Globalization,economic crisis and Africa's informal economy women workers

The processes of globalization and debt crisis led to dramatic changes in African countries. In the context of a new economic crisis – now on a global scale – it is useful to revisit debates regarding the impact of earlier policies in response to economic crisis on the poor, with a focus on very low‐income informal women workers. In this paper, we adopt a gender analysis framework to examine contending perspectives about the differential impacts of globalization, liberalization and structural adjustment programs on African women and men. We comment on two predominant schools of thought that appear to underlie and define the majority of case studies situated in African countries. While one asserts that globalization and liberalization offer entrepreneurial opportunities for women, an opposing view contends that the neoliberal political and economic reforms connected with structural adjustment policies have been devastating for poor women workers. A review of available empirical research on the responses of informal economy women workers to challenges of increased workload, reduced income and curtailed access to social services, cautions against dogmatic adherence to conceptual perspectives that either assume workers in the informal economy to be dynamic entrepreneurs when they cannot be, or condemn only contemporary policies for conditions that are the product of complex historical processes.     

Critiquing environmental management in indigenous Australia: two case studies

The notion of community participation in sustainable environmental management is well documented, but applications between environmental scientists and indigenous Australians are less known. Many indigenous Australians are socially and culturally marginalized, and agencies debate over appropriate designs for collaborative, cross-cultural environmental programmes that will alleviate marginalization. This paper presents two case studies from northern Australia, where indigenous people participated in an environmental project exploring the commercial potential of the local sea cucumber resource. A framework with principles of participation and knowledge exchange guided project implementation at both localities. Participant observation data that related to these principles suggests that abuse of power imbalances and exploitation (institutional racism) may be more easily disguised within formalized governance structures than in the informal networks and structures that can be supported through less formalized representation. Linking informal and formal governance structures and canvassing a range of governance modalities will ultimately connect the human behaviours and governance structures needed to progress indigenous environmental management in Australia.     

Kut (informal rotating credit) in the livelihood strategies of urban households in Penang, Malaysia

The importance of social capital in both rural and urban communities is an often-published topic. By representing the operation of social capital networks, this paper explores the persistence of informal rotating credit in the livelihoods of low-income, urban households in Penang, Malaysia. It highlights the function of such credit and the ways in which it benefits poor women and their households. This paper suggests that informal credit reduces the probability of being poor, and the returns to household investment in social capital are higher for the poor than for the population at large. The downside of such social capital is also discussed. The paper concludes that informal credit is enhanced in the urban settings due to the increase in income opportunities, especially for women.     

节能和就业导向下中国中部地区产业结构优化

产业结构优化是人文—经济地理学重要的研究对象,也是政府部门加强宏观调控的作用对象,更是近年来中国步入“新常态”面临的现实问题。研究采用多区域投入产出模型,结合线性规划,构建了节能和就业导向下产业结构整体最优的模型和优化度模型。结果表明：① 节能导向下,安徽的产业结构优化度最高（0.763）,山西的产业结构优化度最低（0.662）;就业导向下,江西的产业结构优化度最高（0.768）,山西的产业结构优化度最低（0.659）。② 节能导向下,产业结构优化度与单位产值能耗、重工业比重负相关;就业导向下,产业结构优化度与国有经济比重、大型企业比重负相关。③ 如果考虑节能和就业不同的目标导向,中国中部6省之间产业结构优化的方向存在明显的差异。④ 整体看,中国中部地区应保持不变或适度提高资源型产业比重,较大提高交通运输设备制造业、通信设备、计算机及其他电子设备制造业等现代制造业的比重,适度降低金属冶炼及压延加工业、非金属矿物制品业等比重。在服务业方面,较大提高燃气及水的生产和供应业、旅游业等比重,适度降低或较大降低批发零售业和餐饮业的比重,保持不变或适度降低交通运输及仓储业的比重。     

