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The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the multinational oil companies’ (MOCs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of the global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) on women’s involvement in rural labour market in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

This paper adopts a survey research technique, aimed at gathering information from a representative sample of the population, as it is essentially cross-sectional, describing and interpreting the current situation. A total of 768 respondents were sampled across the rural areas of the Niger Delta region.

The results from the use of a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicate that CSR of the MOCs using GMoU model has recorded little but significant success in improving women’s participation in the labour market by freeing women’s time through labour-saving technologies and the provision of public services, raising women’s capital through education, eliminating discriminatory employment practices and capitalizing on public works programmes.

This suggest that the underlining causes of gender inequality in rural labour markets are institutional, including both social norms and the structure of labour market organizations, and can be holistically tackled through CSR programmes, government policies and building the strength of women in labour organizations.

This implies that reducing rural poverty requires not just the barriers to women’s participation in decent employment but also aiming for a policy that helps to change people’s perceptions of what is possible, beneficial and fair; fosters cooperative action; and strengthens women’s bargaining power in the work place, the home and the market place.

This research contributes to the gender debate in agriculture from a CSR perspective in developing countries and rationale for demands for social project by host communities. It concludes that business has an obligation to help in solving problems of public concern.

Non-farm employment has transitioned from a residual to a dominant livelihood option in rural India. Despite the sector’s diverse welfare implications, it is still a male-dominant sector with limited scope for female’s participation. Several socio-economic and cultural factors are responsible for such disparities in occupational choices. The purpose of this study is to examine this gender dimension of occupational diversification for rural India and focuses on the role of education, caste and land ownership in explaining employment probabilities across gender.

This study uses secondary data on employment and unemployment from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for rural India and pooled the data for three periods that include 61st (2004–2005), 66th (2009–2010) and 68th (2011–2012) round comprising a total of 235,722 individuals. The study applies a multinomial logit regression model.

The results show that education facilitates females to diversify to sectors like manufacturing, mining and construction while educated males are more likely to diversify to services. However, the likelihood of diversification by educated females is low for those belonging to land-owning households. On the contrary, land ownership facilitates educated males to join sectors like mining and quarrying and services. It is also found that females belonging to Scheduled Tribe/Scheduled Caste (ST/SC) households diversify to low return activities like manufacturing and construction while males are more likely to join services.

This study has contributed to the literature on employment diversification by considering not only the gender aspect of diversification but also examining how education, caste and land would explain occupational choices between males and females. It is evident from the findings that education can be a liberating factor for females to participate actively in sectors outside agriculture but the status quo associated with land ownership in rural India declines their possibility of economic participation compared to males. Even educated females are confined to manufacturing and construction in the absence of proper non-farm employment opportunities for them.

This paper examines household and community characteristics that influence the entry of rural households into non-farm entrepreneurship and investigates the various factors that influence the market exit of non-farm enterprises (NFEs).

The authors use data from three rounds (2011/12, 2013/14 and 2015/16) of the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA). The authors employ panel logit and multilevel logit models to examine the probability of opening one or more enterprises and the enterprise exit rates.

Results indicate that the likelihood of starting a NFE is positively associated with primary education attainment, access to credit, experiencing idiosyncratic shocks and availability of formal financial institutions. Age, higher education attainment and rising farm input prices constrain entry into non-farm entrepreneurship. The enterprise exit rate is negatively associated with small-town residence, wealth, access to tar/gravel roads and cellphone communication.

Policymakers and administrators should strive to address the challenges that communities face in transportation, communication and financial services. Policies aimed at stabilizing prices and increasing access to mobile communication, primary education and road infrastructure could help expand the rural non-farm sector.

Previous studies primarily examined the determinants of participation in NFEs at a given time using cross-sectional data. The current study uses panel data to study the dynamics of NFE ownership by investigating households’ decisions to enter into or exit from the sector.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0611

The primacy of commerce in livelihood security cannot be overstated. However, in a rural context defined by involuntary socio-ecological displacement, commerce can assume a sociologically distinct character, with far-reaching implications. Based on first-hand encounters with victims of the devastating 2014 flood in Tokwe-Mukorsi, Zimbabwe, this paper analyses how the processes of “recreating” village markets in the resettlement site of Chingwizi impacted the victims’ experiences of resource provisioning and livelihood security.

Qualitative data were collected through 10 in-depth interviews, 10 key informant interviews and two focus group discussions, five years into the flood victims’ resettlement in Chingwizi. The data analysis focused on the dynamics around the recreation of village markets, and the consequences of this on the household economic standing of the resettled flood victims.

