Search results

Purpose – This chapter examines the complex, multilevel barriers low-income women of color in a medium-sized Midwestern city face when trying to achieve economic self-sufficiency and homeownership. The aim of this study was to determine whether women attempting to achieve self-sufficiency and/or homeownership face different barriers than men as a result of multiple and intersecting social locations.

Design/methodology/approach – The study sample includes 24 low-income women of color, all of whom participated in in-depth interviews in Fall, 2008. Low-income women also completed short demographic surveys. Intersectionality represents the conceptual framework for this study, and data analysis followed phenomenological inquiry.

Findings – Some barriers low-income women of color face are unacknowledged and are gendered and racialized. Many women in this study faced personal barriers (e.g., low-income, lack of savings, poor credit, lack of mentors) and system-level barriers (e.g., banking account requirements and lenders’ downpayment requirements) to obtain economic self-sufficiency and/or homeownership simultaneously.

Research limitations – This study only examined 25 women's experiences in one location. These findings can only be generalized to low-income women of color in this study.

Originality/value – This study addresses the gaps in existing literature about low-income women's journeys toward economic self-sufficiency, and highlights that many women have goals of homeownership as well. Data analyzed here also illustrated the complex nature of barriers.

This research explores how skill proficiencies are distributed between low-income and not-in low-income groups using the results of a highly complex survey of the information-processing skills of Canadians between the ages of 16 and 65. We find that having measures of skills enhances our understanding of the correlates of low income. Skills have an independent effect, even when controlling for other known correlates of low income, and their inclusion reduces the independent effect of education and immigrant status. This result is relevant for public policy development as the knowledge of the skills profile of the low-income population can inform the design of efficient and effective programmes.

Although rental housing has historically maintained a peripheral position within the community-building sphere, the current economic volatility is evidence of how imbalanced housing policy can impact overall stability, particularly among low-income people within low-income communities. Economic and other macro-environmental shifts will have lasting and poignant impacts on low-income geographies; therefore, the state of rental housing within the context of urban neighborhoods will continue to be a critical policy matter. This research explores whether the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program encourages the development of housing with the physical and operational attributes that strengthen low-income neighborhoods. Given the program's growing dominance, this study analyzes whether specific characteristics associated with neighborhood revitalization are prevalent in LIHTC properties located within qualified census tracts. Also examined are the methodologies among nonprofit developers and for-profit developers relative to these development characteristics.

The findings indicate that properties under 50 units are more likely to be located within suburban qualified census tracts. Within the urban core, the results reveal that qualified census tract LIHTC developments are more often serving extremely low and low-income families. The research outcomes also show that nonprofit developers are more likely to serve lower incomes and utilize certified property management agents for these properties. Given the unique needs of urban and suburban low-income neighborhoods and a national environment that portents a growing dependence upon the LIHTC, the findings suggest that both enhanced coordination between state, regional, and local interests and innovation in resource allocation policy are critical to erasing the neighborhood divide that marginalizes low-income people in low-income communities.

Applying sociological and developmental theoretical perspectives to educational policy issues, this study analyzed data from 7,710 children from low-income families in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort. The goal was to examine how much the association between phonics instruction in kindergarten classrooms and children’s reading achievement during the first year of school in the low-income population would depend on whether children had previously attended preschool as well as the socioeconomic composition of their elementary schools. Lagged linear models with a series of sensitivity tests revealed that this association was strongest among children from low-income families who had not attended preschool and then enrolled in socioeconomically disadvantaged elementary schools and among children from low-income families who had attended preschool and then enrolled in socioeconomically advantaged elementary schools. These findings demonstrate how insights into educational inequality can be gained by situating developing children within their proximate ecologies and institutional settings, especially looking to the match between children and their contexts. They are especially relevant to timely policy discussions of early childhood education programs, classroom instructional practices, and school desegregation.

The emergence of housing microfinance (HMF) as a response to the low-income groups’ inability to access traditional housing finance is an innovative strategy by creative Microfinance Institutions. Yet, low-income groups’ still face barriers in accessing these innovative products, particularly in Ghana. This paper aims to examine the critical demand barriers and how to develop and improve the design and delivery of HMF interventions in the low-income housing market in Ghana.

The paper achieves its aim by adopting a focus-group discussion strategy to examine the constraints to the demand for HMF among low-income groups’ in Ghana.

Nine factors constrained the design, delivery and demand for HMF – affordability issues; risk; land tenure insecurity; high interest rate; collateralization and insurance challenges; unfavourable HMF loan conditions; lack of social capital; high cost of land and building materials; and ineffective consumer protection.

Although limited to low-income groups, strategies to stimulate demand for HMF should focus on three broad problems – affordability, macroeconomic management and institutional development and government intervention.

The paper makes significant contributions to the body of knowledge, regarding understanding the low-income housing market and its financing in the context of a developing country.

The novelty of the paper is founded on the premise of the research methodology adopted to unearthed the barriers to the demand of HMF in Ghana. Future research effort should be directed at exploring the motivations behind low-income groups’ decision to demand HMF and the risk associated with the use of HMF in the context of Ghana.

