Search Results (97)

The labour supply has historically been subject to influence from the economic cycle. On the other hand, there is a paucity of research in the Latin American region examining the impact of social factors on labour participation in diverse contexts. This study examines the spatial dependence of the cyclical sensitivity of labour supply in 23 provinces of Ecuador. A time series analysis was conducted to calculate the cyclical sensitivities of labour supply, and spatial econometric techniques were applied to assess spatial dependence using monthly data for the period 2021 to 2024. We found evidence of a positive and significant spatial dependence in the cyclical sensitivity of labour supply. Our findings suggest that labour decisions in one province are influenced by those in neighbouring provinces, thereby providing a framework for the design of public policies that take into account these interdependencies. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the care economy, including commodified early childhood education and care (ECEC). While there is some literature about the low paid, invisible, and undervalued skills among the predominantly female workforce in the ECEC sector, there is little research into what these educators do in their working day and how this contributes to quality education and care for young children. This article provides a detailed examination of ten defined domains of ECEC work tasks, derived from data generated by educators’ use of ‘intensive hour’ time-diary methodology. The results reveal that the outstanding characteristics of this occupation are multi-tasking and the rapid switching of tasks as educators manage diverse expectations arising from work with groups of very young children, families, other staff, and meeting legislated responsibilities. Drawing on William J. Baumol’s economic theory, we consider the implications for productivity and cost tensions in ECEC. Full article

Agroforestry is promoted as a practice at the crossroads of sustainability and productivity objectives; however, many agroforestry programmes have had mixed effects due to a lack of understanding of the compatibility of the species supplied to farmers with cocoa and a failure to take account of their knowledge in designing the programmes. This paper, therefore, examines the effects of socio-economic and agroforestry factors on cocoa yields in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. The data used come from surveys of 150 farmers in three areas of the country: Bonon, Soubré and Biankouma. The choice of these areas was based on an east–west gradient, reflecting the evolution of the cocoa loop. The Bayesian Information Criterion method and multiple linear regression were applied to identify the species and their relationship with yield. The results showed that certain species, such as Citrus sp., Cordia senegalensis, Isoberlinia doka, Morinda lucida, Morus mesozygia and Raphia hookeri increased in yield; on the other hand, Anthonotha manii was found to reduce in yield. Finally, labour and insecticides contributed to yield increases. The statistical analysis can be supplemented with agronomic and ecological analyses to improve species management on cocoa farms. Full article

Cocoa is a natural resource that plays a very important role globally, being one of the most produced and traded commodities. As a labour-intensive product and considering that its cultivation involves about 50 million people globally, it seems significant to explore its social sustainability. In light of this, this research aimed to map social risks within the cocoa supply chain from a life cycle perspective. Therefore, the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) was used, following the PSILCA database, considering the two most influential countries in its production, i.e., Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The results showed that there could be a very high risk that more than half of the cocoa globally is produced through child labour and with wages too low to guarantee workers a decent living, returning incomes of $30–38/month. Forced labour is much less frequent than child labour, while cocoa from Ghana may induce a high risk of improper work, considering the 30.2 h per week worked by farmers. This is mainly due to the low association power of 10–16%, which reveals a high risk that workers may not organise themselves into trade unions. Finally, at 23–25%, there is also a very high risk of discrimination due to the high presence of migrant labour. Therefore, the S-LCA results showed that the cocoa industry is still characterised by socially unsustainable sourcing. Full article

This paper applies a ‘more-than-human’ theoretical framework to assess artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of a capitalist economy. Case studies of AI applications from the fields of finance, medicine, commerce and manufacturing elucidate how this capitalist context shapes the aims and objectives of these innovations. The early sections of the paper set out a more-than-human theoretical perspective on capitalism, to show how the accumulation of capital depends upon free flows of commodities, money and labour, and more-than-human forces associated with supply and demand. The paper concludes that while there will be many future applications of AI, it is already in thrall to capitalist enterprise. The primary social significance of AI is that it enhances capital accumulation and a capitalist ‘black hole’ that draws more and more human activity into its sphere of influence. AI has consequent negative social, political and environmental capacities, including financial uncertainty, waste, and social inequalities. Some ways to contain and even subvert these negative consequences of an AI-fuelled capitalism are suggested. Full article