信息技术对南京市职住分离的影响

职住空间伴随着城市的发展演变产生分离现象, 引起国内外学者广泛的研究兴趣, 通过实证研究和因素分析已经取得丰富的研究成果。本文试图从信息技术发展视角入手, 分析其对城市职住分离的影响。本文以南京市为例, 通过入户调查获取477 份有效问卷调查数据, 使用有序多分类Logistic 回归模型研究分析。本文提出3个理论假设, 通过实证分析得到部分验证:①职业类型对职住分离的影响仅体现在服务业, 当仅考虑居民社会经济属性时, 从事服务业居民承担的职住分离程度更小;②从居民信息化程度来看, 居民的手机上网流量越大、家庭网络时长越长, 则承担更大程度的职住分离, 但这种正相关较弱, 而手机个人拥有数和便携式电脑家庭拥有数与城市职住分离没有相关性;③从个人属性来看, 个人月收入对城市职住分离的正相关影响最大, 性别、年龄则没有相关性。     

我国服务业发展的国际比较

运用世界发展指标和国际统计年鉴数据,从时间序列的角度并深入服务业增加值及增长速度、就业比重、就业结构、行业结构、服务业贸易五个方面进行国际比较。结果表明:我国服务业发展水平与整体经济不协调,工业对服务业的支撑能力较弱,服务业的增速高于世界主要国家:服务业的就业比重稳步上升,与世界平均水平差距较大,但吸纳就业的潜力仍然较大;传统服务业比重较高而现代服务业比重偏低,房地产、租赁及商务服务业、社会服务业的就业比重远落后发达国家;服务业出口快速增长,但出口多集中与传统服务业,知识、技术密集型服务业出口偏少。     

Contradictory socio-economic consequences of structural adjustment in Kingston, Jamaica

Since the early 1980s, the introduction of International Monetary Fund-directed structural adjustment packages to stabilize the Jamaican economy has reduced the scope of the government, cut back its capacity to intervene in the housing market, opened the economy to foreign goods (but limited capital), and re-produced the colonial version of a non-dynamic, labour-surplus urban economy in Kingston. This paper traces the impact of structural adjustment on unemployment and class formation in Kingston, and the relationship of these issues to housing problems. Rented, poor-quality housing, underpinned by low socio-economic status and historically high rates of unemployment, has created an overt spatial concentration of poverty, located in West and East Kingston. Nevertheless, overall unemployment is currently lower than at independence in 1962, and virtually all housing indicators have recorded improvements over the same time period. These improvements have been due to a deceleration in the growth of Kingston's population since the mid-1960s; government commitment, despite structural adjustment, to improve the quality of collective consumption; and the determination of Kingston's citizens to build better homes for themselves, often aided by loans from local building societies and remittances from family members resident overseas. However, at least a quarter of Kingston's population remains both unemployed and concentrated into areas of poor quality housing. These circumstances in Kingston are compared with those in adjacent Latin American cites under structural adjustment.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: USA, Eine Geographische Landeskunde , Vol. I, Der Grossraum in Strukturellem, Wandel, 3rd Ed. Helmut Blume . Introduction to Remote Sensing . James B. Campbell . The Sounds of People and Places: Readings in the Geography of American Folk and Popular Music . George O. Carney , ED. Development and Underdevelopment . John Cole . Mobility and Employment in Urban Southeast Asia: Example from Indonesia and the Philippines . Michael A. Costello , Thomas R. Leinbach , AND Richard Ulack . Soviet Asia: Economic Development and National Policy Choices . Leslie Dienes . The Third World City . David Drakakis -Smith . Scholars' Guide to Washington, DC for Cartography and Remote Sensing Imagery (maps, charts, aerial photographs, satellite images, cartographic literature and geographic information systems). Ralph E. Ehrenberg . Population and Development in the Third World . Allan AND Anne Findlay . The Early Mapping of Hawaii . Gary L. Fitzpatrick . Energetics of Physical Environment: Energetic Approaches to Physical Geography . K. J. Gregory , ED. Wildland Recreation: Ecology and Management . William E. Hammitt and David N. Cole . Agricultural Commercialization and Government Policy in Africa . J. Hinderink AND J. J. Sterkenburg . The Dynamics of American Housing . James W. Hughes AND George Sternlieb . Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation State . Charles F. Keyes . Resolving Locational Conflict . Robert W. Lake , ED. Lands at Risk in the Third World: Local-level Perspectives . Peter D. Little and Michael M. Horowitz , EDS. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Culture of American Science . David N. Livingstone . Regions: The Economics and Politics of Territory . Ann R. Markusen . Wetlands . William J. Mitsch and James G. Gosselink . Historical Geography: Progress and Prospect . Michael Pacione , ED. Loess and Periglacial Phenomena . Marton P$eacsi and Hugh M. French , EDS. Regional Management of Metropolitan Floodplains, Experience in the United States and Abroad . Rutherford H. Platt , ED. Human Cartography: Mapping the World of Man . Janos Szegö . Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History . Helen H. Tanner , ED. The Botany of Mangroves . P. B. Tomlinson . Urban Spatial Traffic Patterns . Rodney Vaughan . The Night After … Climatic and Biological Consequences of a Nuclear War . Yevgeni Velikhov , ED. Industrial Geography . H. D. Watts . Dictionary of Quotations in Geography . James O. Wheeler and Francis M. Sibley . Vermont Townscape . Norman Wiliams , Jr. , Edmund K. Kellogg and Peter M. Lavigne .     