The paper reveals how the formation of village markets in Chingwizi was influenced not primarily by the ethno-commercial and ethno-economic impulses reminiscent of life in their ancestral home but mostly by new, disruptive dynamics and challenges unique to the resettlement site. The paper elucidates the constellation of factors that, together, exacerbated the flood victims’ overall socio-economic dislocation and disadvantage.

The study provides a systematic understanding of the dynamics of ethno-commerce, particularly on the evolution of village market activities and livelihoods, among Zimbabwe’s Chingwizi community over a period of five years into their resettlement. It brings to the fore, the often ignored, but significant nuances that 'village market' formation and livelihoods recreation takes in a resettlement context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2023-0682

The farm sector is crucial for rural poverty alleviation, alongside the non-farm sector, which contributes to mitigating risks associated with crop failures. This paper investigates the effects of public policies on productive employment within both the farm and non-farm sectors in sub-Saharan Africa.

A meta-analysis is conducted exclusively on the results of the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP)-funded studies under the Policy Analysis on Growth and Employment (PAGE II) initiative. Selected studies focused on the impact of public policies on productive employment in rural farm and non-farm sectors, encompassing a total of nine sub-Saharan Africa countries in: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.

The results indicate that public investments in rural areas and public policies that facilitate access to productive resources are likely to enhance productive employment. The overall effect size is positive and significant, ranging from 2% to 10% increases in productive employment. Sources of variation include the sector of activity and the policy instrument. In addition, the policy effects are gender-sensitive and seem more consistent in the non-farm sector.

Although the selected working papers addressed several aspects of productive employment, other aspects warrant further investigation. Policies involving restrictions or regulations have received little attention in the impact analysis. Researches to fill this gap would be important. Another suggestion for further research is the analysis of the relative importance of non-farm employment in rural areas in developing countries. It is always assumed that rural households depend heavily on agriculture for their subsistence.

The contribution of the paper lies in the comparative analysis of numerous public policies implemented in nine distinct countries. By consolidating data from fourteen 14 different experiences into a single study, the paper offers valuable insights on factors that determine policy effectiveness and contribute to understanding what worked for whom and why.

To run a job guarantee public policy scheme, it is important to know the aspiration level or the reference point of labor, and accordingly, the labor hour and the wage sequence are to be prepared. The existing job guarantee schemes consider the same wage rates for all types of jobs. As a result, it is to identify the reference point. The present work aims to propose a job guarantee scheme where different types of jobs have different wage rates. The paper explains the choice problem between labor and leisure at different wage rates and proposes complete computational tools to be incorporated into the job guarantee schemes. The paper also gives a mechanism to prepare the list of jobs and corresponding wage rates by maintaining a balance between labor and leisure, where productive activities measure labor hours and labor welfare measures leisure hours. Lastly, the paper provides the analytical tools to interpret the ex-post data of the job guarantee public policy schemes.

The paper has been written based on the Coordination Game and its Welfare Implications in the job guarantee public policy schemes.

The present paper gives an initial work to measure the choice between labor and leisure for the different wage rates practically. This will help in getting the equilibrium strategies, namely, the combination of the labor hour and the wage rate between the policymaker and the labor. This method will help to implement the job guarantee schemes. For example, to run successfully the Basic Income policy, the basic income calculation should give due care; otherwise, there will be a downward trend in the basic income and the welfare of labor will be reduced, because the labor would have to supply excess labor to meet the target income.

This paper derives theories and explains how the equilibrium in this coordination game can be achieved. The paper explains how the policy of the job guarantee schemes can be practiced practically. In the MGNREGA scheme, the public institution declares different categories of jobs with different wage rates. The categories have been classified with respect to the hours required to complete the job. Therefore, the public institution declares different lists or a sequence of pairs of labor hours and wage rates. Moreover, the list is stochastic, because the list can be changed by the inclusion of an offer from the market as well. The labor has to select from the list. The challenge on the part of the public institution is to prepare the list in such a way so that the inclusion of the market offers will not distort the equilibrium of the coordination game. An important method has been proposed here to analyze the ex-post data of job offers so that the preparation of the future sequence of the job offers can be prepared with due care. One objective of the policymaker here is to make a list of job offers in such a way so that the labor supply will be converging to a point and that will not deviate if the wage rate increases further. This objective will make a balance of the distribution of funds between the existing registered labor and the new entrants into the job guarantee schemes.

Gender-differentiated role obligations, constraints and dependencies affect food security dynamics across peri-urban and rural areas. This paper aims to understand how periods of crisis disproportionately exacerbate hardships for female populations in such areas and endeavours to assist agro-food policymaking in formulating support initiatives more effectively.

