Farmers’ decisions to adopt new technology or measures for agricultural production processes are crucial for adapting to climate change. Meanwhile, risk preference has received great attention over the years in agriculture-related studies as it has been identified as a strong driver for agricultural production decisions. However, empirical studies on the relationship between farmers' risk preferences and adaptation choices in response to climate change remain scant. The present study, utilizing data from a farmer survey in Denmark, aims to examine farmer risk attitude and determine to what extent it influences crop choice decisions, such as crop changes, as an important part of farm level adaptation strategies. Applying a logit regression method, our study finds that: (1) the majority of farmers in the survey were identified as risk tolerant; (2) several demographic and socio-economic factors, such as work experience and farmland tenure were significantly related with farmer risk preference; (3) actual adoption of the majority of farm level adaptation strategies through crop changes and management was found to be significantly less likely for risk averse farmers compared to risk tolerant farmers. Therefore, policy development to promote successful adaptation measures in the agricultural sector should take into account farmers' risk preferences. To this end, risk averse farmers may need better targeting strategies. Future studies could further investigate the role of farmers' risk preferences on the adoption of a wider range of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures and technologies.
Whether the provision of online health care referral systems by the Indonesia National Health Insurance Agency has ensured healthcare referral compliance raises much concern due to the continuing deficit. This study examines the pattern of healthcare referral process, regional and referral compliance from 2015 to 2016. To provide comprehensive analysis on how people seek treatment, this study also aims to understand health-seeking behavior in Indonesia, the utilization of alternative treatment, and health information–seeking behavior on social media. The data come from three data files, namely the National Health Insurance membership master data, the First Level Health Facilities transaction data and the Advanced Referral Health Facilities transaction data of 1,697,452 individuals. The regional compliance applies a logit regression model, while referral compliance applies descriptive statistics of the referral pathway. This study also follows a quantitative approach using an online questionnaire, with 463 respondents who have National Health Insurance which applies an ordered logit model. We found that several demographic variables and regional health facility availability affect regional compliance. Moreover, we found 19.3% of the transactions did not comply with the prescribed referral sequence. The prescribed referral sequence was mostly followed for patients with malignant diseases. We also found men who perceive that their health condition is healthy will less likely seek health services compared to women. Further, the tendency of alternative treatment increases health-seeking behavior, and the tendency of seeking health information on social media increases the frequency seeking health services. We recommend the prescribed referral sequence to be re-evaluated especially for patients with malignant disease; the referral process should not be based on hospital classes but on the competency of the healthcare facility which may indirectly address the deficit issue. It is imperative that the government evaluate health promotion approaches to men and women, both direct and indirect through their significant others.
22 May 2021 in Educational Research for Policy and Practice
Using the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), we measure intergenerational expenditure mobility by applying logistic and Unconditional Quintile Regressions (UQR) to explore how intergenerational persistence varies across the distribution of children’s expenditures. We find high absolute mobility and relative mobility among the bottom 40th, reflecting children's success in climbing above their parents on the economic ladder. Around 9.29% of parents in the lowest quintile were able to have their children rise to the highest quintile, while only 35% of parents in the highest quintile able to keep their children in the same position. UQR estimations show a U-shaped relationship between parents’ expenditure rank and children’s expenditure rank, with Intergenerational Elasticity of Expenditure (IGE) ranging from 0.08 to 0.252. Intergenerational persistence is highest in the middle-class group. The strongest determinants of mobility are children’s years of schooling, age, the gender of the household head, and asset ownership of children.
1 May 2022 in Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development
The water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector requires large household investments and expenditure. Microfinance provides an alternative financing scheme to support in reaching universal access to WSS to improve public health and well-being. Using propensity score matching to Water.org's household survey data, combined with the Village Potential's village statistics, this study aims to evaluate the impact of microcredit devoted to improvements in water and sanitation facilities towards household welfare measured by the WSS Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) ladder status, income, and the share of health expenditure. Due to data availability limitations, the results indicated an associative relationship, as opposed to a causality relationship, between WSS microcredit participation and the respective outcomes. Participation in WSS microcredit was significantly associated with a higher JMP ladder for sanitation access but not with a JMP ladder for water access. Moreover, borrowers’ participation in WSS microcredit was associated with a significantly higher monthly income and a significantly lower proportion of health expenditure. Future evaluation studies of WSS microcredit should focus on improving data collection or conducting randomized control trials. For ensuring better practices, microfinance institutions (MFIs) should conduct stringent monitoring on fund usage to assure households benefit from the expected outcomes of WSS improvements.