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Poor working conditions among migrant labourers on cocoa farms may be commonplace. This could affect labour productivity and cocoa industry performance. The paper investigates migrants' satisfaction with working conditions on cocoa farms in Ghana and the key drivers of satisfaction.

The study employed a five-point Likert scale to evaluate migrants' satisfaction with remuneration, working hours, welfare, health and safety, contract and freedom. Using primary data from 400 migrants and non-migrants in four cocoa districts, multivariate probit regression was employed to evaluate the determinants of satisfaction with working conditions.

Migrant labourers are generally satisfied with their working hours, nature of contract and freedom they enjoy. However, they are unsatisfied with their remuneration, welfare and health/safety conditions on cocoa farms. All things being equal, secondary occupation, nature of contract, number of farmers served by labourer, annual earnings, farm ownership, education and expectations before migration influence migrants' satisfaction with working conditions.

To improve satisfaction with working conditions and productivity, migrants on cocoa farms should be given protective working gear, long-term or renewable contracts and they should be encouraged to engage in secondary occupations.

Unlike previous studies that focussed on working conditions in the formal sector, this study explores migrants' satisfaction with working conditions in the informal agricultural sector. Also, the study examines labourers' satisfaction with six subcomponents of working conditions compared to previous studies that employed a univariate analytical approach to examine working conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to benchmark national culture in the context of decent work practices in project-based industry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This should help in achieving successful short-term migration. The study also aims to validate the decent work practice indicators for Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian and Pakistani construction labourers working in the UAE.

This study takes an ethnographic approach in its qualitative research methodology. The research involves observational methodology for its data collection during the execution of construction projects, semi-structured interviews to confirm the data collection during observational approach and a narrative methodology for the data collection within the labour camps, grassy fields and town streets. The qualitative data were expressed in quantitative terms to signify statistically the effect of the national culture in the context of decent work practices in this industry. Hence, the research involved triangulation in its data collection and analysis.

The study reveals that the national cultures of the migrant construction labourers in this context are not the same as identified by Geert Hofstede about four decades earlier. It was found that Indians were high in uncertainty avoidance, Pakistani construction labourers were high in masculinity, Bangladeshi construction labourers were low in long-term orientation (LTO) and individualism and Chinese labourers were found to have high individualism and LTO. This study verified decent work practice indicators for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi construction labourers and identified different decent work practice indicators for Chinese construction labourers in the UAE than Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi construction labourers.

The study was limited to the construction labourers in the UAE. The data were collected during observation while execution construction projects and limited to visiting construction labour camps, grassy fields and town streets.

The differences in the national culture of the migrant construction labourers and the decent construction practices in the UAE have economic, social and environmental implications for construction labourers in the Arab world, for both migrant sending and receiving countries. Understanding and managing various national cultures and improving prevalent decent work practices would help to improve economic and social condition of the migrant construction labourers and help to arrest the advance of looming health problems.

The study identifies the national cultures of the migrant construction labourers in the context of decent work practices in the UAE. Improvement in the decent work practices of the migrant sending countries and the UAE and understanding of the culture of the migrants will help in preparing effective migration policy by both migrant sending and receiving countries. No study was found to have identified national cultures in the context of decent work practices and assessed the need for improvement in this regard.

The study assessed welfare of migrant and non-migrant labourers on cocoa farms in Ghana, using multidimensional poverty index (MPI) with four dimensions (education, health, dietary diversity, living standards) and 21 indicators. Specifically, we examined and compared non-monetary welfare of migrant and non-migrant labourers on cocoa farms in Ghana by adopting MPI approach. Also, we explored the factors affecting labourers' welfare.

A sample of 400 labourers was used. Qualitative and quantitative data were used. Quantile regression was used to investigate factors affecting labourers' deprivation in the different domains of non-monetary welfare.

Labourers on cocoa farms are generally deprived in all the welfare indicators. Apart from having low education, labourers were underfed and lived under poor conditions. Though both migrants and non-migrants were multidimensionally poor, welfare of the later was higher than the former. Welfare of migrants and non-migrants on cocoa farms are influenced by similar factors: secondary occupation, income, credit accessibility, nature of contract and distance to social amenities.

For migrants, permanent status improves welfare. To improve labourers' welfare for enhanced productivity, cocoa farmers should provide permanent/long-term contracts for labourers and government should provide social amenities in cocoa-producing communities.

