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Focusing on micro-level indicators, we investigate financial inclusion levels in rural China, examining its determinants and impact on household welfare. We construct a financial inclusion index of four essential financial services: savings, digital payments, credit and insurance. We identify factors influencing financial inclusion among Chinese rural households and assess the effects of financial inclusion on household welfare.

With the entropy method, we use data from the 2019 China Household Finance Survey to assess financial inclusion levels in rural China. Determinants and their impact on welfare are analyzed through probit and ordinary least squares models, respectively. Propensity scoring matching is applied to address potential endogeneity.

We reveal that rural households exhibit limited usage of formal financial services, with notable regional disparities. The eastern region enjoys the highest financial inclusion and the central region lags behind. Household characteristics such as family size, education level of the household head, income, employment status and financial literacy significantly influence financial inclusion. Financial inclusion positively impacts household welfare as indicated by household consumption expenditure. The use of different types of financial services is crucial with varying but significant effects on household welfare.

This study offers valuable insights into China’s rural financial inclusion progress, highlighting potential barriers and guiding government actions.

The construction industry is widely recognized as one of the most hazardous sectors in the world. Despite extensive research on safety management, a critical issue remains that insufficient attention is devoted to safety practices in rural areas. Notably, accidents frequently occur during the construction of rural self-built houses (RSH) in China. Safety management tends to be overlooked due to the perceived simplicity of the construction process. Furthermore, it is essential to acknowledge that China currently lacks comprehensive laws and regulations governing safety management in RSH construction. This paper aims to analyze the behavior of key stakeholders (including households, workmen, rural village committee and the government) and propose recommendations to mitigate safety risks associated with RSH construction.

This paper applies evolutionary game theory to analyze the symbiotic evolution among households, workmen and rural village committee, in situations with or without government participation. Additionally, numerical simulation is utilized to examine the outcomes of various strategies implemented by the government.

Without government participation, households, workmen, and rural village committee tend to prioritize maximizing apparent benefits, often overlooking the potential safety risks. Numerical simulations reveal that while government involvement can guide these parties towards safer decisions, achieving the desired outcomes necessitates the adoption of reasonable and effective strategies. Thus, the government needs to offer targeted subsidies to these stakeholders.

Considering that during the construction phase, stakeholders are the main administrators accountable for safety management. However, there exists insufficient research examining the impact of stakeholder behavior on RSH construction safety. This study aims to analyze the behavior of stakeholders about how to reduce the safety risks in building RSH. Thus, the authors intend to contribute to knowledge in this area by establishing evolutionary game model. Firstly, this study carried out a theoretical by using tripartite evolutionary game to reveal the reasons for the high safety risk during building RSH. Practically, this research points out the important role of households, workmen and rural village committee in improving safety management in rural areas. Besides, some suggestions are proposed to the government about how to reduce construction safety risks in rural areas.

With the rapid development of the economy in China, the wealth of residents has continued to increase, and most families have gradually been aware of the importance of commercial insurance. The family purchase of insurance in China was still not optimistic. Many scholars focus on wealth allocation, but the attention to the commercial insurance market was still less. Based on previous research studies, this study aims to investigate the impact of education and financial literacy on the commercial insurance purchase in China.

China Household Finance Survey data was used to investigate the purchase of commercial insurance in Mainland Chinese families. Factor analysis was used to construct financial literacy, and the education data were combined to analyze the commercial insurance purchase using the Probit model and the Tobit model. Finally, the contributions of education and financial literacy to commercial insurance purchases were analyzed.

Both education and financial literacy exerted a positive impact on the purchase of commercial insurance in China. Individual characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, risk attitude, purchase of social insurance and consultation with a financial advisor possessed significant effects; household factors like household size and assets, macro factors such as the density of financial institutions and the density of financial industry staff, and regional factors as local unemployment rate excreted influences on the commercial insurance purchase.

