Conducting Online Crime and Safety Surveys with British Farmers

Rural crime continues to be an under-represented area of academia. As a result, much of the methodological guidance tends to stem from health or rural development research, providing general guidance, but lacking the specific considerations of conducting crime and safety research in a rural environment. However, the impact of COVID-19 has led to a wider consideration of online surveys, particularly in rural communities. This paper provides guidance on conducting online crime and safety surveys with the farming community based on the extensive experience of the author in the field of rural criminology. Methodological considerations will be addressed that distinguish rural online crime and safety surveying from its urban counterpart, and the advantages and disadvantages of this methodology will be discussed. The aim being to guide the rural criminological researcher in the use of online surveys to obtain key data from the farming community to support and extend their research.

COVID-19 Crisis and Some Contours of the Rural Labour Market in India

Indian labour markets are segmented based on caste, gender groups, region, types of workers and types of contractual arrangements. An important feature of the labour markets in India, notwithstanding intersectionalities across segments, is greater access to high-quality work with social security benefits to the privileged sections of the society as compared to the socially oppressed sections, including women. The latter dominate in low-quality, less stable and insecure work in the informal sector.The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdown measures have increased the vulnerability of the informal workers, including the migrant workers. The article analyses the features of rural and urban labour markets, prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, that had contributed to vulnerability of the workforce. The analysis was based on the National Statistical Office ( NSO, 2020 )—Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) database of 2018–2019, NSSO (2014)—Report of the Situation of Agricultural Households in India, NSSO (2014)—Employment and Unemployment Survey, Labour Bureau, and the Economic Survey of India. It also analyses the impacts of the pandemic on the rural labour market based on the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) database. Our analysis reveals that the rural labour market in India was more adversely affected by the lockdown measures than the urban counterpart. In the rural areas, there was collapse of non-farm employment and increased participation in agricultural work was largely an outcome of distress. Furthermore, reverse migration of workers had led to sharp decline in remittances, particularly in the eastern Indian states that are largely agrarian and poor. The article advocates policy initiatives that include expansion of the rural employment programmes for providing relief to the poor and working population in India.

FINTECH, GROWTH AND INEQUALITY: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA’S HOUSEHOLD SURVEY DATA

This paper represents an early attempt to investigate the growth and distributional effects of Fintech development, using household survey data from China. China’s rapid expansion of Fintech in the past decade has significantly improved the accessibility and affordability of financial services, particularly for formerly financially excluded population groups. Linking the index of digital financial inclusion with China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data, we find that Fintech development is positively correlated with household income, and the positive effect is larger for rural households than the urban counterpart, suggesting that Fintech development has helped narrow the urban–rural income gap. Moreover, the poor gain more than the rich from Fintech development in rural China, indicating its benign distributive impacts within rural China.

The Impact of Indonesian Law No. 6/2014 on Women’s Political Participation in the Politics of Kelurahan: A Study on Kelurahan’s Community Empowerment Institution (LPMK) in Salatiga, Indonesia

In Indonesia, decentralization and democratization have prompted the issue of women’s representation to be brought upon local and small-scale communities. One of the examples is the Indonesian Law No.6/2014 (the Village Act) in which the affirmative action for women’s participation is mandated in village’s representative body. Later, the same action is implemented in the urban counterpart to village’s rural that is Kelurahan, with the same Act –mutatis mutandis-. This article explores the implementation of Law No. 6/2014’s affirmative action to the kelurahan’s representative body, the Community Empowerment Institution or Lembaga Pemberdayaan Masyarakat Kelurahan (LPMK) in Salatiga. Acknowledging that there are fundamental differences between village and kelurahan, we found that such a maneuver has caused policy and practical inconsistencies where gender equality clause is omitted and the organization’s structure remains unreformed. Thus, it seems that the implementation of affirmative action for women participation in kelurahan’s politics has been withered before blooming.

Evaluating Fuel Tax Revenue Impacts of Electric Vehicle Adoption in Virginia Counties: Application of a Bivariate Linear Mixed Count Model

Increasing electric vehicle (EV) shares and fuel economy pose challenges to a fuel tax-based transportation funding scheme. This paper evaluates such fuel tax revenue impacts using Virginia as a case study. First, a bivariate count model is developed using vehicle registration data in 132 counties from 2012 to 2016. Model results indicate strong correlation between presence of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) on a county basis. Counties with higher percent of males are associated with higher BEV (but not PHEV) counts. In contrast, higher average commute time is predicted to increase the number of PHEVs in each county, but not BEVs. Greater population density, population over 65, population with graduate degrees, and household size are found to increase PHEV and BEV counts, whereas more households with children is associated with fewer EVs. The analysis forecasts 0.6–10% statewide EV adoption by 2025, with an adoption rate of 2.4% in the most likely scenario. Nine scenarios, combining different predictions of EV adoption and fuel economy improvement, project 2025 statewide fuel tax revenue to decrease by 5–19%, relative to 2016 receipts. Furthermore, model results suggest that, on average, a light-duty vehicle in a rural area will pay 28% more in fuel taxes than its urban counterpart by 2025. The framework proposed here provides a reference for other regions to conduct similar analysis using public agency data in the vehicle electrification era.