Designing a social marketing intervention for low-income earners requires an understanding of the key motivations. As part of the Low-Income Earner Energy Efficiency Programme, this study investigates the key factors that influence energy behaviours amongst Australian young low-income earners as part of the Reduce Your Juice social marketing programme. The authors also investigate the effect of gender.

An online survey of 753 low-income renters was conducted using validated measures. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The two factors that had the highest influence on intentions for energy-saving behaviours was the “mind” factor of self-efficacy and “money” factor of price concern. There were gender differences in the effect of bill control and price concern on intentions for different energy efficiency behaviours.

This study provides guidance on the factors to emphasise when designing an energy efficiency programme for low-income earners.

This study provides evidence for different motivations amongst low-income earners for energy efficiency programmes and that a “one size fits all” approach may not be effective.

While there is high interest in the public sector for motivating young-adult low-income earners to change their energy behaviours, little is known about the key factors that motivate intentions to engage in these behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the probability of low income for households with disabled members in Italy, over the period 2004‐2007, with special focus on the role of persistence.

Households with disabled members are compared with those without disabled members, and those with disabled members temporary limited. Alternative definitions of disability are considered. The probability of low income is estimated adopting dynamic probit models accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, state dependence and endogenous initial conditions.

Evidence is found of significant true state dependence for households with disabled members. However, true state dependence does not significantly differ from that of other households. The probability of low income for households with disabled members is also determined by some structural variables, such as employment of disabled individuals, living in the South, household's partner employment and household size.

In the short run, money transfer is effective to lift households with disabled members from low income and to prevent the risk of low income in the future. Structural policies are possibly relevant in reducing the long‐term risk of low income. These include interventions to favour employment of disabled members and development of caring services for disabled members to free family members for outside work.

Not much is known about how disability affects the conditions of households with disabled members. The paper contributes to this literature with a novel analysis of low income persistence, providing some policy suggestions.

The increase of competition in the banking industry has resulted in more attention to profitability and reduced interest in low‐income customers. Fulfilment of financial services needs of low‐income customers is perceived as either information lacking about financial products or providing services at an affordable charge. Attitudes and behaviours of a probabilistic representative sample of 3,010 low and higher income customers of a large Canadian financial institution were compared. Despite similar aspirations, low‐income customers appeared limited in terms of personal growth and expenditures and were showing uncertainty toward the future. The management implications for financial products and services, together with the social implications, are discussed in the conclusion.

The article explores the transformations low-income women make to appropriate their housing that often goes unnoticed. The aim is to document, acknowledge and make low-income women's efforts to appropriate their housing visible. Lessons learned are assumed to inform the Ugandan low-income housing discourse on design considerations that can contribute to the provision of housing designs that are conducive to low-income women. The study confines its investigation to the housing designs provided under the governmental low-income housing projects in Uganda.

This article presents results from a case study on Masese Women Housing Project MWHP that targeted women as its main beneficiaries. Post Occupancy Evaluations POE methodology was utilised to collect data on the performance of the housing designs provided by the project and the transformations women make to increase their housing appropriateness. Open-ended interviews were carried out with women owners to investigate the transformations they apply to their houses. Results are documented through photography, sketches and measured drawings. Results are synthesised and analysed under outdoors and indoors transformations.

The study confirmed the substantial contribution low-income women make to appropriate their housing. It argues for acknowledging and including women's efforts in the Ugandan low-income housing discourse to support the provision of housing designs that are more user-friendly to them. Design considerations that are essential to attain low-income women convenience with their housing are: its capacity to accommodate women's triple roles, their potential for incremental development and their ability for segmentation into autonomous housing units to allow for their flexible, economic and functional use. The study advocates for directing efforts to the development of traditional building technologies instead of introducing improved but alien ones as an alternative that is more favourable to women.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the de/motivation variables in the delivery of housing microfinance (HMF) in the low-income housing market in Ghana.

The paper relied on a survey of 125 respondents of microfinance institutions (MFIs) to understand the interactions and effects of these variables on HMF delivery in Ghana. Descriptive and bivariate statistical methods were used to analyse the data.

The findings revealed that both internal and external variables motivate MFIs to engage in the low-income housing market. These variables are: MFIs desire for expansion, the potential size of the low-income housing market, the market potential for MFIs growth, the availability of local resources, unique features and products of the market, low-income housing offering an opportunity for leveraging resources and the preference for homeownership than rental among individuals in the low-income segment of the population. However, variables such as capital lock-up in HMF delivery, high-interest rates in the country, high cost and land prices, high cost and price of building materials, lack of sufficient collaterals and the different interest rates required on HMF loans also served as demotivation in the low-income housing market in Ghana.

The paper findings are limited in context to Ghana.

The paper, although limited to Ghana, contributes to the much-needed body of knowledge on low-income housing finance in developing countries.

The paper is the first of its kind in using empirical data to explore the motivational and demotivational variables in the delivery of HMF in a developing country context such as Ghana.