Based on the current economic development in China, this study investigated and expressed opinions on the public and insurance companies regarding commercial insurance purchases. It accentuated financial literacy and education as factors that facilitated commercial insurance development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate amount of food waste and the number of food packages used in Finnish households with university students. The aim of the paper is to answer the following research questions: How much avoidable food waste is generated in the participating various sized households? How much unavoidable food waste is generated in the participating various sized households? How many food packages are classified as deposit, municipal waste or recycled in the participating various sized households?

The data was collected among the students in Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences. A total of results from 432 households with 890 persons are presented. The participating households weighed their unavoidable and avoidable food waste and calculated the food packages during one week. The results were analysed in Excel and the statistical significance assessed using a t-test.

The average avoidable and unavoidable food wastages were 498 g/week/person, i.e. 25.9 kg/year/person and 543 g/week/person, i.e. 28.3 kg/year/person, respectively. Single-person households generate more avoidable and unavoidable food waste as well as packages per person than other sized households. The results show that there is no correlation between the amount of avoidable food waste/person, unavoidable food waste/person or packages/person.

This kind of research has sparsely been reported. The food and package wastage definitions vary, and thus it is difficult to compare these results with other reported results.

This study aims to understand the socioeconomic impact of flood events on households, especially household welfare in terms of changes in consumption and coping strategies to deal with flood risk. This study is based on Bihar, one of the most frequently flood-affected, most populous and economically backward states in India.

Primary data were collected from 700 households in the seven most frequently flood-affected districts in Bihar. A total of 100 individuals from each district were randomly selected from flood-affected villages. Based on a detailed literature review, an econometric (probit) model was developed to test the null hypothesis of the availability of consumption insurance, and the multivariate probability approach was used to analyze the various coping strategies of these households.

The results of this study suggest that flood-affected households maintain their consumption by overcoming various losses, including income, house damage and livestock loss. Households depend on financial transfers, borrowings and relief, and migrate to overcome losses. Borrowing could be an extra burden as the government compensates for house damage and crop loss late to the affected households. Again, there is no compensation to overcome livelihood loss and deal with occurrences of post-flood diseases, which further emphasizes the policy implications of strengthening the health infrastructure in the state and generating alternative livelihood opportunities.

This study discusses flood risk in terms of changes in household welfare, identifies the most effective risk-coping capabilities of rural communities and contributes to the shortcomings of the government insurance and relief model.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-07-2023-0569

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of market-based approach to provision of housing to low-income households in urban Malawi.

This study was conducted in Blantyre, Malawi, between 2019 and 2022 and used both quantitative (household survey) and qualitative (in-depth interviews and document study) methods of data collection. Interviews were conducted with key players and investors in the housing sector. Household survey data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, which allowed the generation of descriptive housing valuables, whereas qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis.

This paper demonstrates that, rather than ameliorating the housing problems facing low-income households, the market approach to provision of housing in Malawi has worsened the housing situation in the country. This is so because the market approach to the provision of housing in Malawi is not only enforcing the logic of capitalistic accumulation in the housing sector but also supporting mechanisms of exclusion based on economic stratification within the community.

Completeness of data over time as there is no market data bank available in the country.

The findings from this study suggest that some degree of state intervention in addressing the housing problem in Malawi is required.

The study findings suggest that a market approach to the provision of housing can increase social inequality as low-income households face challenges in accessing housing.

There is a paucity of research on the effects of the market approach on the provision of affordable housing to low-income households in Malawi. This paper assesses this important policy gap and provides significant policy directions.

It is imperative for policymakers, financial institutions, and individual investors to comprehend the factors that impact stock market participation, given the growing significance of the stock market in terms of personal and national wealth. This study endeavours to explore the relationship between cognitive ability and participation in the stock market. We examine the relationship between cognitive abilities and stock market participation, and further explore the mechanism of their influence.

