiopia dates back a long period, it has remained as a challenging goal even today. Making their living on marginal, moisture stressed, heavily degraded and less productive land, households in rural areas of Dire Dawa face persistent food shortages. The design and implementation of effective measures to reduce household food insecurity in the region depends on in-depth understanding of its covariates. This study seeks to address these issues by assessing location specific socio-economic factors that influence food insecurity of households in rural areas of Dire Dawa Administrative region. The analysis is based on survey data gathered from randomly selected 115 sample rural households in the study area. A binary logit model was used to identify the factors influencing household level food insecurity. A total of thirteen explanatory variables were included in the empirical model. The empirical results estimated using the survey data to identify the determinants of food insecurity among rural households in the study area revealed mixed impressions. Among variables considered , family size, annual income, amount of credit received, access to irrigation, age of household head, farm size, and livestock owned showed theoretically consistent and statistically significant effect. However, estimated coefficients of number of oxen owned and dependency ratio showed theoretically inconsistent and statistically insignificant effect on the probability of household to be food insecure.. Estimated coefficients of sex of household head, total off-farm income, education of household head and amount of food aid received were not found to be statistically significant in determining household food insecurity in the study area. The findings imply that improvement in food security situation needs to build assets, improve the functioning of rural financial markets and promote family planning. These areas could provide entry points for policy intervention to reduce hunger and augment household and community livelihood opportunities.

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Perceived and Actual Risks of Drought : Household and Expert Views From Lower Teesta River Basin of Northern Bangladesh

10.21203/rs.3.rs-310699/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Roquia Salam ◽

Bonosri Ghose ◽

Badhon Kumar Shill ◽

Md. Aminul Islam ◽

A R M Towfiqul Islam ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Risk Reduction ◽

Survey Data ◽

River Basin ◽

Perceived Risk ◽

Disaster Risk Reduction ◽

Economic Status ◽

Risk Index ◽

Disaster Risk ◽

Drought Risk ◽

Household Level

Abstract Disaster risk perception, as well as risk appraisal, play a pivotal role in making the disaster risk reduction policy. This study examines the actual vs perceived drought risks by constructing risk indices at the household and expert levels using survey data from the lower Teesta River Basin in northern Bangladesh. Survey data were collected from 450 farmers based on the structural questionnaire. A composite drought risk index was developed to understand households’ perceived and actual risks in the designated areas. The results show that the actual and perceived risk values differ significantly among the three designated sites of Ganai, Ismail, and Par Sekh Sundar. The risk levels also differ significantly across the household’s gender, income, occupation, and educational attainment. People with poor socio-economic status are more prone to drought risk than others. Results also reveal that the mean level of perceived risk agrees well with the actual risk; females perceive comparatively higher risk than males. Expert views on drought risk are similar to the individual household level perceived risk. The outcomes of this study would help the policy-makers and disaster managers to understand the concrete risk scenarios of the study areas and to take timely and appropriate disaster risk reduction actions for ensuring a drought-resistant society.

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The descriptive pattern of physical activity in Saudi Arabia: analysis of national survey data

International Health ◽

10.1093/inthealth/ihaa027 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Bader A Alqahtani ◽

Aqeel M Alenazi ◽

Ahmed S Alhowimel ◽

Ragab K Elnaggar

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Saudi Arabia ◽

Survey Data ◽

National Survey ◽

Regional Distribution ◽

Saudi Population ◽

Physical Activity Guidelines ◽

Physical Behavior ◽

Low Level ◽

Practice Distribution

Abstract Background Over recent decades, there has been a dramatic transformation in mechanization reaching all aspects of people's lives in Saudi Arabia. In the light of this, there was a significant change in physical behavior in the community. The aim of the current study was to investigate the national and regional distribution of physical activity practice among adults aged ≥15 y across Saudi Arabia. Methods Data from the Bulletin of Household Sports Practice National Survey were used to determine the physical activity practice distribution. A total of 26 000 families from 13 administrative regions across Saudi Arabia were surveyed. Results The proportion of the total Saudi population who were practitioners of physical activity (i.e. ≥150 min per week) among Saudi adults aged ≥15 y was 17.40%, while the proportion of non-practitioners was 82.60%. Conclusion This study found a low level of physical activity among Saudi adults who meet physical activity guidelines. These findings suggest that interventions and promotional programs should be developed to increase physical activity among the Saudi population.

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