Suchergebnisse

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine the level of food self‐sufficiency, un‐accessed portions of food, and food gap between the national food security line of the country and consumption by its people. It also aims to scrutinize the major physical and economic factors inducing food insecurity in the country.Design/methodology/approachThe paper applies descriptive statistics using mainly secondary data with the support of some primary information.FindingsPakistan is almost self‐sufficient in food production even if only 30 percent of its production potential has been achieved. In spite of such a situation, the average food consumption of its people is still significantly below the standards set up for the national food security line. The study also established that the food gap in the country is 30 percent, while a 35 percent portion of available food is un‐accessed due to various constraints spawned by physical, economic and sometimes natural factors. Out of the seven administrative units of Pakistan, Punjab and Sindh are the main food producing units while the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are the most highly food deficit unit. Irrespective of the level of local food production, food gap still exists in all administrative units due to inefficient food procurement and distribution system, illegal movement of food commodities, poor monitoring of marketing systems, lower purchasing power and natural disasters.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper elaborates on the average situation of the country, and establishes the baseline for future research to investigate the issues of food security deeply, providing some key recommendations.Originality/valueThe paper investigates the concept of food security through the important indicators, i.e. food gap and un‐accessed portion of food, and tries to sort out the factors inducing such gaps.

This qualitative study has been conducted under the interpretivist paradigm to explore the research difficulties faced by the MPhil Scholars during their MPhil Thesis phase. There were 25 MPhil Scholars studying in five Universities based in the Punjab who have been selected purposively for this study. These Scholars were enrolled in the MPhil, Education program. The data have been collected with the help of a semi-structured interview protocol comprising 12 questions. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the collected data. The results revealed that the majority of the students were not forced to select their supervisor on teachers' referrals. However, the majority of the students were not given the opportunity to select their topics for research, rather their supervisors allotted them the topics. Similarly, their supervisors and even the chairperson(s) of the department(s) were not easily available to them. The students also have faced issues regarding access to the university E-library, needed books from the library and paid content, etc.

Administrative practices have always been acknowledged as a crucial tool for establishing good governance. Strong evidence shows that good governance extensively influences citizens' behaviors toward government. This study empirically examines how good governance promote public trust with possibly mediating role of e-government. A field survey was conducted by distributing questionnaires to 1000 Pakistani individuals. The response rate was 76.3%. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were used to analyze the data. The results confirmed the casual relationship between good governance and public trust. The results also reveal that e-government plays a mediating role in the relationship between good governance and public trust. The findings may be practically useful for both research and policy making, since it investigated the citizens' perspective of good governance, public trust and e-government.

It is to access that the microcredit has a positive impact on
education and healthcare spending of the borrowed households is
controversial in developing countries literature or not. This study
reports evidence, from Pakistan for this debate, while utilising data
from PPHS- 2010 (Pakistan Panel Household Survey). Propensity score
matching (PSM) has been used to investigate the impact of household
credit on healthcare and education spending by the poor. In addition to
matching statistically identical borrowers with non-borrowers, the
method controls for household pre-treatment assets and income. These may
be correlated with unobservable factors affecting credit participation
as well as outcomes of interest. The estimates from binary as well as
multiple ordered treatment effect show insignificant impact of borrowing
on education and significant and positive impact on healthcare spending.
JEL Classification: D13, C14 Keyword: Matching; Household Credit;
Per-capita Income; Education and Healthcare Spending

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between transformational leadership (TL), structural empowerment (SE), job satisfaction (JS), nurse-assessed adverse patient outcomes (APO), and the quality of care (QOC). The study further investigates the mediating effects of SE and JS on TL-APO and TL-QOC relationships. A total of 600 nurses working at 17 government hospitals in Pakistan completed the survey. The hypothesized model was tested using a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. We found a positive relationship between TL, SE, JS, and QOC but negative relationships between TL and APO, SE and APO, and JS and APO. Our study further suggests that SE and JS strongly mediate both TL-APO and TL-QOC relationships.

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the complex response techniques employed to halt its spread, are both detrimental to mental and emotional well-being. Students' lives have been damaged by social alienation and self-isolation. These effects must be detected, analyzed, and dealt with to make sure the well-being of individuals, specifically students. This research examines the impact of parent–child relationships, parental autonomy support, and social support on enhancing students' mental well-being using data collected from post-COVID-19. The Potential participants were students from several universities in Pakistan. For this reason, we chose Pakistan's Punjab province, with 8 prominent institutions, as the primary focus for data collection. A questionnaire was created to gather information from 355 students. For descriptive statistics, SPSS was used, while AMOS structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses. The findings revealed that social support on mental well-being (standardized β = 0.43, t = 7.57, p < 0.01) and parental autonomy support was significant and positively related to mental well-being (standardized β = 0.31, t = 5.016, p < 0.01), and predicted parent–child relationships. Furthermore, the parent–child relationship strongly mediated the association between social support, parental autonomy support, and students' mental well-being. This research proposes that good social support and parental autonomy support improve parent–children relationships and contribute to students' mental well-being.