Showing papers on "Rural area published in 1998"

Access to Markets and the Benefits of Rural Roads

Abstract: Improving road access to agricultural markets in Nepal would confer substantial economic benefits on average, much of them going to poor households. But rural road construction is more like a tide that lifts all boats than a highly effective means of reducing income inequality. Transport infrastructure plays a central role in rural development, yet little is known about the size - or, especially, the distribution - of benefits from road investments. Among other benefits, rural roads provide cheaper access to both markets for agricultural output and for modern inputs. Jacoby develops and implements a method for nonparametrically estimating the benefits from road projects at the household level. The idea is that since these benefits get capitalized in land values, they can be estimated by examining how the value of farmland falls with distance from agricultural markets. Household-level benefits from hypothetical road projects are calculated from the predicted appreciation in value of the household's farmland. These predicted benefits are then related to household per-capita expenditures to assess their distributional consequences. The empirical analysis, using data from Nepal, shows large benefits from extending roads into remote rural areas, much of these gains going to poorer households. But rural road construction is not the magic bullet for poverty alleviation. The benefits are neither large enough nor targeted well enough to reduce income inequality appreciably. This paper - a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study the impact of rural roads and other forms of infrastructure on household welfare and economic growth. The author may be contacted at hjacoby@worldbank.org.

Remittances, Investment, and Rural Asset Accumulation in Pakistan

Abstract: Internal and external migration can have a profound impact on rural asset accumulation in most Third World countries. In many African, Asian, and Latin American countries the bulk of the labor force still lives in the countryside. In these countries the large difference between expected rural and urban or foreign incomes, coupled with the risk-reducing functions of migration, causes workers to migrate, either to urban centers or abroad. The remittances—defined as the money or goods sent home by migrant workers—can have a large effect on the accumulation of assets in these rural areas. For example, an inflow of external remittances to rural households at the upper end of the income distribution could increase land accumulation by the rich. In general terms the effect of remittances on asset accumulation in a rural Third World economy depends on answers to three questions: (a) Who migrates? (b) How much net income do migrants remit? and (c) What are the marginal effects of these remittances on household consumption and investment? Because of data limitations, in this article I propose to examine only the first and the third questions; other researchers have addressed the second issue. In the past surprisingly little attention has been focused on the question of the marginal effects of remittances on household consumption and investment in the rural Third World. This inattention has been due to three considerable methodological problems. The first is fungibility; because remittances are like any other form of cash income, it is difficult to associate this income source with any particular changes in household expenditure behavior. The second problem relates to the multiple-round effects of remittances on the local economy. For example, an inflow of remittances into a rural area may lead to a surge in expenditures in housing, which may, in turn, create new income and employment opportunities for the poor and unskilled. Unfortunately, however, few studies have

Social Capital in Rural and Urban Communities

Abstract: Conventional wisdom says that social capital is more common among families in rural communities than urban communities. Using data from the 1988 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compare the prevalence, type, and extent of social exchanges in these places. Results indicate that families living in rural areas are more likely to exchange exclusively with kin than are families living in urban areas. In particular, families living in rural areas are more likely to receive money help from kin than families in urban areas. Results on patterns of giving are more complex, with rural origin families with younger household heads more likely to give support to kin, and rural origin families with older heads less likely to provide such support, as compared to otherwise similar families of urban origin. Finally, only modest urban-rural differences in amounts exchanged (in dollars) are found among otherwise similar families. Overall, some of the urban-rural differences in patterns of exchange are explained by different family characteristics; however, key urban-rural differences remain, probably reflecting differences in norms and the availability of institutional support services in different areas.