The purpose of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is to improve the quality of the database for modelling, including, but not limited to, policy analysis, multiplier analysis, price analysis, and Computable General Equilibrium. This article contributes to constructing the 2017 national SAM for South Africa, incorporating regional accounts. Only in Limpopo Province of South Africa are agricultural industries, labour, and households captured at the district level, while agricultural industry, labour, and household accounts in other provinces remain unchanged. The main data sources for constructing a SAM are found from different sources, such as Supply and Use Tables, National Accounts, Census of Commercial Agriculture, Quarterly Labour Force Survey, South Africa Revenue Service, Global Insight (regional explorer), and South Africa Reserve Bank. The dataset recorded that land returns for irrigation agriculture were highest (18.2%) in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa compared to other provinces, whereas the Free State Province of South Africa rainfed agriculture had the largest shares (22%) for payment to land. Regarding intermediate inputs, rainfed agriculture in the Western Cape, Free State, and Kwazulu-Natal Provinces paid approximately 0.4% for using intermediate inputs. In terms of the districts, land returns for irrigation were highest in the Vhembe district of Limpopo Province of South Africa with 0.3%. Despite Mopani district of Limpopo Province of South Africa having the lowest land returns for irrigation agriculture, it has the highest share (1.6%) of payment to land from rainfed agriculture. The manufacturing and community service sectors had a trade deficit, whereas other sectors experienced a trade surplus. The main challenges found in developing a SAM are scarcity of data to attain the information needed for disaggregation for the sub-matrices and insufficient information from different data sources for estimating missing information to ensure the row and column totals of the SAM are consistent and complete. Full article

In the ambitiously evolving construction industry of Kuwait, characterised by its vision 2035 and rapid technological integration, there exists a pressing need for advanced analytical frameworks. The pressing need for advanced analytical frameworks in the Kuwait Construction Market arises from the necessity to identify inefficiencies, predict market trends, and enhance decision-making processes. For instance, these frameworks can be used to detect anomalies in investment patterns, forecast the impact of economic changes on project timelines, and optimise resource allocation by analysing labour and material supply data. By leveraging deep learning techniques, such as autoencoder neural networks, stakeholders can gain deeper insights into the market’s complexities and improve strategic planning and operational efficiency. This research paper introduces a deep learning approach utilising an autoencoder neural network to analyse the complexities of the Kuwait Construction Market and identify data irregularities. The construction sector’s significant investment influx and project expansion make it an ideal candidate for deploying sophisticated analytical techniques to detect anomalous patterns indicating inefficiencies or unveiling potential opportunities. Our approach leverages the capabilities of autoencoder architectures to delve into and understand the prevalent patterns in market behaviours. This analysis involves training the autoencoder on historical market data to learn the normal patterns and subsequently using it to identify deviations from these learned patterns. This allows for the detection of anomalies that may lead to operational or financial consequences. We elucidate the mathematical foundations of autoencoders, highlighting their proficiency in managing the complex, multidimensional data typical of the construction industry. Through training on an extensive dataset—comprising variables like market sizes, investment distributions, and project completions—our model demonstrates its ability to pinpoint subtle yet significant anomalies. The outcomes of this study enhance our understanding of deep learning’s pivotal role in construction and building management. Empirically, the model detected anomalies in transaction volumes of lands and houses, highlighting unusual spikes that correlate with specific market activities. These findings demonstrate the autoencoder’s effectiveness in anomaly detection, emphasising its importance in enhancing operational efficiency and strategic planning in the construction industry. Full article

Demographic changes have led to an increase in older people in prisons. Whereas the rehabilitative process of younger offenders is geared towards their reintegration into the labour market, successful ageing should be a policy aim for older prisoners. This study explores how older incarcerated persons view their ageing. A qualitative study using a written survey with only the single question What does ageing in prison mean to you? was conducted in Bavaria, Germany. A total of 64 prisoners (61 male, 3 female) supplied answers varying in length from a few words to several pages. The thematic analysis revealed that together with health concerns, social relations and everyday activities, the uncertainty of the future was a central focus point for the older adults in prison. The authors propose that a positive vision of the future needs to be included in any model of successful ageing. If successful ageing is used as an aim for older prisoners, more attention needs to be paid to support interventions during and after the release process. Full article

The digitisation of the agriculture industry provides an opportune context for accelerating sustainable food production. Aquaculture is among the fastest-growing agriculture sectors and is well placed to help address food supply shortages, directly contributing to the achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 2. However, the sector currently has inadequate digital capability and enabling conditions to thrive. Social cognitive career theory asserts that career choices and persistence are directly influenced by a person’s thoughts, including their self-efficacy; therefore, the upskilling and reskilling of labour is required to build confidence in their digital capabilities and reduce turnover intentions. Consequently, this study sought to identify the key skills and needs for this workforce to transition to digitally driven ways of working. The results indicated that a range of skills and abilities that enable people to improve their digital capabilities were required. The findings are presented and discussed. Full article

