Women's groups and individual entrepreneurs: a Ugandan case study

This study is based on interviews conducted among 8 women's income-generating groups and 12 individual women entrepreneurs in 15 villages in Masaka district, Uganda. The Baganda are the main tribe in the study villages. The study evaluates the economic achievement, objectives, and social characteristics of the groups. Groups ranged in size from 9-20 members. All had functioned for 3-5 years. A regular membership fee was paid through the sale of agricultural produce. Groups met at least every 2 weeks. This study revealed that the individual goals were to increase individual wealth, while the stated group goals were to invest in the community. Members considered the groups as useful in providing an easy way to raise capital. Most members considered financial status as a criterion for group membership. Elderly women tended to join social and handicraft groups. The women's group members tended to be friends before the establishment of the group and tended to be currently married to men residing in the area. Of the 12 women entrepreneurs, only 5 were currently married. All 12 women entrepreneurs had considerable initiative. The 12 women and the women's group members derived income from two or more sources: agricultural projects, animal husbandry, craft production, alcohol production and sale, or other activities. Study findings indicate that decisions were often delayed or avoided in order to preserve social cohesion. In a market-oriented enterprise, quick response time is needed and the bureaucratic dynamics would hinder some agricultural ventures. The poorest women experienced barriers to group membership. Women entrepreneurs were more successful than group women.     

Use of Overseas Migrants' Remittances to the Extended Family for Business Investment: A Research Note1

Abstract The extended family's role in economic improvement has been extensively debated. From a modernization theory perspective, the extended family is viewed as an institutional obstacle to economic progress, while a social capital perspective suggests that it is an “engine” insofar as it permits individuals to activate networks and pool resources beyond their own. This paper examines, from these perspectives, extended family influences on the use of remittances from transnational migrants. The research asks whether family influences are positive or negative and are more or less important than other factors in determining business investments. The research draws on interviews with 170 family heads in a small community in Pakistan. The results show that relatively little remittance income from family members working in the Middle East was channeled into business investments, despite government incentives offered to migrant households. Most of the extended family measures used in the research are statistically unimportant in explaining level of business investment. There thus appears to be little support for either modernization theory or social capital arguments on the role of the extended family. Of the five operationalized extended family dimensions only one was related to business investment, and that positively. However, “family” considerations are not irrelevant. The best predictors of business investment were a preexisting level of business exposure/experience within the family and whether or not the family head was aware of business investment opportunities. The results raise questions about the need to reconceptualize family influences beyond the formal dimensions of extended family structure.     

Chinese migration and settlement in a Thai village

This paper uses data from a 1-year field study of demographic history and behavior in a Thai village (Baan Naku) in the Central Plains, to illustrate the considerable impact Chinese migrants had on even rural, remote villages. The 1976 field study of Baan Naku used participant/observation, cultural informants, in depth interviews, case histories, and reconstruction of family genealogies. Nearly 1/3 of previous and present inhabitants of the village were wholly or partly Chinese. For some Chinese immigrants residence in Baan Naku was a stepping stone on the way to greater success; for others it was a final destination after previous failures. The author illustrates this with 2 case histories. The most remarkable aspect of Chinese migration to Thailand is the apparent degree to which Chinese migrants and their descendants have been assimilated in to Thai culture; however, significant differences remain. While Thai villages often refer to Chinese-Thai neighbors derogatorily, they generally admire Thai-Chinese offspring. To a limited extent, some characteristics of the extended family structure have survived among Naku villagers of Chinese descent; for example, the Thai-Chinese keep in better contact among each other than the purely Thai villagers. Many Thai-Chinese villagers believed that marriages occurred at significantly younger ages in their Chinese homeland than in Thailand. In fact, in 1929-1931, the singulate mean age for marriage for South China was 17.78. Comparable data from Baan Naku shows that mean age of marriage for surviving women in the 70 years and over cohort was 23.7. Chinese-Thai villagers differed from Thai villagers in 2 ways: 1) they had greater financial acumen and 2) they controlled their children more strictly, especially with regard to marriage. Because of brideprice payment requirements, Thai-Chinese villagers delayed marriage during the economic difficulties of World War II. Thus, despite rapid assimilation into Thai culture, differences remain between the Chinese and Thais.     