新型城镇化与非正规就业：规模、格局及社会融合

中国城镇化由偏重数量转向更加注重质量的新型城镇化,促进农村转移人口市民化、提高就业质量成为城镇化发展的重要目标,疫情影响下非正规就业问题更为突出。论文从新型城镇化与非正规就业的关系出发阐释非正规就业人口的历史产生和发展要求,基于人口普查和《中国劳动力动态调查》测度了中国城镇非正规就业的规模和格局特征,总结了非正规就业者当前面临的社会融合难题,并提出发展思路和路径。结果发现：① 城镇化与非正规就业之间关系密切,非正规就业为城镇化过程中农村转移人口提供大量就业机会,缓解了城镇就业压力。以人为本的新型城镇化需要关注非正规就业模式,以促进农业转移人口市民化和社会融合。② 经多源数据估算,中国城镇非正规就业占城镇总就业的33.2%~44.7%,就业人数达1.38亿~1.55亿,以隐性就业部分为主。在空间分布上总体呈现东、中、西逐渐减少的特征;在雇佣类型上以从事各类非正规工作的被雇型就业为主;行业结构主要集中在批发和零售贸易及餐饮业,居民服务、修理和其他服务业与制造业等。③ 非正规就业者主要面临职业困境、户籍限制、公共服务差距、风险应对能力弱等问题,需要通过完善就业服务体系等改革,提升就业质量,推动市民化和社会融合。     

中国首都圈区域空间结构特征——基于分行业就业人口分布的实证研究

一般认为中国首都圈的空间结构是京、津双核心。本文基于首都圈地区第二次经济普查中分县市区18个行业就业人口数据,运用区域密度函数,对首都圈地区分行业就业人口分布与空间结构特征进行分析,探讨不同行业的区域空间结构。研究发现：首都圈并不是单纯的京、津双核结构,而是在不同行业上存在不同的结构特征。总体上,首都圈的确呈现京、津双核结构,就业人口集中在京、津、唐三地,尤以京、津为主。而分行业来看,大部分服务业,尤其是生产者服务业则呈现以北京为中心的单中心结构特征;而消费者服务业则大多呈现京、津双核结构;制造业、建筑业等第二产业呈现出京、津、唐三中心结构;而卫生社会保障和社会福利业、公共管理和社会组织等行业显示出以京、津、唐、保为中心的多中心结构。进而得出中国首都圈呈现以北京为中心,京、津双核明显,京津唐三足鼎立,京津唐保功能分异,秦皇岛、承德、张家口、沧州、廊坊共同发展的多中心空间格局。