The data from the China Family Panel Studies is utilized, and Tobit and Probit regressions are employed. Additionally, an instrumental variable approach (IV-estimate) is implemented to address the endogeneity issue linked to cognitive ability, and the study’s findings are resilient.

The results reveal a significant positive relationship between cognitive ability and stock market participation. Additionally, the findings suggest that households with higher cognitive ability tend to aggregate more information, expand social networks, and take more risks. A likely explanation is that individuals with higher cognitive ability are more likely to process more external information and evaluate the subjective uncertainty of stock markets based on a well-defined probability distribution. Our findings indicate that the impact of cognitive ability on stock market participation varies among families with differing education levels, genders, marital statuses, and geographical locations.

Therefore, the roles of cognitive abilities in accelerating stock market participation should be fully considered. More information channels and sources that contain financial markets’ information (e.g. mobile applications and financial education) should be provided. Thus, the significance of cognitive ability in increasing stock market participation should be fully considered. Providing more information channels and sources, such as mobile applications and financial education, that contain financial markets’ information would be helpful. Our study contributes to promoting financial literacy and inclusion by highlighting the significant positive impact of cognitive ability, where institutions can tailor their outreach efforts and information channels to better serve individuals with different cognitive ability.

Urbanization is driving the growth of China’s carbon footprint. It’s important to investigate what factors, how and to what extent, affect carbon footprints embedded in various categories of rural and urban households’ consumption.

We employ an environmental extended input-output model to assess and compare the rural-urban household carbon footprints and perform a multivariant regression analysis to identify the varying relationships of the determinants on rural and urban household carbon footprints based on the panel data of Chinese households from 2012 to 2018.

The results show evidence of urbanity density effect on direct carbon footprints and countervailing effect on indirect carbon footprints. The old dependency ratio has no significant effect on rural family emissions but has a significantly negative effect on urban direct and indirect carbon footprints. A higher child dependency ratio is associated with less rural household carbon emissions while the opposite is true for urban households. Taking advantage of recycled fuel saves direct carbon emissions and this green lifestyle benefits urban households more by saving more carbon emissions. There is a positive relationship between consumption structure ratio and direct carbon footprints while a negative relationship with indirect carbon footprints and this impact is less significant for urban households. The higher the price level of water, electricity and fuel, the lower the rural household’s direct carbon footprints. Private car ownership consistently augments household carbon footprints across rural and urban areas.

This paper provides comprehensive findings to understand the relationships between an array of determinants and China’s rural-urban carbon emissions, empowering China’s contribution to the global effort on climate mitigation.

Despite a reduction in poverty the global population in 2015, the incidence of poverty remains very high in Sub-Saharan African countries. Most of the countries in the region are agrarian, with most of their population residing in rural areas, and a majority of the poor in the region are found in Nigeria. This study examined the nexus between participation in nonfarm enterprises (NFEs) and poverty among rural farm households in Nigeria and across the six geopolitical zones.

The Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS) conducted in 2018–2019 by the National Bureau of Statistics was used. We made use of 13,440 farm households with useful information for the purpose of this study. The sample comprises 6,885 households that participated in NFEs and 6,555 nonparticipating households. The data were analyzed with Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (FGT) (1984) metrics, probit, and fractional probit models at p = 0.05.

The incidence of poverty was lower among the participating households than in the nonparticipating households. Participation in NFEs had a mitigating effect on poverty. We also established that zonal differentials in poverty rates exist among households in all the analyses. Participation in NFEs was influenced by individual, household, and institutional factors and was also able to explain the depth of poverty among the respondents.

It is suggested that poverty alleviation policies should be targeted at improving access to nonfarm economic activities by rural farm households residing in vulnerable geopolitical zones.

This study is the first attempt to profile household poverty based on the type of NFEs they are involved in. The study also provides an insight into the effect of the state of residence on zonal poverty models, which is expedient if the country must achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1 on the eradication of poverty everywhere.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2023-0493