Delegation to workers across countries and industries : social capital and coordination needs matter

The degree of delegating authority to non-managerial and non-supervisory workers substantially varies across countries and industries. By examining worker-level data from 14 countries, I empirically explain this variation by region-specific social capital that proxies workers' degree of self-centeredness and the industry-specific need for coordination. The empirical results of this study confirm the theoretical predictions by Alonso et al. (2008) for the first time: the negative association between coordination needs and decentralization is mitigated in regions with lower self-centeredness of workers. In particular, when self-centeredness of workers (respectively, need for coordination) is very low, the degree of delegation is always high regardless of the level of the need for coordination (self-centeredness of workers). Positive associations between delegation and its benefits, including job satisfaction, wages (proxy for higher productivity), and skill upgrading of workers, are also found. These results imply that people's degree of self-centeredness affects a country's economic development patterns by changing the degree of decentralization and its benefits.

Organizational Capability of Local Societies in Rural Development: A Comparative Study of Microfinance Organizations in Thailand and the Philippines

The importance of organizing local people for development work is widely recognized. Both governmental and non-governmental agencies have implemented various projects that have needed and encouraged collective action by people. Often, however, such projects malfunction after the outside agencies retreat from the project site, suggesting that making organizations is not the same as making a system of making organizations. The latter is essential to make rural organizations self-reliant and sustainable. This paper assumes that such a system exists in local societies and focuses on the capacity of local societies for creating and managing organizations for development. It reveals that (1) such capability differs according to the locality, (2) the difference depends on the structure of the organizations that coordinate people's social relations, and (3) the local administrative bodies define, at least partly, the organizational capability of local societies. We compare two rural societies, one in Thailand and the other in the Philippines, which show clear contrasts in both the form of microfinance organizations and the way of making these organizations.

Publicness and Taken-for-granted Knowledge: A Case Study of Communal Land Formation in Rural Thailand

The lack of public-mindedness can cause problems in the social order of people’s daily lives, such as the tragedy of the commons and the problem of free riders. Some scholars such as Habermas assert that communicative rationality is the solution, expecting that individuals will communicate with each other to reach a consensus without being bounded by aspects of social background. Other scholars advocate the revitalization of traditional community culture. These arguments, however, are not based on reality. By using the case of communal land formation in rural Thailand, the author shows that collective action is neither a revival of tradition nor a result of communication free from social constraints. Rather, cooperation emerges because the people rationally respond to their present needs and have built, through daily social interactions, taken-for-granted knowledge about how they should behave for cooperation.

Relationship between young women and parents in rural Ethiopia

In rural Ethiopia, parents play an important role in the major life events of their daughters such as education and marriage. However, parents’ roles have been evolving, likely due to the rapid expansion of educational opportunities for girls and the growing need of cash income among rural households. Currently, encouraging their daughters to take up further education and jobs in the formal sector contrasts with rural Ethiopian women’s conventional life course events in the past, which are characterized by early marriage and low educational profiles. An interview analysis with parents of young women indicated that under the continuing de-agrarianization among rural households, women are expected to have their own cash income generating activities to qualify as marriage partners.

Religion and polygamy : evidence from the livingstonia mission in Malawi

In contrast to the prevailing preconception, Christian females engage in polygyny in most of sub-Saharan Africa. Based on individual-level data provided by the Demographic and Health Survey (2000, 2004, 2010) in Malawi, this study explores whether Christian identity reduces the likelihood that females enter into polygyny. To address the endogeneity associated with this identity, the analysis adopts an instrumental variable (IV) approach by exploiting the unique setting of a Christian mission dating back to the late 19th century. Exposure to the mission, measured by geographical distance to the influential mission station, Livingstonia, enabled the indigenous population to gradually convert to Christianity. This is particularly true for the local population not belonging to the Yao, an ethnic group that was largely proselytized into Islam because of their historical connection with the Arabs. Using the distance-ethnicity (non-Yao) interaction as an IV for women's Christian identity, with numerous historical, geographic, and climate controls, this study discovers that compared to those practicing other religions (Islam and other) or no religion, Christian females are indeed less likely to form polygynous unions. This study also provides some evidence suggesting that the Christianity effects are more evident in a society at a more primitive stage of development.

The voices and protests of China's labour NGOs and their effort to promote migrant worker rights

Labour NGOs in China are relatively new organizations that emerged in the 1990s and have spread during the 2000s. Migrant workers in China are weak both socially and economically and have been lacking ways of voicing grievances and protesting. Grassroots labour NGOs for migrant workers seem to be an efficient channel for their voices. This paper examines how labour NGOs emerged and how they function in the context of current Chinese society. This paper adopts the case study method to describe three NGOs in Beijing and Shenzhen. The paper shows that these NGOs are using different methods to resolve migrant worker problems. At the same time, they are voicing the migrants' grievances and protesting in their own ways.

Marriage, dowry, and women's status in rural Punjab, Pakistan

Dowry is a common custom observed in South Asian countries. It has been a target of an opposition movement because it is assumed to be a root cause of women's mistreatment, for example, in the form of sex-selective abortion, girls' malnutrition, female infanticide, and domestic homicide called "dowry murder." Despite its alleged evil consequences and the legal ban or restrictions on it, the custom has been extended, and recently, the dowry amount seems to be increasing. However, there is little empirical evidence of dowry's effects. This study empirically investigates the effects of dowry on women's status in rural Pakistan. We conducted a unique survey in rural Punjab, Pakistan, to explore the marriage practices there and to answer the research question. Results show that a higher dowry amount enhances women’s status in the marital household. This implies that an outright ban on dowries does not necessarily improve women's welfare at this time.

Better than nothing? : dowry in the absence of the legal protection of women's inheritance rights

The practice of dowry is often thought to be the root cause of the unequal treatment of women in India. For women without inheritance rights, however, dowry may function as their only source of protection. Using a nationwide dataset and exploiting a natural experimental situation, this study explores the effects of dowry on women's empowerment in India, a society where women do not have inheritance rights. In such a society, dowry seems to enhance women's status in the marital household. The effects reverse when women have equal inheritance rights as their brothers. Empirical analysis suggests that the outright ban on dowry that ignores the context may not necessarily benefit women.