Household Production and Symptoms of Stress in Post-Soviet Russian Villages1

Abstract This paper examines the impact of human capital (the number of working age household members), social capital (social exchange helping networks and community integration), technological capital (use of mechanical agricultural tools), and village of residence on stratification of Russian peasant households in the post-Soviet era. Findings from a 1995 survey of households in three Russian villages show that the number of working age adults in the household has the strongest influence on household agricultural production. Social capital and technological capital also are associated with differences in the amount of sales obtained from household production. One village, which is located in an oblast (province) which has a program to assist peasant households had substantially higher agricultural production than did the other two villages which are located in oblasti without such programs. The number of working age adults in the household, social exchange networks, and community attachment are negatively associated with symptoms of stress, while higher village levels of production are associated with higher average levels of symptoms of stress in the village. The implications of the findings for the future of Russian agriculture and Russian rural village life are discussed.     

Major factors influencing HIV/AIDS project evaluation

This article aimed at finding out if participatory processes (group discussions, enactments, and others) do make a valuable contribution in communication-based project implementation/evaluation and the fight against HIV/AIDS. A case study backed by documentary analysis of evaluation reports and occasional insights from interviews stood as the main methods. To identify values, the state of beneficiaries prior to and after project implementation/evaluation was compared. Participatory processes were noted to have created an enabling environment for project beneficiaries to become activists for social change, leading to the limiting of the spread of HIV/AIDS through sexual behavior and a change of attitude--the essence required for successful intervention. Group participatory processes were also noted to have contributed in overriding, to a great extent, limitations arising from sociodemographic differences in the attainment of project objectives and limitations arising from differences in forms of evaluation (internal versus external evaluators).     

Social and economic transition: a case study in Portugal's western Algarve

This study discusses change in the village of Figueira, 7 km north west of Portimao, in the Algarve. Original surveys in 1967,1981 and 1983 allow analysis of changes in land tenure, housing and occupation. The results are used to infer the extent to which change to a wage-labour economy has been associated with a concentration or dispersion in the ownership of agricultural land and housing. They generally suggest that ownership has become more dispersed, agriculture more fragmented, and share-cropping less common. The wages of the non-agricultural sector have been held in household control and have provided the bulk of the investment into agriculture and housing. Social and economic change has been stimulated by the expansion of capitalism but, in the case of agriculture and housing at least, this has not been associated with the concentration of economic control. These results are used to comment on the Marxist ‘peasant class’ thesis.     

Social work with children in Israel

Israel is a child-centered culture. Social work with children predates the existence of the State of Israel. There is a rich array of services for children. In the last 10 years, the emphasis has changed from using child placement as a panacea for children's problems, to treating the child as part of the family system. Placement of children in agricultural collectives, boarding schools, and youth villages has historically been on option for all children, and social workers used this plan as well. Implications of the change to family treatment is discussed as are various areas in which social workers offer direct treatment to children.     

Depression and Religiosity in African American and White Community-Dwelling Older Adults

SUMMARY

This research examined the extent to which religiosity was predictive of level of depression, even after controlling for race, gender, social support, income sufficiency, and physical health. Data were collected using in-home interviews conducted from 1999 to 2001 with 1,000 adults age 65 to 106. Subjects were recruited from a stratified, random sample of Medicare beneficiaries age 65 and older in five central Alabama counties (three rural and two urban). The sample was stratified by county, race, and sex and included balanced numbers of African American males and females and White males and females. Highly religious persons had lower levels of depression, even when controlling for other known covariates, β = -.16, t(972) p < .001. Females reported higher levels of depression, β = .07, t(972) p < .05. Although race was unrelated to depression in the model including gender and religiosity only, African Americans reported fewer symptoms of depression than did Whites when social support, income sufficiency, and physical health were added to the model, β= -.08, t(972) p < .01. Results suggest the importance of health and social service professionals' drawing upon older adults' positive spirituality in professional interventions to prevent and treat depression.     

