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This research empirically examines the preferences for job-related attributes among rural villagers living close to artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) in Indonesia. Based on hypothetical scenarios in which a private company collaborates with the local government to establish a food processing industry in these villages, a questionnaire survey designed with best-worst scaling (BWS) was administered to households to determine their preferences. Additionally, the heterogeneity among the villagers was examined by applying a latent class logit (LCL) model. The main household survey was conducted in 2019 in Bone Bolango Regency, Gorontalo Province. The estimation results revealed that villagers are separated into four classes, and each class has different and unique preferences. Creating more job opportunities for society is a highly evaluated attribute; however, the preference for skill acquisition differs among groups. The results indicate that accounting for heterogeneous preferences regarding job opportunities is helpful to delink dependency on ASGM and health hazards and improve the livelihoods of rural villagers. The study yields key information to substantially reduce environmental and health hazards in the poverty-plagued ASGM community by facilitating job opportunities in Indonesia.

Agriculture in Upper Egypt is characterized by unsustainable farming practices and a lack of the use of market intelligence. Improving agriculture in Upper Egypt is necessary, as farmers in this region need to meet the quality standards required by international markets if they are to increase export volumes. For this reason, agricultural interventions are required to transition from the current traditional farming systems and marketing practices to sustainable conservation farming practices and the use of market intelligence and logistics. The main aim of this research study is to assess the potential for improving the livelihoods of rural communities by conducting a cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and conducting a risk analysis using the Monte Carlo simulation method for the proposed agricultural interventions. Our results imply that the analyzed interventions are viable from both a financial and socio-economic point of view. The impacts of the interventions reveal real incremental employment opportunities at the farming level. In addition, the interventions have a very low probability of negative returns and become almost zero when we add the economic benefit to society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new important evidence on the spatial dimension of social class inequalities in graduates' labour market outcomes, an aspect largely overlooked within the existing literature. Using data from the HESA Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Early and Longitudinal Survey (DLHE) for the 2008/09 graduate cohort and applying multilevel logistic regression models, we investigate whether and the extent to which social class inequalities in graduates' occupational outcomes vary depending on the job opportunities in the geographical area where they find employment. By examining different macro-level indicators, we find wider social inequalities by parental social class in areas with fewer opportunities in high professional and managerial occupations and smaller inequalities in areas with more opportunities. Interestingly, this pattern applies only to graduates who moved away from their place of origin. We interpret this finding as the result of selective migration, that is, areas with more opportunities attract the better-qualified graduates irrespective of their social origin. Finally, graduates' HE experiences—in particular, their field of study—and sector of employment explain most of the social class gap in areas with fewer job opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]