A feasibility/pilot survey was conducted through face-to-face semi-structured interviews in public settings and sought to understand and analyse the differentiated impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on rural and peri-urban food insecurity through the experiences of 50 women from across various districts in West Bengal.

The study found that women play multivarious roles regarding food security in rural and peri-urban households, extend these obligations to their female children and encounter deficiencies in financial autonomy to access and use food resources. It concludes that while women seem to contribute the most to household and community food security, they are also most vulnerable to food insecurity. These vulnerabilities were exacerbated during the pandemic.

This feasibility/pilot study may serve as a springboard for a larger, more comprehensive survey exploring the dynamics of gender inequality, food insecurity and the Covid-19 pandemic amongst women across peri-urban and rural areas in West Bengal. This may bolster pandemic vulnerability analyses and impact assessments in the State.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, no other study implemented in West Bengal explores the interfaces between gender inequality, food insecurity and the Covid-19 pandemic in rural and peri-urban areas.

Given the importance of growth-oriented entrepreneurship in the context of economic development and the need to understand how rural communities can be developed, the purpose of this research paper is to determine how the drivers of growth expectations differ between urban and rural settings.

The methodology is threefold: firstly, a descriptive analysis with non-parametric testing is conducted; then pooled regression model is used to analyse the predictors of growth expectations in both contexts, and finally, coarsened exact matching is used to identify possible self-selection bias.

In contrast to mainstream entrepreneurship theory, it is found that entrepreneurs’ intrinsic knowledge, skills and abilities are not significant in the rural-specific model. The only exception is entrepreneurs’ educational level, the importance of which is emphasised as a pivotal factor in increasing high-growth ventures in rural communities. Additionally, when self-selection is eliminated, rurality worsens growth intentions.

There is evidence that some growth-oriented entrepreneurs self-select into rural communities. Because the high-growth entrepreneurial dynamics in rural areas are unique, public policies should target purpose-driven entrepreneurial education. This includes encouraging “lifestyle entrepreneurship” (e.g. retirees returning to rural areas to become entrepreneurs), preventing entrepreneurial brain drain in rural areas and attracting highly educated urban entrepreneurs to exploit opportunities in rural areas.

This research attempts to contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the factors that drive high-growth entrepreneurs in rural areas by analysing rural entrepreneurs in the high-growth context of a developing economy. The focus is on Chile – a country that is rarely investigated compared to the USA or Europe – to extend the literature on high-growth ventures and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

As a “unicorn” devoted to the rural market, Huitongda has gone through a major evolution since its establish-ment in 2010 from a rural home appliance distributor, a supply chain platform, an O2O service platform to an industry Internet platform of the rural e-commerce ecosystem, based on its deep understanding of the pain points in the rural market and operational experiences. After 2017, as the platform scaled with more vendors, Huitongda was no longer satisfied with selling a single product from urban to rural areas, but was committed to promoting the two-way flow of diverse commodities between urban and rural areas. It also set out to promote employment by entering the rural human resource market, expanding the single-industry O2O service platform to a complete multi-industry ecosystem. In 2018, with a service network covering over 17,000 townships across 20 Chinese provinces, Huitongda's sales reached RMB 35 billion yuan, enabling over 500,000 rural dwellers to start their own businesses or to find employment.

However, the depth, breadth and complexity of the rural industry Internet gradually multiplied, as more member stores joined the business ecosystem with more valuable commodities and services. As a rural industry Internet network owner, how could Huitongda better tap into digitalization in order to support its industry Internet business model and the huge network? How can it further widen the network boundaries to drive more business innovations and maximize network value?

This paper aims to test the causal relationship between urban-biased policy and urban-rural income gap and further examine the moderating role of government intervention.

Based on the provincial Government Work Reports and the long-term policy practice of implementing the target responsibility system, the authors construct a unique indicator of urban-biased policy in China. Further, applying the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces in 2003–2018, the authors explore the causal relationship between urban-biased policy and urban-rural income gap.

The results show that urban-biased policy has contributed to the widen urban-rural income gap in China, which supports Lipton's urban-biased hypothesis. Further research shows that the stronger the government intervention, the bigger the role of urban-biased policy in widening urban-rural income gap.

On the one hand, this study not only investigates the direct effect of urban-biased policy on urban-rural income gap, but also examines the moderating effect from the perspective of government intervention, which helps to enrich the relevant studies of urban-biased theory. On the other hand, the authors' findings provide the latest empirical evidence for urban-biased policy to widen urban-rural income gap and presents a reference and warning for China and other developing countries about balancing the relationship between equity and efficiency during economic development.