Measuring Economic and Social Impacts of Membership in a Community Development Financial Institution

This study uses qualitative and quantitative measures to answer the question: “does a community development financial institution (CDFI) provide a measurable level of social benefit to its members?” Results indicate that a CDFI does change lives in many important ways, from providing members with the ability to get their financial houses in order, to helping members take control of their financial futures, and finally through building a sense of empowerment that reaches beyond the finances of an individual or family. In general, impacts were greater for lower income and less educated households, households with children, households that used more services, and for households that indicated wealth and asset building services were most important.     

Impacts of male outmigration on women: a case study of Kutum / Northern Darfur / Sudan

This case study of 313 households in the Kutum area in Western Sudan focuses on female headed households with migrant husbands. Free leases of land by women were common. 65% of the sample owned fields, and over 50% had home gardens in town. Among villagers 94% owned fields, and 74% had additional gardens. 28.3% of town owners of fields or gardens employed seasonal wage laborers, of whom 33% were female workers. None of the villages hired agricultural laborers. Labor shortages appeared only during weeding times. Fields were cultivated and housing was repaired mostly by unpaid female labor: a gender-specified role. Strategies for preventing poverty included cash crop cultivation, petty trade, sales of property, seasonal wage labor, and migration. The number of agricultural wage workers increased during famines. Findings show that 69 men migrated to Arab countries and 35 to other areas outside Darfur. 62.5% of the 115 migrants were married, and 20.8% did not send remittances home after more than a 6 months absence. 46.5% of unmarried migrants did not send remittances. 15.6% of the 77 rural women were dissatisfied with remittances. 21.5% of 121 migrants were away for more than a year; 66.1% were away 2-5 years. 12.4% were gone for more than 5 years. Irregular remittances were attributed to high urban living costs, to irregular means of sending money, and to saving for a family chaperone. Remittances satisfied immediate consumption needs. Outmigration was not really a survival strategy but an anti-destitution measure. Higher wage rates were not considered a primary motive for outmigration. Under drought conditions strategies included development of gardening for food and cash production. Out migration resulted in female household heads, in the need for cash income for supplementary items, in an increased work load including the men's activities, in women as the main food producers and thus more subject to environmental effects, and in overwork, which reduced input in children's education and domestic tasks. 37% of El-Tahir women with migrating spouses had trouble meeting basic needs, 25.6% had shortages of family labor, and 17.4% had difficulty with child rearing. Migrants' wives who were separated from extended families suffered from loss of social prestige and income. Women regardless of class or educational level were considered inferior to men. Women's influence was at the individual, household, and informal group level.     

Village Tolerance of Abuse,Women's Status,and the Ecology of Intimate Partner Violence in Rural Uttar Pradesh,India

We explore the multilevel determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. We focus on village tolerance of abuse and its ability to regulate the effects of individual and village‐level women's status and social capital. Using individual and village data from the 1998 to 1999 India National Family Health Survey, we find that village tolerance and women's status at individual and village levels help explain the risk of IPV. Village tolerance of abuse also moderates the ability of village‐level women's status and social capital to protect women from IPV. Results underscore the need to understand processes that sustain and/or challenge violence‐legitimating norms.     

Post‐Socialist Restructuring and Population Redistribution in Hungary*

Abstract This research focuses on pathways by which national level macro‐social transformations are transmitted to local communities. Our case is Hungary where we examine the relationship between post‐socialist economic restructuring, widespread industrial dislocations, and urban‐rural migration. Using secondary data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) and survey data from a study of 49 villages in 4 distinct rural regions, we demonstrate that post‐socialist population deconcentration involved both suburbanization and net movement to villages, especially villages that are located relatively close to cities. Contrary to our expectations, movement to villages was from nearby settlements, not from large industrial centers. Moreover, migrants to villages were substantially better off than longer term village residents in terms of their human capital and attachment to the labor force. Consequently, post‐socialist population deconcentration is not contributing to rural poverty as feared by some scholars.     