Upscaling sustainable intensification (SI) technologies is crucial to enhancing the resilience of fragile farming systems and vulnerable livelihoods of smallholder farmers. It is also critical to shape the future land-use and land-cover changes in a region. Zero-tillage potato cultivation (ZTPC), introduced as an SI intervention in parts of the Indian Sundarbans, has demonstrated promises of rapid upscaling, and thus, changes in the seasonal land-use pattern in the region. This study aims to understand the socioecological complexity of farming systems to comprehend how the nascent stage of ZTPC thrives at the farm level and what preconditions are necessary to upscale them. The objectives are to analyse the farm resource recycling pattern in ZTPC, and map and simulate its system’s complexity to strategize ZTPC upscaling in the region. The analysis of farm resource recycling data reveals that ZTPC stability hinges on managing trade-offs in resource allocations, specifically involving straw, organic manure, sweet water, and family labour. The decision to manage such trade-offs depends on farm type characterizations by their landholdings, distance from the homestead, pond, and cattle ownership, competing crops, and family composition. Using a semiquantitative systems model developed through fuzzy cognitive mapping, the study underscores the significance of effective training, input support, enterprise diversification by introducing livestock, timely tuber supply, access to critical irrigation, and capacity building of local institutions as the essential preconditions to sustain and upscale ZTPC. This research contributes a systems perspective to predict agricultural land use within technology transfer initiatives, providing insights into how farm- and extra-farm factors influence resource allocations for ZTPC. Public extension offices must understand the trade-offs associated with straw, organic matter, and harvested water and design differentiated supports for different farm types. The most compelling interventions to upscale ZTPC includes farm diversification by introducing livestock through institutional convergence, pragmatic agroforestry initiatives to enhance on-farm biomass and fuel production, building awareness and integrating alternative energy use to save straw and cow dung, building social capital to ensure access to sweet irrigation water, and developing and/or strengthening farmer collectives to ensure the supply of quality tuber and marketing of farm produce. Full article

The purpose of this article is to identify disruptions occurring in the supply chain of automotive enterprises operating in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic and ways to counteract them, taking into account the type of business conducted. The specific objectives are to identify and characterise the types of enterprises operating in automotive supply chains, to identify changes during the pandemic in automotive enterprises, depending on the type of activity, and to show disruptions in automotive supply chains and ways to counteract these disadvantages depending on the type of activity. Automotive enterprises operating in Poland were selected for the study purposefully. A random selection method was used to select 500 automotive companies for the study. The data sources were surveys conducted in June 2023 among 500 enterprises in the form of a direct telephone interview. The Pearson χ² test of independence was used to check the existing relationships between the type of business activity and the results and responses obtained in the surveys. Automotive companies experienced supply chain disruptions, regardless of the type of business. Most often, these were caused by lockdowns and official closures, low stocks of materials and products, and problems with employees. The type of business conducted was not a factor determining the type of disruptions in the supply chain. All types of enterprises reported similar problems in the supply chain, such as longer order processing times, increased transport, storage, and labour costs, and decreased on-time delivery. Disruptions were most often short-lived, up to 1 year. Car producers indicated that disruptions were longer and even longer lasting compared to sales, maintenance, and repairs. Companies countered disruptions by using mostly operational measures, which were short-lived. Only a small percentage of operators made strategic decisions and countered disruptions over a longer period. The scale of these actions was greater among manufacturers than among dealers and car service companies. The theoretical contribution to science was the identification of disruptions and ways of responding to them in supply chains in the automotive industry, depending on the main types of activities conducted. A practical contribution may be the presentation of enterprises’ reactions to the uncertainty and the recommendation that enterprises have ready scenarios for responding to occurring disruptions. Full article