Most previous welfare studies focused on farmers, with little attention paid to welfare of labourers on cocoa farms. We examined and compared the factors that affect migrant and non-migrant labourers' welfare on cocoa farms in Ghana. Moreover, we adopted the MPI (non-monetary) approach to assess labourers' welfare, instead of the expenditure and income approaches prevalent in literature.

This paper aims to analyse the factors influencing migration, the labour migration process and the status of migrant laborers in the informal sector, particularly those working in brick kiln factories. It will shed light on the precarious nature of their work, often characterized by informal and verbal contracts. The paper examines occupational and environmental health hazards affecting the labourers and their impact on their well-being, the vulnerability of women in the precarious work environment and the associated health risks in brick kiln factories in India.

The study relies primarily on primary data collection, supplemented by secondary literature and documents. Balangir district was chosen as the research region due to its historical deprivation, underdevelopment and the historical prevalence of environmental distress, leading to distress-driven migration. To gather primary data, 40 respondents were selected from five selected blocks in Balangir district, resulting in a total of 200 respondents. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with 35 individuals across the selected blocks, with approximately seven participants from each block. In addition, interviews of 10 kids were taken and around 10 key informants including the trade union leaders, intellectuals and civil society activists.

Migrant labourers, including men, women and children, face significant health issues and are exposed to similar occupational health hazards. Internal migrant women workers are more vulnerable as they face critical health risks during pregnancy in host areas due to unfavourable working conditions and limited access to health-care services. Factors such as strenuous work, long working hours, poor nutrition and inadequate maternal care contribute to adverse outcomes such as spontaneous abortion, premature delivery and abnormal postnatal development.

The brick kiln industry presents a distressing reality for men who are highly vulnerable to occupational accidents, and women workers are exposed to sexual abuse, exploitation and violence. The prevalence of physical harassment, ranging from leering to rape, is alarmingly high among women. These incidents not only inflict physical harm but also cause severe psychological trauma and increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Despite the existence of laws aimed at protecting women’s rights and addressing sexual offences, the workers often remain unaware of their rights. This lack of awareness further compounds the vulnerability of women workers and perpetuates their exploitation in the workplace.

To address health issues comprehensively, interventions should encompass the entire migrant population, including men and children. Strategies should focus on improving access to health-care services, promoting occupational health and safety measures, ensuring proper immunization and nutrition for children and addressing the broader social determinants of health. Empowering women with knowledge about reproductive health and rights, raising awareness about available health-care services and strengthening health-care providers’ capacity to cater to migrant populations are crucial steps towards addressing health disparities.

Urgent interventions and policies are needed to address the health vulnerabilities of internal migrant workers and women workers. It is required to ensure health-care accessibility, improving working conditions, ensuring access to maternal care and essential supplements and providing health-care services for both pregnant women and their children, regardless of migration status.

The study focused on precarious health and occupational hazards and accidents faced by migrant workers. It highlights women migrant labourer’s and children’s vulnerability in the Brick Klin sector, which is a value addition to the existing knowledge in social science.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of infrastructure on the income growth and poverty reduction of rural household in China by estimating the impact of road accessibility on the extent of household off-farm employment and its heterogeneous effects among the groups with different income level and earning capacity.

Using nationally representative panel data collected in 100 villages about 2000 households across five provinces in 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019. This study adopts Tobit model with panel data, zero-inflated Poisson model and static nonbalanced panel model to yield consistent results.

We find that road accessibility generally has no effect on the number of off-farm laborers and duration of off-farm employment. However, road accessibility is not beneficial for the households in the low-income villages or with low educational attainment, but it benefits the households in the high-income villages by promoting local off-farm employment or with high educational attainment by increasing the duration of migrant off-farm employment.

This study identifies the heterogeneous effects of road accessibility on the extent of off-farm employment among rural households, which narrows the research gap and enriches the literature. The empirical findings imply that road accessibility widens the gap between rich and poor in off-farm employment, which is of great important to the alleviation of relative poverty after 2020 in China.

This study aims to answer if inter-state migrants in India play a more active role than their intra-state counterparts in labor force participation and entrepreneurship.

A recursive bivariate probit model is used with an instrumental variable (IV) of the total of inter-state migrants in a city over their historical numbers to tackle the endogeneity issue of the migration decision of the migrants.

