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The purpose of this study is to understand what health and safety hazards low-income households are subject to by surveying the real conditions of the defective housing of low-income households, and to find improvement strategies. For this purpose, we visited the concentrated areas of the multi-dwelling unit (MDU) (also known as multi-family residential) housing in Jungwon-gu and Sujeong-gu in Seongnam City, Kyunggi-do, one of the representative areas in Korea with a massive distribution of the low-income class. Based on the survey data, the level of housing defects were comparison analyzed per income decile (decile 1, decile 2, deciles 3–4), and per housing location, in the categories of subsidence, cracks in the wall, delamination, water leakage/infiltration, condensation, and contamination. The housing condition per income class was more defective in the decile 2 households rather than in the decile 2 households, and in the substructure more than in the superstructure. Among the six defects, contamination problems, caused by sub-standard living conditions, were the most frequent cases. Structural defects, subsidence and cracks in the wall, were found in the main living areas—the bedrooms and the living rooms. It was confirmed in this study that the conditions of low-income housing are serious, and that it is necessary to explore specific countermeasures in the near future.

The major purpose of this study was to compare the fresh chicken meat consumption structure of urban and rural households of different income levels in Van province, Turkey.

The sample size of 96 urban and 95 households were selected randomly using sampling selection method where the population is limited. The data were collected by personnel interviewing from the households in eight districts and eight villages of Van province, Turkey between 15 November 2004 and 5 March 2005. The households were classified as the lowest, medium, upper medium and the highest income groups. Independent‐samples t‐students, one‐way ANOVA, chi‐square and linear regression statistical tests were used.

The average yearly fresh chicken meat consumption per head was 19.1 and 14.6 kg for urban and rural households, respectively. According to regression test results $1,000 increase in yearly income will raise the yearly chicken meat consumption of urban and rural households by 3.8 and 8.7 kg, respectively. The income was effective on both the consumption level and behavior of households. The urban households attached more attention to habit and nutrition value variables, while the cheapness was the major factor affecting the rural households' preference of chicken meat.

The article analyzes the differences/similarities of urban and rural households in terms of consumption expenditures and consumers' behaviors towards fresh chicken meat. The paper is an original research subject as regards its potential contributions of the nutritional measures to be taken and marketing strategies to be developed in the region.

Purpose – Evidence suggests that during the 1990s, many US metropolitan areas saw fundamental changes in the spatial distribution of household income. Following two decades of increasing economic segregation, many metropolitan neighborhoods saw declines in economic segregation, particularly those neighborhoods located within central cities and rural areas. This paper adapts the Spatial Ordering Index proposed by Dawkins (2007b) to explore these trends.

Methodology/Approach – Using US Census data, I calculate economic segregation indices for a sample of 205 US metropolitan areas in 1990 and 2000 and decompose changes in the indices into portions attributable to changes in the spatial distribution of households and portions capturing changes in the spatial distribution of aggregate income. I also examine regional variations in the decompositions.

Findings – The results suggest that changes in the spatial distribution of households and of income each influenced metropolitan economic segregation in different ways during the 1990s. Furthermore, the spatial dynamics of income segregation exhibited significant regional heterogeneity.

Originality/Value of paper – This paper presents a new approach to measuring the dynamics of economic segregation.

Although many researchers have studied the benefits of the applications of e-commerce, few have examined the relationship between e-commerce and its effects on household income distribution. This study explores the effects of e-commerce development on household income distribution in different regions of China.

This study uses a two-way fixed effect model for empirical analysis based on matched data from the E-commerce Development Index and the China Family Panel Studies database. The instrumental variables method is used for robustness testing.

The research findings indicate the following: (1) The development of e-commerce significantly reduces income inequality among Chinese households. For every 10% increase in e-commerce development, the income gap in China shrinks by 2.38%, with a reduction of 2.97 and 0.47% in urban and rural areas, respectively. (2) The reduction in income inequality due to e-commerce development is more pronounced in economically advanced regions. (3) The development of e-commerce in the eastern and western regions has a greater impact on reducing income inequality in urban than rural areas. In contrast, the opposite effect is observed in the central region.

This study contributes to existing research by examining the effects of e-commerce development on household income distribution. It has important theoretical and practical implications for issues such as narrowing the urban–rural gap.

This study aims to investigate the association between various demographic factors and housing affordability in Saudi Arabia.

A questionnaire survey of households was undertaken, and responses were analysed using chi-square analysis and logistic regression.

The study found that gender and job rank were only significantly related to housing value, but not to housing type, type of tenancy or number of bedrooms. Age, level of income, nationality, household size and job sector had significant associations with housing type, type of tenancy, number of bedrooms and housing value. However, the study did not find a significant relationship between the education level of the head of the household and any housing characteristics. The findings from the logistic regressions indicated that the level of income odds ratio (OR = 25.634), and the value of housing (OR = 0.037) were the two most significant predictors of access to affordable housing, both with levels of significance of p < 0.001.

Even though this study has provided valuable findings and contributions to the literature and policymakers, certain limitations must also be highlighted. First, the study focused only on four housing characteristics: housing type, housing tenancy, number of bedrooms and housing value. It did not consider other housing characteristics, such as housing age and housing conditions, which also affect the affordability of housing. Second, the method adopted for this study has a limitation in terms of its sampling technique, namely, snowball sampling, which relies on each participant to recommend others based on their judgement and recommendation. Third, the sample size for this study was small. As a result, the generalization of these findings to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) will be limited.