The European Union’s climate policy aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. One of the instruments for achieving these climate goals is the development of offshore wind energy. Unfortunately, Poland, as one of the few European Union countries with access to the sea, does not have offshore wind farms yet. The purpose of this article is to determine the importance of offshore wind energy for the development of Poland based on the example of two sea regions: the West Pomeranian and Pomeranian Voivodeships. This article uses the input–output method to determine the economic effects of offshore wind power. The region’s share in the supply chain was determined based on the location of the offshore wind energy sector. A comparative analysis with the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm in France made it possible to show the differences between the studied locations. The supply chain share of the regions surveyed was 2.28% and 6.00% in the CAPEX phase and 5.98% and 8.23% in the OPEX phase. The annual average global value in the CAPEX phase at the country level was EUR 2793 million, and at the regional level, EUR 243 million and EUR 663 million. In the OPEX phase, the corresponding values are EUR 2106 million, EUR 223 million and EUR 663 million. The average annual employment in the CAPEX phase at the national level amounted to 26,323 jobs and at the regional level, 1953 and 5804. In the OPEX phase, employment amounted to 4790, 558 and 751 jobs, respectively. On the other hand, the average annual value added in the CAPEX phase at the national level was EUR 1221 million, and at the regional level, it was EUR 106 million and EUR 290 million. In the OPEX phase, it was EUR 920 million, EUR 97 million and EUR 239 million, respectively. While not all of the findings are conclusive, in general, the domestic offshore wind industry has weaker economic linkages and lower wage levels than the location adopted for comparison. It uses more labour-intensive economic sectors with lower OPEX value added. The results of the analyses presented in this paper are of crucial importance not only for Poland, as their advantage is the possibility to present, from an economic point of view, the profitability of this type of investment in general. Full article

Background: This study aims to explore how domestic entrepreneurs can benefit from the thriving global agribusiness by establishing themselves in agro-industrial segments that can best remunerate capital and labour. The ways in which domestic entrepreneurs in Brazil enter different segments of the agribusiness industry were assessed with specific attention to implications for the development of local agro-industrial capabilities. Methods: We assessed the current market share of domestic companies in relation to foreign multinationals in various segments of the sugar and ethanol supply chain in Brazil. Results: Foreign multinationals are market leaders in the fertilizers, machinery and trading segments (domestic companies market share is 20.3%, 33.3% and 42.9% in those segments respectively). However, Brazilian companies have achieved higher market share in segments such as plant breeding, sugarcane processing and farming (domestic market share is 93.2%, 67.4% and 75.5% respectively). Plant breeding, farming and trading benefit from governmental support in research, subsidized credits and market policies respectively. Conclusions: By investing in agro-industrial sectors developing countries can benefit from agribusiness expansion for their economic growth. Investments in science and technology and domestic regulatory actions can help to build country capabilities, although the impacts are sometimes limited to the agro-industrial sectors where domestic companies are more competitive. These lessons can help other developing countries to assess their opportunities and challenges for agro-industrial development. Full article

During the COVID-19 pandemic, regions were affected by a combination of economic crises: weak demand and constrained supply. Several studies have sought to analyse the heterogeneous effects of supply and demand shocks on the labour market, economic growth, and the environment. This study has a different focus, estimating both direct and indirect effects of demand and supply shocks adopted during the pandemic in Brazil and Chile. Afterwards, the paper compares the degree of regional absorption (leakage) of income resulting from each of these shocks, applying an interregional input–output model for each country. The results of this study show that income absorption by the poorest regions is relatively greater in the case of a supply shock. It can be said, therefore, that this type of shock improves the retention of income generated in the poorest regions, favouring the development of these localities and the reduction in regional inequalities. The main reason for this result is that supply policies have restricted essential sectors to a lesser extent, and these sectors are generally less concentrated in large urban centres in both Brazil and Chile. In other words, much of the interregional leakage is driven by the demand for non-essential products, mainly in the richest urban economy centres. Finally, the geographical dimension of regional inequalities leads to the economic benefit of prosperous areas in the country when shocks occur in vulnerable regions, highlighting the centre–periphery pattern in both countries. Full article

The development of scientific and technological foundations for the creation of high-performance energy storage devices is becoming increasingly important due to the rapid development of microelectronics, including flexible and wearable microelectronics. Supercapacitors are indispensable devices for the power supply of systems requiring high power, high charging-discharging rates, cyclic stability, and long service life and a wide range of operating temperatures (from −40 to 70 °C). The use of printing technologies gives an opportunity to move the production of such devices to a new level due to the possibility of the automated formation of micro-supercapacitors (including flexible, stretchable, wearable) with the required type of geometric implementation, to reduce time and labour costs for their creation, and to expand the prospects of their commercialization and widespread use. Within the framework of this review, we have focused on the consideration of the key commonly used supercapacitor electrode materials and highlighted examples of their successful printing in the process of assembling miniature energy storage devices. Full article