Difference in Housing Finance Usage and Its Impact on Housing Wealth Inequality in Urban China

With the increasing importance of financial loans in home purchases in urban China, the role of housing loans in the accumulation of housing wealth needs to be unraveled. Using the data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS), this study investigates the use of housing loans and their impact on housing wealth inequality. It has been found that people with higher socioeconomic status and institutional advantages benefit more from housing provident fund loans and are more likely to fully invoke different financing channels to accumulate housing wealth. On the contrary, disadvantaged groups have to resort to costly market-based mortgages to finance their home purchases. This leads them to fall further behind in housing wealth accumulation. The spatial stratification of housing wealth accompanying the urban hierarchy was also observed and found to be closely linked to the type of housing loans. In this increasingly financialized era, relying on financial instruments in the process of household asset accumulation may further amplify the existing wealth inequality among social groups.

The Impact of Household Assets on Child Well-being: Evidence from China

This study examined the impact of household assets on multiple dimensions of child well-being using data on 2,583 children aged 10–15 years and their families from the cross-sectional 2016 China Family Panel Studies survey. Household assets were measured as the value of housing assets, cash deposits and household durable goods. Child well-being was measured with 10 indicators in five dimensions: health, education, economic well-being, subjective well-being and family relationships. Multiple linear regression was applied to investigate whether household assets were predictive of child well-being. The results suggest that children living in households with relatively low levels of household assets have lower overall well-being than those living in families with higher levels of assets. The impacts of diverse household asset types on various aspects of children’s well-being are different. Additionally, the relationship between household assets and various dimensions of child well-being is different and unequal between rural and urban areas, as well as among the eastern, central, and western regions.

Influence of Cooperative Societies on the Wellbeing of Staff Among Universities in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The study examined the effect of cooperative societies on the well-being of staff among Universities in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The specific objectives are to access the effects of educational loans on the well-being of the staff, investigate the effect of land acquisition on the well-being of the staff and determine the effect of commodity purchase (household Asset) on the well-being of staff among Universities in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The total population of this study is three thousand two hundred and five (3,205) comprising the entire cooperators in the three Universities in Ekiti State, namely Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti and Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti. The study employed a stratified random sampling technique for selecting a sample size of 355 respondents which are further divided among cooperators in the three Universities in Ekiti State. Data gathered were analysed using frequency tables and multiple regression analysis to achieve the objectives of the study. The results showed that cooperative societies significantly affect the well-being of staff among Universities in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Specifically, the sub-variables of the cooperative societies were considered significant in the order of educational loan (p= 0.000), land acquisition (p= 0.000) and commodity purchase (household asset) (p= 0.000). This implies that cooperative societies have an effect on the well-being of staff among Universities in Ekiti State. The study concluded that access to educational loans, land acquisition and commodity purchases (household assets) have a significant positive relationship with the well-being of staff among Universities in Ekiti State, Nigeria at a 5% level of significance.

Agricultural Commercialisation in South-Western Ghana

The Agricultural Policy Research in Africa study in Ghana consists of three work streams. This report contains results of the analyses of Work Stream 1 (WS1) baseline and endline survey datasets for Ghana. Oil palm commercialisation arrangements and outcomes are the focus of WS1 in Ghana. Case studies have been carried out in two districts – Ahanta West and Mpohor – in Western Region. This report highlights the changes between 2017 and 2019 for five APRA indicators, including agricultural commercialisation (input and output), employment, poverty (income, subjective poverty and household asset ownership), food security and women empowerment.

Twice Is Nice: The Benefits of Two Ground Measures for Evaluating the Accuracy of Satellite-Based Sustainability Estimates

Satellite data offer great promise for improving measures related to sustainable development goals. However, assessing satellite estimates is complicated by the fact that traditional ground-based measures of these same outcomes are often very noisy, leading to underestimation of satellite performance. Here, we quantify the amount of noise in traditional measures for three commonly studied outcomes in prior work—agricultural yields, household asset ownership, and household consumption expenditures—and present a theoretical basis for properly characterizing satellite performance in the presence of noisy ground data. We find that for both yield and consumption, repeated ground measures often disagree with each other, with less than half of the variability in one ground measure captured by the other. Estimates of the performance of satellite measures, in terms of squared correlation (r2), which account for this noise in ground data are accordingly higher, and occasionally even double, the apparent performance based on a naïve comparison of satellite and ground measures. Our results caution against evaluating satellite measures without accounting for noise in ground data and emphasize the benefit of estimating that noise by collecting at least two independent ground measures.