The current study’s findings will help decision makers in the housing sector to implement a housing delivery strategy that responds to escalating demand. It also contributes to the emerging body of literature by clarifying the relationships and influence between demographic factors and accessibility to affordable housing. In addition, the findings of this study support KSA’s ambitious Vision 2030, through which the government seeks to increase the rate of homeownership. The implications of the findings of this study also extend to help housing policymakers in similar developing countries where the delivery of affordable housing is a challenge.

The study is relevant because it investigates the relationships of demographic factors and housing affordability in one of the three agglomerations in the country. It can thus provide insight into the increasing demand for housing, which can help the Saudi Government to design and implement a housing delivery strategy and can support KSA’s ambitious Vision 2030, which targets increased homeownership. It can also improve our knowledge on the emergent body of literature on the effect of demographic characteristics on the affordability of housing in the country, and in similar developing countries where the delivery of affordable housing is a challenge.

We investigate the reasons why income inequality is so high in Spain in the EU context. We first show that the differential in inequality with Germany and other countries is driven by inequality among households who participate in the labor market. Then, we conduct an analysis of different household income aggregates. We also decompose the inter-country gap in inequality into characteristics and coefficients effects using regressions of the Recentered Influence Function for the Gini index. Our results show that the higher inequality observed in Spain is largely associated with lower employment rates, higher incidence of self-employment, lower attained education, as well as the recent increase in the immigration of economically active households. However, the prevalence of extended families in Spain contributes to reducing inequality by diversifying income sources, with retirement pensions playing an important role. Finally, by comparing the situations in 2008 and 2012, we separate the direct effects of the Great Recession on employment and unemployment benefits, from other more permanent factors (such as the weak redistributive effect of taxes and family or housing allowances, or the roles of education and the extended family).

The financial crisis of 2008 and ensuing recession led to falls in earnings in the United Kingdom, not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and it was only in 2014 that overall household income returned to its pre-crisis levels. At the same time, according to one official measure, income inequality has actually fallen, although different data indicate no change. This situation follows from several factors, notably the continued growth in pensions, higher earnings of lower-income households as these have worked more since the recovery in 2013, and the continued stagnation of earnings in higher income households (even if very high incomes have continued to pull away from the rest of the population). Incomes of younger workers also remain below their pre-crisis peak. This chapter shows, however, that the picture of poverty and inequality in the United Kingdom is far more complex than suggested by the main measure of income inequality. To this end, it begins by reviewing the definitions of poverty and inequality, in order to provide a broader overview of these pressing but complex social problems. The chapter goes on to examine wealth inequalities, the impact of housing costs on inequality and poverty, and it concludes by presenting recent studies suggesting that Brexit may well lead to future rises in inequality, as higher inflation could well hit lower-income households most.

This paper examines the determinants of children’s schooling under imperfect credit market conditions in Cameroon, with a particular focus on the role of monetary and non-monetary shocks.

The study uses microeconomic data from the fourth Cameroonian Household Survey (ECAM IV) conducted in 2014 by the National Institute of Statistics (INS) and an instrumental variable Probit model to demonstrate its point.

The results show that uncertainty about household income as measured by transitory income and declining household income decreases the probability of children attending school in Cameroon. The same is true for increasing household size. Nevertheless, access to the credit market is a factor in household resilience to shocks.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the identification of the determinants of children’s schooling in Cameroon in a situation of credit market imperfection. The aim is to examine the influence of different household vulnerability factors and not only income shocks, which have long been considered the dominant factor.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2024-0028

In the United States, there is little difference in annual income inequality and income mobility between the rural and urban sectors of the economy. This forms a sharp contrast with China where income inequality is greater and income mobility lower among rural households than among urban households. When incomes are averaged over three years and when adjustments are made for the size and composition of households, income inequality among all households differs little between China and the United States in the 1990s. Moreover when pooling rural households and urban households and when measuring annual income inequality and income mobility of the pooled households, the mobility of incomes of households in the United States differs little from that in China. Social welfare functions are posited that allow for a trade-off between increases in income and increases in income inequality. These suggest strong increases in well-being for urban households in China. The corresponding changes in rural China and in the United States are smaller. Four sets of data on households are drawn on to document these findings.

This paper produces a comprehensive assessment of income redistribution to the working-age population, covering OECD countries over the last two decades. Redistribution is quantified as the relative reduction in market income inequality achieved by personal income taxes (PIT), employees’ social security contributions, and cash transfers, based on household-level micro-data. A detailed decomposition analysis uncovers the respective roles of size, tax progressivity, and transfer targeting for overall redistribution, the respective role of various categories of transfers for transfer redistribution; as well as redistribution for various income groups. The paper shows a widespread decline in redistribution across the OECD, both on average and in the majority of countries for which data going back to the mid-1990s are available. This was primarily associated with a decline in cash transfer redistribution while PIT played a less important and more heterogeneous role across countries. In turn, the decline in the redistributive effect of cash transfers reflected a decline in their size and in particular by less redistributive insurance transfers. In some countries, this was mitigated by more redistributive assistance transfers but the resulting increase in the targeting of total transfers was not sufficient to prevent transfer redistribution from declining.