When City and Country Collide: Managing Growth In The Metropolitan Fringe

Abstract: As traditional rural industries give way to residential and commercial development, the land at the edges of developed areas - the rural-urban "fringe" - is becoming the middle landscape between city and countryside that the suburbs once were. The fringe is where America's struggles over population growth and the development of open space are most visible and bitter. The author addresses problems caused by unplanned growth in the battlefield where urban meets rural - 10-40 miles outside of major urban areas where traditional rural industries of farming, forestry, and mining are rapidly giving away to residential and service-oriented development. The fringe differs from the suburb in that the development is much lass dense and more sporadic. The implications for accommodating economic and population growth pressures, as well as issues of environmental quality and competitiveness in the global economy, are profound. But formulating and implementing solutions to sprawl and managing growth in the fringe have seemed elusive. As the nation's population and economy expand, the challenges of managing growth in the fringe will become more heated and complex. The author examines the fringe phenomenon and presents a workable approach to fostering more compact development. He provides viable alternatives to traditional land use and development practices and offers a solid framework and rational perspective for wider adoption of growth management techniques.

Barriers to care among persons living with HIV/AIDS in urban and rural areas.

Abstract: People living with HIV disease, particularly those in small towns and rural areas, face many barriers that prevent them from receiving important life-care services. We developed the Barriers to Care Scale (BACS) to delineate the problem severity of factors that impede care and service provision among a sample of 226 men and women living with HIV disease in a single midwestern state. Both urban and rural respondents indicated that major barriers to life-care services included the lack of knowledge about HIV among citizens in the community, insufficient personal financial resources, the lack of employment opportunities for people living with HIV, and the lack of supportive and understanding work environments. Rural persons living with HIV disease, compared to their urban counterparts, assigned significantly higher problem severity ratings to the following barriers: the need to travel long distances to medical facilities and personnel; a shortage of adequately trained medical and mental health professionals; a lack of personal or public transportation; and community residents' stigma toward people living with HIV. The large number of barriers to care identified in the present study indicates that innovative programmes designed to remove these barriers and improve the life quality of rural persons living with HIV are urgently needed.

Portfolio entrepreneurship in the farm sector: indigenous growth in rural areas?

Abstract: (1998). Portfolio entrepreneurship in the farm sector: indigenous growth in rural areas? Entrepreneurship & Regional Development: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 17-32.

Cost recovery in Ghana: are there any changes in health care seeking behaviour?

Abstract: The study aimed to investigate the impact on health care seeking behaviour of the cost-sharing policies introduced in Ghana between 1985 and 1992. Qualitative research techniques were used to investigate the behaviour of patients after the introduction of these policies. Focus group discussions of cohorts of the population and in-depth interviews of health workers and selected opinion leaders were used to collect data from rural and urban health care facilities in three districts of Ghana. The study findings indicate that the cost recovery policies have led to an increase in self-medication and other behaviours aimed at cost-saving. At the same time, there is a perception of an improvement in the drug supply situation and general health delivery in government facilities. The study advocated enhanced training of drug peddlers and attendants at drug stores, especially in rural areas. User fee exemption criteria need to be worked out properly and implemented so that the very needy are not precluded from seeking health care at hospitals and clinics.

Remittances and Inequality: A Question of Migration Stage and Geographic Scale*

Abstract: The impact of migrant remittances on the place of migrant origin is examined using data from a 1988 household study undertaken in central Zacatecas state Mexico. The focus is on whether remittances tend to increase or to decrease income inequalities. "Interfamilial inequalities are found first to decrease and then to increase as a places migration experience deepens. Throughout this experience however rural incomes improve relative to urban ones since remittances are targeted to the predominantly rural areas of origin." (EXCERPT)

Children's support for elderly parents in urban and rural China: Results from a national survey

Abstract: This study examines the factors that determine adult children's financial support for elderly parents, using data from the China Survey on Support Systems for the Elderly conducted in 1992. The findings support the hypotheses of need-based transfers. In both urban and rural areas, children's financial transfers to their elderly parents are based on the parents' need, and familial support compensates for inequalities in elderly persons' access to public resources. The data also suggest that elderly support is an outcome of short- and long-term arrangements between generations. Elderly Chinese, especially those in urban areas, have short-term exchanges with their adult children, providing housing or other services and receiving financial support in return. Also, adult children's support for elderly parents may be a repayment of parental investment made in them earlier.

