South Asian Journal of Social Studies and Economics

Introduction: The informal sector in Port-Harcourt harbours the small-scale and self-employed activities which are mainly for generating employment and incomes. Self-employed activities in Port-Harcourt is huge and well spread, which contributes over 50% of the state Gross Domestic Product. Even though the informal sector is an opportunity for generating reasonable incomes for many people, most informal workers are without secure income, employments benefits and social protection. For this they often face health related shocks, such as unpredictable illnesses that weaken their health status. This results into massive loss of income but also meagre resources that has been in a hard way saved over a long period of time. This study investigated the economic burden of illness among the self-employed in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, in addition to the mechanisms that self-employed individuals used to pay for health services and cope with payments.

Methodology: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive in design which comprises of 204 self-employed individuals who were selected from seven different trade association in Port-Harcourt using asemi-structured interviewer-administered pre-tested questionnaire. A Socio-economic Status (SES) index was used to divide the households into quintiles, and ANOVA test was used to test for significant differences in the mean cost of illness by SES quintiles. Data collected were analysed using the statistical package for social science (SPSS), version 23 software.

Results: The results show that malaria was the illness most people had. The total cost of illness was ₦4602.93 ± 13194.072 ($12.7US) per month with Malaria contributing 102(50%) most recent self-reported cause of illness and most 145(71.0%) seeking treatment highlighted that their choice of healthcare provider are the patent medicine vendor popularly known as chemist. Total direct cost of illness accounted for 72.7% of the total cost of illness and 3.8% of income per month while the total indirect cost of illness accounted for 27.30% of the total cost of illness and 1.40% of income per month also the total cost of illness for respondents amounted to 6% of the poorest quintile monthly income, 1.8% for those in the poor quintile, 4.2% for those in the middle quintile, 6.2% for those in the rich quintile, while 7.5% for those in the richest quintile.

Conclusion: From the study findings, patent medicine vendor (chemist) was the most utilized in terms of choice of healthcare provider due to that the large cost of health care, in which this certain choice of healthcare provider (chemist) provides them with alternatives such as avoiding consultation fees and flexibility of payment, but most of this chemist lack training in the holistic approach towards healthcare and delivery, with their sole aim of maximizing profit rather than improving health outcomes, thereby endangering their clients by predisposing them to catastrophic health expenditure, because of frequent visit due to unrecovered health problems. To improve health outcomes and decrease the level of poverty due to catastrophic health expenditure, the nation health system should incorporate this certain group of health provider into the health system where they could be trained in topics such as; first aid care, referral system also strict policies on regulating their operation needs to be regulated and monitored adequately. Also, to attain universal health coverage with quality health services, introduction of cost sharing schemes is of dire need among the informal sector. These schemes create affordable healthcare at the time of sickness, thereby reducing the incidence of out-of-pocket payment which act as the main barrier in accessing healthcare.

The agricultural sector in Afghanistan faces many challenges in general that have directly affected the production of crops. Especially wheat crop because of its great importance to the population sector as it is the first source of food in Afghanistan. Problem of this study due to wheat production in Afghanistan is insufficient for domestic consumption. Therefore, the Afghan government is relying on foreign markets to cover the gap between production and consumption. The study aims to assess the current situation of wheat production and consumption in Afghanistan, as well as to understand the farmers' perceptions and attitudes towards the problems facing them. The agricultural sector in Afghanistan faces many challenges in general that have directly affected the production of crops. Especially wheat crop because of its great importance to the population sector as it is the first source of food in Afghanistan. The current study applied simple regression analysis in estimating the general trends to determine the productive and economic indicators of Wheat crop. Also, we use Analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA) to understand the farmers' perceptions and attitudes towards the problems facing them. The results showed that wheat productivity averaged 1.77 tons per ha and ranged between a minimum of 1.23 tons per ha in 2008 and a maximum of 2.20 tons per ha in 2015. On the other hand, the estimated regression equation indicates that productivity of wheat crop followed an increase trend, at an annual rate of 0.047 ton per ha and a statistically significant rate of change amounting to 2.66% of the study period’s average productivity.

The nexus between monetary policy and stock market return has remained a topic of debate in the literature. We determined whether stock market return in Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is affected by monetary policy or not. To this end, we employed the Autoregressive Distribute Lag (ARDL) model using data from 1986 to 2018 bearing in mind that our conclusion in this subject matter may be used to make assertion by other researchers who have interest in this area of study in finance. We are convinced beyond reasonable doubt based on the data we employed that the stock market return in Nigeria is not significantly affected by adjustments in monetary policy instruments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN): The apex regulator of the financial system in Nigeria. This paper wholeheartedly reflects the opinion that the Central Bank of Nigeria should consider reducing the current double digit monetary policy rate to a single digit say 9% at most to attract investments in the stock market. This would reduce the prime lending rate because, high interest rate reduces cash flows of firms quoted in the exchange, and thus contraction in values of securities traded on the market.

Customers are the prime means for any company or an organization to be successful. Customer loyalty plays a very crucial role in the success of an organization. This research is based on identifying the factors that affect the loyalty of customers in Conventional and Islamic Banking. A sample of 200 respondents were selected which further classified into Conventional and Islamic Banking. There were 143 respondents of conventional banking (including 80 male and 63 female), whereas Islamic banking includes 57 respondents in which male and female accounts for 37 and 20 respectively. The data was collected using Convenience Random Sampling Technique and then transacted into software known as IBM SPSS Statistics version 21. Major four (4) tests were done such as Factor Loading (Confirmative Factor Analysis: CFA), Reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha), t-Test and finally Linear Regression Analysis. There are two (2) variables such as Independent Variables and Dependent Variable. Independent Variables include service quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and brand image. Dependent Variable includes only customer loyalty. The data was collected using questionnaire as an instrument for collecting data; the questionnaire contains both closed-ended and open-ended questions. There are five (5) construct in the study and each possesses five (5) items and open-ended questions contain three (3) questions. Data was analyzed using the SPSS software. The results show that there is positive significant relationship of service quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and brand image on customer loyalty of both conventional and Islamic banking. Based on findings, it was recommended to prohibit interest (Riba) from banking sectors whether they are conventional or Islamic, there is a need to train employees to behave properly with their customers, and time incurred in transactions should be improved and counters should be increased because of rush of people in banks.

Environmental degradation considered as one of the critical issues in the current world. To respond to this issue, organizations and businesses around the world seriously focus on environmental protection and management nowadays than before. Organizations strongly committed to adapt several sustainable environmental management practices and initiatives to prove their environmental concern. Meanwhile, it should be noticed that some organizations started pacing towards green washing declaration processes. In this sense, there is a need to explore and identify the sustainable environmental management practices which are actually practiced by the organizations.

Hence, this paper aims to report existing sustainable environmental management practices of the organization and to find out the evidence to support the existing sustainable environmental management practices into practice. In order to achieve the study objectives, secondary data were collected mainly from the published sustainability reports of the selected apparel company for the last two years (2013/2014 and 2014/2015). Further, researchers employed the observation method to confirm whether this company is really carrying out the environmental practices which were reported in their sustainability reports or not. The researchers have identified and highlighted several sustainable environmental management practices under the three main categories such as energy conservation-related practices, water conservation-related practices and earth conservation-related practices through the sustainability reports of the company. Moreover, through the observation, researchers have confirmed that this company is really carrying out the energy conservation-related practices, water conservation-related practices and earth conservation-related practices which were reported in their sustainability reports. This study should be useful to the academics and practitioners to understand actual sustainable environmental management practices of the organizations.