Inter-state migrants did a better job than their intra-state counterparts in labor force participation and female inter-state migrants did a better job than their counterparts in wage employment and being day laborers.

The data are from IPUMS and there is no updated nationwide data regrading migration and employment for recent years.

A randomized controlled trail can be carried out near the borders of two states where there are both significant amounts of inter-state and intra-state migrants.

The government and international organizations shall focus on cultivating the skills of the female migrants as well as encouraging the entrepreneurship of both types of migrants.

The study focus is on the comparison between intra- and inter-state migrants based on nationwide survey data and the usage of recursive bivariate model and an effective Instrumental Variable.

The purpose of this paper is to review the process of rural labor reallocation and unfolds its growth effect through sufficiently supplying human resources, preventing diminishing return to capital, and increasing labor productivity.

The author surveys literature and statistics related to the subject to comprehensively picture the 40-year course of the shift and reallocation of agricultural surplus labor.

In the past 40 years, reforms in relevant areas have eliminated institutional barriers deterring labor mobility and allowed agricultural laborers to exit from low-productivity farming employment, migrate beyond rural-urban boundary and across regions, sectors, and ownerships, and enter higher productivity employment in non-agricultural sectors. As a result, resources allocative efficiency has been substantially improved, contributing a significant part to labor productivity growth and thus economic growth of the Chinese economy as a whole.

To sustain this source of economic growth as far as China completes its transition from upper-middle income status to high-income status, deepening reforms is urgently needed. The author provides policy suggestions for further reform.

This paper enhances people’s understanding of the Chinese economic reform and its nature of efficiency and inclusion.

Fair trade commonly focuses on the figure of the smallholding peasant producer. The effectiveness of this as a strategy lies in the widespread appeal of an economy based upon independent family producers trying to secure livelihoods in impersonal and exploitative global commodity markets. But the attempt by fair trade to personalise economic relationships between coffee producers and consumers diverts attention away from aspects of the political economy of production for the market. This chapter examines a rural Costa Rican coffee economy that has supplied fair trade markets since the 1980s. Documenting differences in landholdings, the range of activities farmers engage in, and the relationship between landowners and landless labourers, women, and migrant harvesters from Nicaragua reveals differentiation and tensions that are obscured in the “smallholder” model invoked by fair trade.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of the role of social media in negotiating and managing identity for transient migrants relating to the home and host culture during the acculturation process.

Focussing on international students in the UK, this paper reports on findings from a qualitative study involving interviews with 27 transient migrants about their social media use and the negotiation of their identity online.

This paper highlights the multifaceted role that social media plays in the identity negotiations of transient migrants and it offers three theoretical contributions. First, the authors show that social media serves as a medium, consequence and determinant of identity. Second, provide four strategies for identity management are provided: boundary management, access management, online content management and offline content management. Third, contextualised support is provided for a reciprocal relationship between the different identity-related roles played by social media.

The paper highlights the complex role of social media for identity within the acculturation process for transient migrants. Identity contestation may be salient for young student migrants, especially where there is a large cultural distance between the home and host culture. Identity negotiations and struggles may not be salient with older migrants or migrants who have migrated for different reasons or where there is a small cultural distance between the home and host culture.

This paper offers recommendations for social media site designers for enhancing the users experience during acculturation by guiding the navigation with identity management strategies as well as to highlight the possible predicaments of not managing their identity online.

Based on qualitative research with transient migrants using social media during acculturation, the paper provides a theoretical model of the role and reciprocal relationship of social media for identity, serving the role as a medium, consequence and determinant. The paper incorporates four identity management strategies that migrants can use on social media.

This paper investigates rose and rose oil production in the province of Isparta, Turkey, with reference to the discourses on and procedures of price formation. Farmers have been engaging in rose cultivation for over a century and rose oil production is considered to be a traditional industry. The market actors for rose oil are global cosmetic and local processing firms and almost all rose oil from Isparta is exported. Prices and production have been steadily increasing since 2010. Although prices are seen as good, there are concerns about overproduction and fierce competition between the rose oil firms to buy the harvest, hence pushing up rose prices and, leading to a crash in rose oil prices on the world market. Through careful observation of payment and price formation procedures, the paper raises issues concerning the moral economy of price formation. Findings are provisional and the research is on-going, but the discourse on just prices clearly suggests that value judgments are embedded in and implicitly critical of capitalist markets.