Maj-HE202

House hold Resource

Management

SHEEN KARLA ANN E. MORALES, LPT

HOUSEHOLD RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

PEOPLE ARE AT THE HEART - and people live in households, whether they are
single- or multiple-person. Men and women within rural households carry out
many activities and make numerous decisions related to who does what to produce
food, earn cash income, market produce, prepare food and to sustain their
livelihoods. They all make decisions about the resources around them - decisions
that may not always benefit equally all of those living in the household

RURAL WOMEN, MEN AND YOUTH manage resources such as knowledge, labour,

money, livestock, crops, fish, forests, land, water, social networks, machinery,
implements, information and more. But different household members will have
differential access to and control over these resources. The efficient management of
human and natural resources will often depend upon access to other resources
such as markets, transport, credit, education and health care.

HOUSEHOLD RESOURCE MANAGEMENT uses the household as an entry-point to

understand and address rural development challenges. External factors such as
policies and epidemics affect various types of households, socio-economic groups
and household members in different ways. It is necessary to look inside the
household to understand patterns of access, decision-making and power relations
and their impact on livelihoods, food security and the overall well-being of
household members. Looking at households and analysing intra-household
dynamics helps us to gain a better understanding of the gender roles and relations
among household members including resource management decisions, and
common interests and conflicts of interest in resource needs and allocation.

WHAT IS A "HOUSEHOLD" AND WHY NOT FOCUS ON THE "FAMILY" AS AN

ANALYTICAL UNIT?

The year 2004 marks the Tenth Anniversary of the International Year of the
Family. The International Year of the Family (1994) helped highlight the role of the
family as the basic social unit in every society and supported the idea that the
family can play a key role in developing, protecting, socializing and educating
individual members of families; as well as protecting the intergenerational
transmission of culture and values. (UN Web page on the Tenth Anniversary of the
Family Year:

However, as a unit of analysis, the concept of the "household" is more helpful -

particularly in terms of agricultural and rural development. In part, it is linked to
other conceptual units of analysis such as the agricultural "holding". FAO defines
the concept of "household" as "the arrangements people make for providing
themselves with food or other essentials of living". It may be one-person or multi-
person, they may be related or unrelated or a combination of both (i.e. extended
family members, friends, workers living within the household). Concepts of
"family" do not normally include "hired labour" or friends in the way that concepts
of "household" do.
ASKING CRITICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE USE OF RESOURCES

Household resource management (HRM) looks at how people within households -

individually and collectively - use the resources around them to support their
livelihoods.

Specifically, HRM addresses questions such as:

 Who uses what, how, when, and why in a household livelihood system?

 Who controls the various resources within the household?
 How does this affect the food security and overall well-being of individuals
living within the household?
 In a household, who benefits from which resource and how?
 Who in the household has knowledge about which resource or a specific
stage in the process of using a resource?
 Who contributes what resources and how?

- Households are not homogenous units: they differ from region to region, and
from community to community. Even within communities, households differ - some
may be single-headed, others may include hired labour and members of the
extended family. Some may be male-headed, others female-headed. Increasingly,
many households, are headed by orphans or by the elderly.

- Household members have different needs and priorities depending on

their roles within the household. These are defined by gender socialization, life
cycle and social class. There are various roles: productive; reproductive;
and community roles. These roles are dynamic and can be affected by external
stressors such as macroeconomic policies, chronic illness and natural resource
situations such as drought or flood. These roles greatly influence the household's
livelihood strategies and their opportunities for managing the available resources.

- Within a household, men and women may have different patterns of access to

resources. There are many factors that can affect an individuals use of a particular
household resource - factors both outside and within the household. For example,
socio-economic status is a crucial factor in determining someone's access to
resources. Within a community, better-off men that hold title to land are likely to
have easier access to land, credit and information than women in the same
household or poor landless men and women in economically marginalized
households. Other factors include caste, ethnicity, age, disability, etc.

- Men and women in the same household may have different access to extension
services because of their different time-use patterns and task responsibilities.
BEYOND THE HOUSEHOLD: THE BROADER CONTEXT

POVERTY AND THE LACK of suitable economic opportunities create many

constraints for rural resource-poor households and individuals within those
households. For example, poor rural households typically have less capacity to
access information - a powerful resource for improving production. Within poor
rural households, various factors might differentially affect the ability of
individuals to access information (e.g. level of literacy, time-use, age, sex,
ability/disability, and interpersonal power dynamics).

UN Millennium Development Goals In September 2000, world leaders at

the United Nations Millennium Summit agreed on the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) to combat poverty, hunger, environmental
degradation, disease, illiteracy and discrimination against women. One of
the MDGs is to halve the proportion of poor and hungry by 2015.

WSSD In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development's political

declaration and Plan of Implementation called for the equitable access for
women to natural and productive resources, and the right of women and
girls to inherit property.