Adoption of Improved Mungbean Production Technologies in Selected East African Countries

This study analyzes the factors that influence the probability and extent of the adoption of mungbean production technologies in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, using multivariate probit and Poisson regression models. The results show that the probability and extent of the adoption of mungbean production technologies are influenced by gender of the household, household size, farm size, livestock size, household assets, access to extension services and access to credit. The study suggests that policy interventions that aimed at targeting women farmers, increasing household asset and information dissemination, such as field demonstrations and training programs, are crucial in enhancing technology adoption among smallholder farmers.

Development of a temporally harmonized asset index: evidence from across 50 years of follow up of a birth cohort in Guatemala

Background Asset-based indices are widely-used proxy measures of wealth in low and middle-income countries (LMIC). The stability of these indices within households over time is not known. Methods We develop a harmonized household asset index using Principal Component Analysis for the participants (n = 2392) of INCAP Longitudinal Study, Guatemala using data from six waves of follow-up over the period of 1965–2018. We estimate its cross-sectional association with parental schooling (in 1967–75) and attained schooling (in 2015–18) of cohort members. We study how patterns of cross-sectional loadings change over time and between urban-rural settings. We assess its robustness to omission of assets or study waves and alternate specifications of factor extraction procedure (exploratory factor analysis, multiple correspondence analysis). Results The harmonized index constructed using 8 assets and 11 housing characteristics explained 32.4% of the variance. Most households increased in absolute wealth over time with median wealth (25th percentile, 75th percentile; households) increasing from − 3.74 (− 4.42, − 3.07; 547) in 1967 to 2.08 (1.41, 2.67; 1145) in 2017–18. Ownership of television, electricity, quality of flooring and sanitary installation explained the largest proportion of variance. The index is positively associated with measures of schooling (maternal: r = 0.16; paternal: r = 0.10; attained: r = 0.35, all p < 0.001). In 2015–18, house ownership versus housing characteristics and ownership of electronic goods differentiate households in urban and rural areas respectively. The index is robust for omission of assets or study waves, indicator categorization and factor extraction method. Conclusion A temporally harmonized asset index constructed from consistently administered surveys in a cohort setting over time may allow study of associations of life-course social mobility with human capital outcomes in LMIC contexts. The approach permits exploration of trends in household wealth of the sample over a follow-up period against repeated cross-sectional surveys which permit the estimation of only the mean trajectory.

The Financial Protection of National Health Insurance: Evidence From a Cross Section of State and Federal Workers in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria

Background: Public health insurance schemes can offer households financial protection against health care costs and help to resolve inequality in health care provision. The current study evaluates the impact of the Nigerian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in reducing financial hardship for a sample of Nigerian households working in the health and higher education sectors. The data allows us to examine the variation in the financial protection effects across different income groups and explore differences in standard of living by households with coverage and those without.Methods: Data was gathered in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria. A cluster sampling technique is used to compare participants and non-participants in the NHIS and within this, identify equivalent groups with regard to household characteristics such as education level, income and household composition. A propensity score matching approach examines variations in out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE), catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and number of household assets across the insured and uninsured groups controlling for cofounding factors.Results: The likelihood of experiencing CHE for a household that is insured is estimated to be 82% lower than that of an insured household, even after controlling for our variety of observable characteristics. OOPEs are ₦50,000 lower in households with insurance compared to those without. We additionally find a significant difference in standard of living, as measured by household asset ownership across the insured and non-insured groupsConclusions: There is a statistically and practically significant association between participation in the NHIS scheme and household financial protection. This provides support to policy-makers seeking to design and extend equitable health-financing policies.

Impact of Climate Change Adaptation on Household Food Security in Nigeria—A Difference-in-Difference Approach

Studies have shown that climate change adaptation options (CCA) are implemented to buffer the unfavorable climatic changes in Nigeria causing a decline in food security. Against the background of measuring the impact of CCA options using cross-sectional data, this study assessed how CCA had affected food security using panel data on farming households from 2010–2016 obtained from Nigerian General Household Survey (GHS). Data were analyzed using the Panel probit model (PPM), Propensity Score Matching (PSM), and Difference-in-Difference (DID) regression. PPM showed that the probability of adopting CCA options increased with farm size (p < 0.01), extension contact (p < 0.01), and marital status (p < 0.01), but decreased with the age of the household head (p < 0.01). Credit facilities (p < 0.05), ownership of farmland (p < 0.01), household size (p < 0.01), years of schooling (p < 0.01), household asset (p < 0.01), and location (p < 0.05) also had a significant but mixed effect on CCA choices. PSM revealed that farming households that adopted CCA strategies had 9% higher food security levels than non-adopters. Furthermore, the result of the DID model revealed a significant positive effect of CCA on household food security (β = 5.93, p < 0.01). It was recommended that education and provision of quality advisory services to farmers is crucial to foster the implementation of CCA options.