The prevalence of hypertension in rural and urban Cameroon

Abstract: Background The quickening pace of change and adoption of western lifestyles by people in developing countries has led to a sharp rise in the incidence of hypertension. Yet epidemiological studies using validated methods are rare especially in Central Africa. Methods The prevalence of hypertension, according to the World Health Organization definition (systolic blood pressure [SBP] > or = 160, diastolic [DBP] > or = 95 mmHg), was estimated by a population-based survey in 1798 Cameroonian subjects aged 25-74 years. There were 746 individuals from a rural area (308 men, 438 women) and 1052 (461 men, 591 women) from an urban area. Results The response rate was 95% and 91% for the rural and urban populations respectively. The age-standardized prevalence of hypertension was significantly higher in the urban than in the rural area. It was 16.4% (95% CI: 11.6-21.2) in urban men and 12.1% (95% CI: 7.9-16.2) in urban women, while it was 5.4% (95% CI: 2.9-8.0) in rural men and 5.9% (95% CI: 3.8-8.0) in women. Borderline hypertension (SBP 140-160, DBP 90-95 mmHg) was detected in 7.4% (95% CI: 4.4-10.4) and 6.6% (3.1-10.2) of urban, and 7.3% (95% CI: 4.7-9.9) and 2.9% (95% CI: 1.5-4.4) of rural men and women respectively. Conclusions These results indicate that hypertension is still uncommon in rural Cameroon but occurs frequently in the urban community, reaching a proportion comparable with industrialized urban communities.

Signs of the Post‐Rural: Marketing Myths of a Symbolic Countryside

Abstract: Geography is currently in the midst of reinterpreting the ‘rural’. There are calls within tourism studies, rural geography and cultural geography for further investigation into the new meanings rep...

Rural–urban interactions, agriculture and wealth: a southeast Asian perspective

Abstract: The forces of economic and social change are reworking rural areas of the developing world, sometimes fundamentally so. Agriculture is being squeezed by nonagricultural pursuits, aspirations are increasingly informed by a wish to avoid farming and the ‘household’ is being restructured as the genders and generations contest and renegotiate their respective roles. The diversification of the household economy and the interpenetration of rural and urban have created multiple hybridities where individuals and households shift between agricultural and industrial pursuits and cross between rural and urban areas. Farm is in thrall to nonfarm, and industry is often dependent on ‘rural’ labour. Drawing largely on work from southeast Asia, the article reviews these changes to rural life and livelihood, discusses their impacts on agriculture and reflects on their implications for rural development.

Looking locally at China's one-child policy.

Abstract: Of all the reforms and policies set in motion in the early 1980s in China, the one-child policy has been called the most far-reaching in its implications for China's population and economic development. Almost two decades later, little is known about what the policy looks like across local neighborhoods and villages. To sketch a more general picture of the one-child policy, this article presents panel data from three waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (1989, 1991, and 1993) collected in 167 communities in eight provinces. Local policy, including policy strength and policy incentives and disincentives, is detailed separately for urban and rural areas. These data confirm that no single one-child policy exists; policy varied considerably from place to place and within individual communities during the 1989-93 period.

The Contested Redefinition of the Countryside. An Analysis of Rural Discourses in The Netherlands

Abstract: The current ‘struggle for space’ in the Netherlands and other north-west European countries reflects diverse claims and concerns related to the countryside. This paper examines the underlying socio-political discourses on the rural to impose some order on this diversity and come to an understanding of the processes through which access to and use of rural resources are constructed. After a description of the theoretical status and social relevance of rural discourse, three such discourses, drawn from current debates on the future of Dutch countryside are analysed. The agri-ruralist, utilitarian and hedonist discourses distinguished here clearly differ in their perceptions of the main problems in rural areas, the best solutions and the social actors identified to bring about the ‘ideal countryside’. The analysis of rural discourses thus provides an adequate framework for interpreting the multiplicity of ‘visions’ and policy concepts applied in the debates on the countryside in Europe.