Advocating the Woman Affirmative Action and Women Empowerment in Rural Cross River State of Nigeria

Most media initiatives (particularly radio and television programs) bordering on women empowerment and the woman affirmative action tend to give less attention to the rural woman to the advantage of her urban counterpart who, to a high extent is already abreast of the feminist concept. This more or less “accidental” discrimination is causing the grassroots women to stay somewhat in ignorance and to further be victimized by the viscous patriarchal system which prevails in traditional circles. Based on a documentary analysis and semi structured interviews with experts, this chapter explores the role of the local media and the civil society in the sensitization of the rural woman towards emancipation and socio-economic empowerment in Cross River State of Nigeria. The chapter equally assesses the effectiveness of the advocacy strategies employed by local media houses and NGOs for such purposes. It assesses civil society's use of the media for the women affirmative action in rural Cross River State of Nigeria as well as the local media potential to push this affirmative action in the grassroots.

Comparative ruralism and ‘opening new windows’ on gentrification

In response to the five commentaries on our paper ‘Comparative approaches to gentrification: lessons from the rural’, we open up more ‘windows’ on rural gentrification and its urban counterpart. First, we highlight the issues of metrocentricity and urbanormativity within gentrification studies, highlighting their employment by our commentators. Second, we consider the issue of displacement and its operation within rural space, as well as gentrification as a coping strategy for neoliberal existence and connections to more-than-human natures. Finally, we consider questions of scale, highlighting the need to avoid naturalistic conceptions of scale and arguing that attention could be paid to the role of material practices, symbolizations and lived experiences in producing scaled geographies of rural and urban gentrification.

Advocating the Woman Affirmative Action and Women Empowerment in Rural Cross River State of Nigeria

Most media initiatives (particularly radio and television programs) bordering on women empowerment and the woman affirmative action tend to give less attention to the rural woman to the advantage of her urban counterpart who, to a high extent is already abreast of the feminist concept. This more or less “accidental” discrimination is causing the grassroots women to stay somewhat in ignorance and to further be victimized by the viscous patriarchal system which prevails in traditional circles. Based on a documentary analysis and semi structured interviews with experts, this chapter explores the role of the local media and the civil society in the sensitization of the rural woman towards emancipation and socio-economic empowerment in Cross River State of Nigeria. The chapter equally assesses the effectiveness of the advocacy strategies employed by local media houses and NGOs for such purposes. It assesses civil society's use of the media for the women affirmative action in rural Cross River State of Nigeria as well as the local media potential to push this affirmative action in the grassroots.

Sexual behavior of in-school adolescents in Osun State, Southwest Nigeria: a comparative study

Objectives: The sexual and reproductive health of adolescents is of utmost importance in many nations (especially in developing countries). Sexual behavior varies from location to location and the outcome (when negative) creates great concerns mainly due to the consequential impact on health and development. This study aimed at comparing sexual behavior of in-school adolescents in rural and urban areas of Osun state. Methods: A comparative cross sectional study was conducted. A total of 760 in-school adolescents were recruited using multistage sampling technique. Pre-tested questionnaires were administered after ethical considerations. Data were analysed and p-value was placed at 0.05. Results: A total of 380 rural and 380 urban adolescents participated in this study with a mean age of 14.90±2.44 and 14.34±2.31 years, respectively. About one-fifth (20.1%) had experienced their first sex (66% of rural and 34% of urban). The mean age at first sex was 14.05 years±2.3 years (13.89±2.3 years for rural and 14.37±2.3 years for urban). Only 76 (49.7%) sexually experienced respondents had used condom in the past (45.5% of rural, 57.7% of urban). Half of the urban respondents used condom during their first sex while only a quarter of their rural counterparts had done so (p=0.003). Conclusion: Sexual behavior was commoner among the rural respondents than their urban counterpart. There is an urgent need for sexuality education especially among rural adolescents in the study area.

In Search of Poverty Predictors: The Case of Urban and Rural Pakistan

The main objective of this research is to provide correlates of household consumption or poverty using the latest household survey. The estimated coefficients and their weights may be used to predict poverty incidence from light monitoring survey such as Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ). The CWIQ survey instrument essentially collects simple welfare indicators from a large segment of population and is not designed to measure income, consumption or expenditure. The paper estimates consumption functions separately for urban and rural areas. These functions are estimatedwith the help of non-monetary correlates of consumption and applied to predict poverty at provincial and district levels. The paper also provides the latest estimates of poverty in the country using a consistent methodology. Overall, 33 percent people were poor, according to estimates from the latest available household survey of 2001-02. Incidence, depth, and severity of poverty are high in rural areas, as compared to their urban counterpart.