Monitoring the Diversity of the Poverty Outreach and Impact of Microfinance: A Comparison of Methods Using Data from Peru

Many microfinance institutions claim to be oriented to a double bottom line, but while methods of financial performance assessment are widely agreed the same cannot be said about social performance. Monitoring social performance is most useful when it reveals variation in both outreach and impact over time and between clients. Data from a village banking programme in Peru is used to compare two methods for assessing each. On poverty outreach, we favour monitoring of proxy indicators for clients against national household survey data, and on impact we recommend making more use of individual in‐depth interviews.     

My Village Is Dying? Integrating Methods from the Inside Out

The purpose of this paper is to confront the notion of “decline” at the village level by illustrating a more immersive approach to sociological and demographic research within rural and remote communities. The research uses case studies of three villages in Australia, Canada, and Sweden, all of which have been labeled as “declining villages,” typified by population loss, an aging population, high rates of youth outmigration, and loss of businesses and services. This paper argues that focusing solely on quantitative indicators of demographic change provides a narrow view of rural village trajectories and ignores subtle processes of local adaptation that are hidden from quantitative data sets. Our research integrates quantitative data from the “outside” with qualitative data from the “inside,” including visual ethnography, to develop a more balanced perspective on how villages have been changing and what change could mean locally. These objectives are accomplished by revisiting a Dirt Research methodology applicable to a broad range of research into rural and remote villages.     

Parents' and children's perceptions of family processes in inner-city families with delinquent youths: a qualitative investigation

This study explored youths' and parents' perceptions of family interaction processes as well as the broader social and cultural factors that influence family functioning in a multiethnic sample of inner-city families with delinquent youth. In-depth interviews were conducted with 61 male youths and 33 parents predominantly from minority families. Guided by an ecological framework, qualitative data analyses were employed to explore individual and contextual factors that were perceived either to foster or to impede individual and family functioning. Findings supported previous empirical research highlighting the importance of family interaction processes in the lives of delinquent youths. Analysis of parent and youth data revealed important relationships among the individual, family, and community domains. The emphases placed on these interrelationships, however, varied in distinct and notable ways for parents and youths. The implications of these divergent patterns for family-level interventions are addressed.     

The role of perception in the intention to change the family financial situation

The study investigates factors associated with the individual intentions to change the family financial situation of 337 farm respondents. The hypotheses are that intentions to change are influenced by (a) resource flexibility or constraints existing at the time of the decision situation, including off-farm employment, education, age, and household size, and (b) perceptual factors of perceived income adequacy, locus of control, degree of discrepancy between standard and level of the family financial situation, and dissatisfaction or satisfaction with the discrepancy. Older respondents and those experiencing more external control are less likely to intend to change. Younger respondents and those who perceive their incomes as more adequate are more likely to perceive that they have control over their situation. The lower the perceived income adequacy, the greater the discrepancy between standard and level of the family financial situation and the lower the satisfaction with the discrepancy. Significant indirect effects were consistent with theoretical expectations.Research was supported by the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station Projects 52-055, 52-054, and 52-058 and the Minnesota Extension Service. The authors wish to thank Jean W. Bauer, Ph.D., for research collaboration and Susan Keskinen and Cathy Schultz for research assistance.Her research interests include social, economic, and technical decision processes, discrepancies between standards and levels, and the interrelationship of work and family roles, particularly for farm women. Her Ph.D. is from Iowa State University.Her research interests in family resource management theory include social decision making processes and social decision rules, family life quality, and the economic consequences of divorce. Her Ph.D. is from Michigan State University.     

