Using Household Survey Data to Measure Educational Performance: The Case of Ghana

This paper shows how household data collected for the Ghana Living Standards Survey can be used to calculate national trends in educational performance (enrolment, completion rates and literacy). The resulting enrolment figures are shown to be more reliable than the rather different picture given by offcial statistics. In addition, a short English test conducted alongside the household survey in 1988 and repeated in 2003 gives a direct measure of changes in literacy.     

The Valuation of Non-Monetary Consumption in Household Surveys

Many social indicators are based on household consumption information. The valuation of non-monetary operations is crucial for the analysis of consumption surveys in developing countries because of the importance of own-consumption and transfers in kind. What are the price statistics used in the valuation of consumption indicators? How is the available price information exploited to produce consumption indicators? How can the different steps of the valuation process be analysed? We explore these questions by presenting the valuation method for the consumption used in rural Rwanda for the 1983 consumption survey, and by proposing a general model of valuation algorithm. This is useful not only for improving such algorithms, but also for assessing the impact of the valuation process on economic analyses.     

Jobless or Working Poor in the Kyrgyz Labour Market: What Role for Social Policies?

This paper attempts to identify the multiple aspects of vulnerability in the Kyrgyz labour market. Particular attention is devoted to the working poor and precarious workers. This analysis is undertaken using the Kyrgyz Poverty Monitoring Survey, which is the only survey to date that allows a comprehensive analysis of poverty and labour market outcomes in the Kyrgyz Republic. The period under investigation covers the years 1997 to 1998, for which data are available. The results point to the extreme vulnerability of individuals with less education and women, who cumulated a high risk of being unemployed, of remaining longer in unemployment, of being discouraged unemployed and, if employed, of being low‐paid or working in precarious jobs. Other groups facing a high risk of exclusion, both from and within employment, were people with disabilities, individuals living in rural or depressed areas, young people and internal migrants. The multiple aspects of vulnerability in the Kyrgyz labour market, in particular the large overlap between work and poverty, have important implications for the design of effective social policies.     

Globalisation and inequality in South Africa: modelling the labour market transmission

This paper draws on a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to evaluate the extent and causes of income inequality in South Africa after 1994. In doing so the paper extends the CGE-modelling approach in South Africa by incorporating dynamics into the comparative static CGE model used by the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa. The 1995 Social Accounting Matrix for South Africa prepared by DRI-WEFA SA (Pty) Ltd. (now Global Insight Southern Africa) is used as database. The results from the paper is consistent with evidence from recent household and firm-level surveys in South Africa and supports labour market reform coupled with social security as instruments to achieve more equitable outcomes from globalisation.     

发起者与实施者的身份认知度对网络调查参与意愿的影响研究

了解网络调查发起者和实施者的身份认知度对被调查者参与意愿的影响对企业有重要的意义。之前尚没有研究涉及这一内容。本文通过3个实验分别对三种情况下被调查者的参与意愿进行测量。结果表明,被调查者参与意愿与其对网络调查发起者和实施者的身份认知度正相关;当发起者/实施者为低认知者,实施者/发起者为高认知者时,发起者的身份认知度对被调查者参与意愿的影响较高。     

舆图中的川藏交通——解读清末彩绘地图《西藏全图》

《西藏全图》是一幅珍贵的清末西藏道路里程图,解读该图中出现的驿站地名,并比对方志、游记等相关文献,可显示出清代川藏交通情况,其中驿站交通在清代治理西藏中有着极为重要的和不可替代的作用。     

Diet Revealed?: Semiparametric Estimation of Nutrient Intake–Age Relationships

Smoothed estimates of the complex relationships between age and intakes of energy, fat, calcium and vitamin C are obtained for males and females from British National Food Survey data covering the period 1974–94. Since the data record household food acquisitions during a survey week, not food consumption by individuals, a model is constructed in which average nutrient intakes by sex at each completed year of age are parameters which are estimated by roughness penalized least squares. Income per head and region of residence are controlled for in a non-linear extension of the model. The sensitivity of the estimates to variations in eating out and the incidence of visitors is examined. Age- and sex-specific estimates of the proportion of energy from fat, a key health indicator, are derived and compared across a 21-year period.     

Measuring Housework in Time Use Surveys

A methodology is devised to decompose the error in the measurement of housework time in surveys. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the Americans' Use of Time Survey, we estimate that a telephone (mail) survey rather than an interview survey leads to a mean underestimation of 60 (30) min/week for women and 18 (13) min for men. We also find that the errors created by using a narrow definition of housework leads to an underestimation of between 10 and 12 h/week for both men and women in the PSID. An erratum to this article is available at .     

Work Patterns Following a Birth in Urban and Rural China: A Longitudinal Study

Two waves of data (1989 and 1991) from theChina Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) areused to investigate the short-term impact of abirth on women's work patterns. Defining workbroadly in terms of involvement inincome-earning activities in general, birthshave little impact. Defining work in terms ofwage employment, births have a significantalthough modest negative effect. Substituting amore fully elaborated typology of work patternsthat distinguishes different combinations ofwage work, work in household businesses, andagricultural fieldwork makes it possible tolook at shifts within as well as betweencategories of wage and non-wage employment.These shifts turn out to be important,especially in rural areas where such workpredominates. In this study, the effect of abirth depends on how work is conceptualized andmeasured. Some of the contextual variability inthe strength of the fertility-work relationshipreported in the literature may be due to theparticular measures of work that have beenused, which better reflect the time demands,intensity, flexibility, and location of work inurban industrialized settings than in rural,less industrialized ones.