Effects of a unit of instruction in mental health on rural adolescents' conceptions of mental illness and attitudes about seeking help.

Abstract: The present study investigated the effects of a unit of instruction in mental health on rural adolescents' conceptions of mental illness and their attitudes about seeking professional help for emotional problems. Forty students enrolled in a rural Mississippi high school participated. Twenty were designated as the treatment group and twenty served as the control group. Results indicated that scores on both dependent variables (attitudes about seeking professional help and conceptions of mental illness) increased significantly for the treatment group and, further, these scores did not decrease significantly when the students were tested again twelve weeks later. The findings are discussed in the context of educating rural youth about mental illness with the express purpose of removing the stigma associated with the help-seeking process.

Promoting Efficient Rural Financial Intermediation

Abstract: Although governments have traditionally used subsidized credit programs to promote agricultural growth, this approach has generally failed to improve incomes and alleviate poverty in rural areas. It has also led to the mistaken belief that rural credit programs cannot be profitable. A new approach seeks to raise standards of living in rural areas by casting the government in a very different role- one of setting a favorable legal and policy environment for rural financial markets and addressing specific market failures cost effectively through well-designed and self-sustaining interventions. There is evidence that this approach can be highly successful. The village bank system of bank Rakyat Indonesia has shown that financial services can be extended to millions of low-income rural clients without relying on subsidies. Indeed, the program has generated enormous profits for the bank by using simple, innovative, and largely replicable techniques.

Rural-Urban Differences in Depression Treatment and Suicidality

Abstract: OBJECTIVES: Because there are fewer per capita providers trained to deliver mental health services in rural areas, the authors hypothesized that depressed rural individuals would receive less outpatient treatment and report higher rates of hospital admittance and suicide attempts than their urban counterparts. METHODS: The authors recruited 74% of eligible participants (n = 470) from a 1992 telephone survey and followed up 95% of subjects for 1 year. The authors collected data from subjects on psychiatric problems and service use and from insurers/providers on treatment and expenditures. RESULTS: Although there were no rural-urban differences in the rate, type, or quality of outpatient depression treatment, rural subjects made significantly fewer specialty care visits for depression. Depressed rural individuals had 3.05 times the odds of being admitted to the hospital for physical problems (P = 0.02) and 3.06 times the odds of being admitted for mental health problems (P = 0.08) during the year. Elevated rates of hospital admittance disappear in models controlling for number of specialty care depression visits in the previous month. Rural subjects reported significantly more suicide attempts during the period of 1 year (P = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Additional work is warranted to determine how to alter barriers to outpatient specialty care if the rural health care delivery system is to provide cost-effective depression care. Language: en

Prevalence of exercise induced bronchospasm in Kenyan school children: an urban-rural comparison

Abstract: BACKGROUND Higher rates of exercise induced bronchospasm (EIB) have been reported for urban than for rural African schoolchildren. The change from a traditional to a westernised lifestyle has been implicated. This study was undertaken to examine the impact of various features of urban living on the prevalence of EIB in Kenyan school children. METHODS A total of 1226 children aged 8–17 years attending grade 4 at five randomly selected schools in Nairobi (urban) and five in Muranga district (rural) underwent an exercise challenge test. A respiratory health and home environment questionnaire was also administered to parents/guardians. This report is limited to 1071 children aged ⩽12 years. Prevalence rates of EIB for the two areas were compared and the differences analysed to model the respective contributions of personal characteristics, host and environmental factors implicated in childhood asthma. RESULTS A fall in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) after exercise of ⩾10% occurred in 22.9% of urban children and 13.2% of rural children (OR 1.96, 95% CI 1.41 to 2.71). The OR decreased to 1.65 (95% CI 1.10 to 2.47) after accounting for age, sex, and host factors (a family history of asthma and breast feeding for less than six months), and to 1.21 (95% CI 0.69 to 2.11) after further adjustment for environmental factors (parental education, use of biomass fuel and kerosene for cooking, and exposure to motor vehicle fumes). CONCLUSIONS The EIB rates in this study are higher than any other reported for African children, even using more rigorous criteria for EIB. The study findings support a view which is gaining increasing credence that the increase in prevalence of childhood asthma associated with urbanisation is the consequence of various harmful environmental exposures acting on increasingly susceptible populations.