The Role of Household Social Organization in the Structure of Rural Economies: Comparing Forest Resource Dependent and Agriculturally Dependent Regions in Russia

Sociologists have examined how structural economic change affects household social organization and generation of household income from different sources. The introduction of elements of a market economy into rural Russia in the early 1990s provides a unique opportunity to examine these relationships. Much of the work on this topic, however, has been conducted in black earth zone, agriculturally dependent regions. Less attention has been given to non‐black‐earth zone, forest resource dependent regions. This article addresses this limitation by comparing the relationships between household income generation strategies and household social organization in a 2009 survey of villages in three forest resource dependent regions in northwest Russia with findings from a 2006 survey of households in nine agricultural regions of Russia. Income generated from enterprises based on household social organization—household labor and social helping networks—is substantially greater in agriculturally dependent than in forest resource dependent regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding intranational regional differences in the relationship between economic systems, household social organization, and rural household economies as well as the obstacles facing policymakers and environmentalists who attempt to shift household income generation strategies away from an environmentally harmful lumber industry to income generation activities that are less harmful to the environment.     

Labor force participation and fertility: a social analysis of their antecedents and simultaneity.

The nature of the relationship between labor force participation and fertility is examined for 172 families residing in the Chicago metropolitan area. The sample represents a marriage cohort. The data was collected during the 6th year of marriage (1978). The average age of the wife was 27, that of the husband 29. About 15% of the sample was black, the rest white. The median years of schooling completed was 13 for the wife and 14 for the husband. Median family income (less wife's earnings) was US$15,000; approximately 96% of the husbands and 53% of the wives were employed. The hypothesis is that family decisions are socially constructed through husband and wife interactions wherein individual needs and desires of the spouses are resolved by means of give-and-take and mutual influence. Economic factors, societal forces, group pressures and physiological concerns are presumed to work through the psychological characteristics of the spouses and the social interactions transpiring between them. The is, the exogenous determinants are assumed to constitute the setting or context for individual and social decision making. They either enter as inputs to joint decision making or else shape the needs, desires, or other psychological reactions of spouse prior to decision making. In this study, the specific phenomena to be explained are wife's labor force participation and family size. Also tested is the effect of psychological investment in these 2 issues and the impact of the role relationship between the spouses. The hypotheses are scrutinized at 2 levels of analysis: the individual spouses and the husband-wife dyad. Comparisons are made among social psychological models, wherein either the husband of wife provides information as they perceive their relationship and a sociological model wherein group constructs are formed with the husband and wife acting as informants on the pattern of norms guiding their relation. A A strutural equation methodology is employed to better model measurement error and errors in equations imultaneously. The results show that labor force participation of wife and fertility do not appear to be causally related. Rather, social forces within the family function as common antecedents, thereby producing a spurious observed bivariate association. This implies that labor force participation and fertility decision entail joint decision making and influence. Another implication is that the decision process seems to be neither atomistic nor necessarily sequential. The present study also differs from previous efforts in the methodology employed. Variables were operationalized in concert with sociological theory--social variables were used to explain social outcomes.     

Social capital: An analysis of factors influencing investment

This paper investigates how individual and community characteristics affect individual social capital investment behavior. We assume a representative individual maximizes her net benefits from social capital by choosing the amount of social capital investment in each period of her lifecycle. The model parameters are estimated by fitting the model to observed data using computational techniques. Simulations determine how perturbations to individual and community characteristics affect individual social capital behavior. The results suggest that social capital investment occurs irrespective of future benefits, personal characteristics affect the level and variance of investment, and institutions matter in determining social capital investment behavior.     

Effects of Marriage and Children on Financial Risk Tolerance: A Synthesis of Family Development and Prospect Theory

Family development and prospect theory were used as a framework to predict variability in individuals' subjective financial risk tolerance within distinct family structures. Gender, age, and income were expected to interact with the main effects of family structure (marital status and children). Theory-generated hypotheses were examined in Study 1 (data from university housing respondents, n = 76) and Study 2 (the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances, n = 4,305). One family structure main effect (child presence) was significant for investment risk tolerance in both studies. Family structure interactions (marital status × age and child × income) were significant for employment risk (Study 1), and child × age was significant for investment risk in Study 2.