Digital food sharing and food insecurity in the COVID-19 era.

Sharing food surplus via the digital sharing economy is often discussed as a promising strategy to reduce food waste and mitigate food insecurity at the same time. Yet if and how the global pandemic has affected digital food sharing are not yet well understood. Leveraging a comprehensive dataset covering over 1.8 million food exchanges facilitated by a popular peer-to-peer food sharing platform, we find that UK activity levels not only rose during the Covid-19 pandemic, but outperformed projections. A potential explanation for this growth might be the rise of food insecurity during the pandemic. Yet examining the sociodemographic characteristics of platform users, average user activity and food exchanges before and during the pandemic, we find no compelling evidence that the platform's pandemic-era growth results from a large influx of food insecure users. Instead, we poist that the growth in digital food sharing relates to lifestyle changes potentially triggered by the pandemic.

The multiplicative impacts of working hours and fine particulate matter concentration on life expectancy: A longitudinal analysis of US States.

This study contributes to interdisciplinary research on the social and environmental determinants of population health, with a focus on the interaction between working hours and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration. The authors estimate longitudinal models of the relationship between US state-level average life expectancy and both average working hours and PM2.5 concentration for the 2005-2014 period. Results obtained from two-way fixed effects models indicate that average life expectancy is negatively associated with both average working hours and fine particulate matter concentration. Findings also indicate clear moderating relationships: the negative association between life expectancy and working hours is amplified as PM2.5 concentration increases, and the negative relationship between life expectancy and fine particulate matter concentration is amplified when average working hours increase. The results of this study underscore the need for additional research on the multiplicative impacts of socioeconomic factors and environmental factors in the modeling of population health.

Dependence and precarity in the platform economy.

The rapid growth of Uber and analogous platform companies has led to considerable scholarly interest in the phenomenon of platform labor. Scholars have taken two main approaches to explaining outcomes for platform work-precarity, which focuses on employment classification and insecure labor, and technological control via algorithms. Both predict that workers will have relatively common experiences. On the basis of 112 in-depth interviews with workers on seven platforms (Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Turo, Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and Favor) we find heterogeneity of experiences across and within platforms. We argue that because platform labor is weakly institutionalized, worker satisfaction, autonomy, and earnings vary significantly across and within platforms, suggesting dominant interpretations are insufficient. We find that the extent to which workers are dependent on platform income to pay basic expenses rather than working for supplemental income explains the variation in outcomes, with supplemental earners being more satisfied and higher-earning. This suggests platforms are free-riding on conventional employers. We also find that platforms are hierarchically ordered, in terms of what providers can earn, conditions of work, and their ability to produce satisfied workers. Our findings suggest the need for a new analytic approach to platforms, which emphasizes labor force diversity, connections to conventional labor markets, and worker dependence.

Social science perspectives on drivers of and responses to global climate change.

This article provides a review of recent anthropological, archeological, geographical, and sociological research on anthropogenic drivers of climate change, with a particular focus on drivers of carbon emissions, mitigation and adaptation. The four disciplines emphasize cultural, economic, geographic, historical, political, and social-structural factors to be important drivers of and responses to climate change. Each of these disciplines has unique perspectives and makes noteworthy contributions to our shared understanding of anthropogenic drivers, but they also complement one another and contribute to integrated, multidisciplinary frameworks. The article begins with discussions of research on temporal dimensions of human drivers of carbon emissions, highlighting interactions between long-term and near-term drivers. Next, descriptions of the disciplines' contributions to the understanding of mitigation and adaptation are provided. It concludes with a summary of key lessons offered by the four disciplines as well as suggestions for future research. This article is categorized under: Climate Economics > Economics and Climate Change.

From tastes great to cool: children's food marketing and the rise of the symbolic.

Children's exposure to food marketing has exploded in recent years, along with rates of obesity and overweight. Children of color and low-income children are disproportionately at risk for both marketing exposure and becoming overweight. Comprehensive reviews of the literature show that advertising is effective in changing children's food preferences and diets. This paper surveys the scope and scale of current marketing practices, and focuses on the growing use of symbolic appeals that are central in food brands to themes such as finding an identity and feeling powerful and in control. These themes are so potent because they are central to children in their development and constitution of self. The paper concludes that reduction of exposure to marketing will be a central part of any successful anti-obesity strategy.