Missing men? The debate over rural poverty and women‐headed households in Southern Africa

Abstract: Migrant labour in Southern Africa is associated historically with rural poverty and a high incidence of women‐headed households. Poverty alleviation approaches to social policy ask whether in this context rural women‐headed households are poorer than those headed by men. Ample research from the region shows that the answer is not always, a finding once more confirmed here in an analysis of Botswana. This case suggests, however, that the wrong question is being asked. The incidence of both women‐headed households and rural poverty has increased with the polarisation of agrarian production and the exclusionary restructuring of the migrant labour system. We need to ask not whom to target, but what should be done when capital no longer needs the labour that it pulled from rural households over so many generations.

Urban-rural variations in health in The Netherlands: does selective migration play a part?

Abstract: STUDY OBJECTIVE: Urban-rural health differences are observed in many countries, even when socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are controlled for. People living in urban areas are often found to be less healthy. One of the possible causes for these differences is selective migration with respect to health or health risk factors. This hypothesis is hardly ever empirically tested. This paper tries to assess the existence of selective urban-rural migration. DESIGN: Health indicators and health risk factors were measured in a 1991 population sample. Moves were registered between 1991 and 1995. Using logistic regression analyses, comparisons were made between, firstly, urban to rural movers and rural to urban movers and secondly, between movers and stayers. SETTING: Region surrounding the city of Eindhoven in south eastern part of the Netherlands. SUBJECTS: Data were used of 15,895 respondents aged 20-74 in 1991. By 1995 613 subjects had moved from urban to rural and 191 subjects from rural to urban. MAIN RESULTS: Bivariate nor multivariate analyses show hardly and differences between movers into urban and movers into rural areas. Bivariate analyses on movers and stayers show that movers are healthier than stayers. However, when socioeconomic and demographic variables are controlled for, movers appear to be less healthy, with the exception of the younger age groups. CONCLUSIONS: Areas that attract many migrants from and lose few migrants to other degrees of urbanicity will in the long run obtain healthier populations, because of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. However, if these characteristics are accounted for, the opposite is true, with the exception of younger age groups. In extreme cases this may cause spurious findings in cross sectional research into the relation between urbanicity and health. Absolute numbers of migrants need to be very high, however, to make this noticeable at the aggregate level.

Urbanization Patterns: European Versus Less Developed Countries

Abstract: This paper develops a model in which the interaction between transport costs, increasing returns to scale, and labor migration across sectors and regions creates a tendency for urban agglomeration. Demand from rural areas favors urban dispersion. European urbanization took place mainly in the 19th century, with higher costs of spatial interaction, weaker economies of scale, and a less-elastic supply of labor to the urban sector than in less developed countries (LDCs) today. These factors could help explain why primate cities dominate in LDCs, whereas a comparatively small share of urban population lives in Europe's largest cities.

The rural linkages of urban households in Durban, South Africa

Abstract: This paper describes the linkages between low-income migrant households in Durban and their rural home areas. These relationships can be seen as a continuum, from households which regard their rural homestead as their real home to households who seem to have severed their rural ties. For a number of households, described as “multiple-home households”, maintaining both an urban and a rural base provides a safety net in times of economic hardship or political violence. In order to address the needs of these households, housing and rural development subsidy policies should take variations in household size into account and allow greater choice in the allocation of subsidies between urban and rural homes.