To ensure equal access to resources for women and men in agriculture and rural
development, we must first understand the dynamics of resource management
both within and beyond the household. To do so, it is useful to apply gender and
socio-economic analysis with a focus on intra-household power relations and
decision-making dynamics, as well as on the other levels of analysis in the broader
development context. HRM issues cut across all agricultural and rural development
activities, as do other external critical issues such as environmental, demographic
and information concerns.
Practical Applications and a Model of Managerial Action
Because management explores the workings of everyday life, it is both complex and
practical.
Demands and values lead to planning and the use of resources ending with met
demands, achieved goals, and feedback. In Africa, where many regions suffer from
drought and food shortages, individuals and families have to plan wisely and use
resources well in order to incrase their chances of survival. In management, wants
and needs are differentiated from goals. Wants are specific and temporary, such as
craving a certain food. Needs range from basic physiological needs to self-
actualization (Maslow 1954). Within a family there can be conflicting needs. People
arrive at their needs through a complex subjective assessment based on their
inherent motivations and their perceptions of the external world (Foxall,
Goldsmith, and Brown 1998). In today's fast-paced world, filled with competing
demands, people do not have the time to carefully assess their needs or to plan
effectively.
Situational factors, personality traits, and motivational forces affect plans.
Individuals and families set standards within the context of existing demands and
resource availability. Standards develop over time. People live in the present, but
they are thinking about the future and developing plans based on their values and
standards. "Planning is a thinking and information-gathering process involving a
series of decisions. It is a process because formulating plans requires several steps,
such as information gathering, sorting, and prioritizing; then, based on this
information, the planner must decide which plan is most likely to succeed"
(Goldsmith 2000, p. 125). Plans have purpose; they are taking the planner
somewhere. To succeed, plans should be clear, flexible, appropriate, and goal-
directed. People have primary plans and back-up plans. Implementing refers to
putting plans into action. Evaluation is the end process of looking back, checking
over, examining past decisions and actions and determining how they worked. Goal
achievement should provide satisfaction.
Time, Work, Family, and Stress
Time use and the direction of human effort are integral to the study of
management. Queen Elizabeth I said on her deathbed, "All my possessions for a
moment of time." Time is generally considered the ultimate resource because it is a
resource all people, rich or poor, share. In the discipline in the past there was
debate about whether time is a "true" resource (Winter 1995).
As the Queen Elizabeth I quote shows we all share time but it is finite. Therefore, a
critical management question is how do we make the best use of the time that we
do have. One answer is through conscious control. In management studies, a
person is trained to ask when confronted with competing activities, "What is the
best use of my time right now?" Another question to ask is "Is the activity I am
about to undertake consistent with my goals?" These questions address both
quantitative time (measured units of time such as minutes and hours) and
qualitative time (feelings about how time is spent). Time perceptions vary widely
by individual and by culture. For example, being on time in most North American
cultures means five or ten minutes before the agreed upon time or being right on
time. In other cultures, being an hour late may still be regarded as being on time.
Discretionary time is free time one can use any way one wants. Nondiscretionary
time is programmed by others or set by schedules and appointments. Everyday life
is a combination of both.
Stress is often caused by not having enough discretionary time. Over-programmed
time is a problem for children as well as adults.
Few people are immune from the difficulties of trying to balance work and family
life. Most controversy centers around managing hours and responsibilities, but it is
also about one's priorities. Which is more important: work or family? When
someone is asked to work overtime, this question becomes apparent.
In workaholism, work is the most pleasurable part of life and family or personal life
takes a back seat. On the other hand, procrastination is the postponement of work
usually in favor of more pleasurable parts of family or personal life.
With improvements in technology, there has been a blurring of work and family
roles and often less lag time. Email, cellular telephones, automatic teller machines,
and the Internet have accelerated everyday life and have made people, information,
and services more accessible. Work and family lives are becoming increasingly
blurred and even may share the same physical space as one considers the growth
in the number of home-based businesses.
The twenty-first century will be characterized by more family transformation and
stress (McCubbin et al. 1997). Because the purpose of management is not only to
describe problems, but also to present solutions, distress and fatigue are subjects of
discussion in terms of what can be done to lessen them. Regarding getting more
sleep, James Maas (1998) suggests getting an adequate amount of sleep every
night, establishing a regular sleep schedule, getting continuous sleep, and making
up for lost sleep. Another solution is the reestablishment of routines such as
regular mealtimes as a way to simplify life. The simplification process may involve
other steps such as pulling back on spending and building up more savings to
provide for more leisure time in the future (Goldsmith 2001).
Family resource specialists strive to reach a stage called managerial judgment,
defined as the ability to accept and work with change for the betterment of self and
humankind. The ultimate goal of the management expert is the creation of a better
tomorrow.
Conclusion
More could be said about managing human effort, environmental resources, and
financial resources. This entry briefly touches the surface of a more than century-
old discipline that affects every aspect of daily life. What management does is
provide a framework, a way of looking at things that can be applied to a variety of
situations. It is about life not just happening but happening in an orderly way.
Humans are constantly seeking answers, making plans, and pursuing goals that
bring desired results. Management provides insight into how this occurs. It is both
simple and complex. Each day presents new challenges, new questions about how
life should be and can be. Individuals are continually confronted with decisions to
be made given scarce resources. This entry has endeavored to show the basics of
the discipline and its application to everyday life. The greatest future challenge for
the field will be the continued integration of management with other theories to
address socially relevant issues as life becomes more complex and diverse.
 HOUSEHOLD RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Learning Task

Since everyone has a different household or family, how does your household
or family manage these:

Work

Time

Family

Stress

Resources

HOUSEHOLD RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Final Term Project

Based from your answers on the Learning Task, create a

powerpoint/PPT presentation of it, following the guidelines in PPT
presentation. Make the most out of it and be creative. 
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COREVALUES
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Preparedby:
CollegeofTeacherEducation–SogodCampus
SOUTHERNLEYTESTATE UNIVERSITY
Sogod,SouthernLeyte,Philippines