Showing papers on "Poverty published in 1989"

Social Causes of Psychological Distress

Abstract: A core interest of social science is the study of stratification--inequalities in income, power, and prestige. Few persons would care about such inequalities if the poor, powerless, and despised were as happy and fulfilled as the wealthy, powerful, and admired. Social research often springs from humanistic empathy and concern as much as from scholarly and scientific curiosity. An economist might observe that black Americans are disproportionately poor, and investigate racial differences in education, employment, and occupation that account for disproportionate poverty. A table comparing additional income blacks and whites can expect for each additional year of education is thus as interesting in its own right as any dinosaur bone or photo of Saturn. However, something more than curiosity underscores our interest in the table. Racial differences in status and income are a problem in the human sense. Inequality in misery makes social and economic inequality personally meaningful. There are two ways social scientists avoid advocacy in addressing issues of social stratification. The first way is to resist projecting personal beliefs, values, and responses as much as possible, while recognizing that the attempt is never fully successful. The second way is by giving the values of the subjects an expression in the research design. Typically, this takes the form of opinion or attitude surveys. Researchers ask respondents to rate the seriousness of crimes, the appropriateness of a punishment for a crime, the prestige of occupations, the fair pay for a job, or the largest amount of money a family can earn and not be poor, and so on. The aggregate judgments, and variations in judgments, represent the values of the subjects and not those of the researcher. They are objective facts with causes and consequences of interest in their own right. This work is an effort to move methodology closer to human concerns without sacrificing the scientific grounds of research as such. The authors succeed admirably in this complex and yet worthwhile task. This is a work that could be helpful to those in all branches of the social sciences that take up issues relating to inequality and the uneven distribution of the social goods of a nation.

Poverty and the Distribution of Material Hardship

Abstract: Public concern with poverty derives in large part from the assumption that low income families cannot afford necessities. Yet official poverty statistics focus on measuring income, not on measuring material hardship. Two surveys of Chicago residents measure whether families could afford food, housing and medical care. A family's official income-to-needs ratio explained 24 percent of the variance in the amount of material hardship it reported. Adjustments for family size, age, health, noncash benefits, home ownership, and access to credit explain another 15 percent. Variations in permanent income explain almost none of the remaining variance in hardship. Among families with the same official income-toneeds ratio, material hardship varies by age, family size and composition.

Gender and Poverty

Abstract: A recent edition of this Journal (Volume 16, Part 2, April 1987) was devoted to a number of articles on the definition and measurement of poverty. Surprisingly, perhaps, this did not include any specific discussion of gender differences in the causes, extent and experience of poverty. But such gender differences do exist, though they are often obscured by much research on poverty. Our initial response to the special edition on poverty was to write a reply discussing how the various contributors had ignored the issue of gender. But women cannot simply be ‘added in’ to existing analyses; instead a different analytic framework is required. This article therefore begins by looking at some of the widespread evidence of the economic disadvantage of women compared with men. We then go on to discuss why it is necessary to focus on the gender dimensions of poverty. We argue that this involves far more than simply disaggregating data to produce statistics about the situation of women. Rather, this focus leads us to explore the structural causes of women's poverty and the gendered processes in the labour market, welfare systems and domestic household which interact to create and maintain that disadvantage. In the final section we consider some of the important conceptual and methodological issues which must be tackled if we are to find ways to investigate and measure poverty which are not gender-blind.

Descriptions of Inequality : the Swedish Approach to Welfare Research

Abstract: Already in the 1950s it became clear that, in spite of its widespread use, the per capita gross national product is an insufficient measure of the well-being of citizens. Thus, in 1954, an expert group within the United Nations suggested that one should n

Looking for Boy-Girl Discrimination in Household Expenditure Data

Abstract: The ability to test for discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls is hampered by a lack of data on intrahousehold distribution. The analysis presented here allows inferences about intrahousehold allocation to be made from householdlevel expenditure data. For a given level of income, families with children will spend less on adult goods in order to purchase children's goods. If household purchasing favors boys over girls, smaller expenditures on adult goods would be made by families with boys as compared with those with girls. A method for determining "adult" goods is described, and the procedure for detecting gender bias is applied to data from C6te d'lvoire and Thailand. The data show no evidence of discriminatio n between boys and girls in C6te d'lvoire, and a small and statistically insignificant bias in favor of boys in Thailand. How commodities are allocated among the members of a household has recently occasioned a good deal of interest. Assessments of poverty and income distribution based on household incomes or expenditures will be misleading if allocation within the household is unequal. The position of women and girls has been of particular concern, and there is a considerable amount of empirical evidence, much of it from the Indian subcontinent, that documents discrimination against females (see in particular Bhagwati 1973; Sen 1984; Sen and Sengupta 1983; Miller 1981; Bardhan 1982; and Kynch and Sen 1983; as well as survey papers by Behrman 1987 and Harriss 1987). Much of the evidence is concerned with measurements of nutritional outcomes, mortality, and health status rather than with the direct allocation of goods by gender. The difficulty in trying to determine the intrahousehold allocation of goods is that household budget surveys, the obvious source of data, record consumption not of individuals but of households. And while attempts can be made to The author is a professor of public affairs and of economics and international affairs at Princeton University and is a consultant to the Population and Human Resources Department of the World Bank. The author thanks Dwayne Benjamin who provided for excellent research assistance. He is grateful to him and to members of the Economic Growth Center at Yale University for helpful comments. This is a revised and shortened version of Living Standards Measurement Study Working Paper 39, "The Allocation of Goods within the Household: Adults, Children, and Gender," June 1987. The results from Thailand were not included in the working paper. © 1989 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK.

Labor Stratification and Violent Crime

Abstract: T7his paper uses dual labor market theory to examine the relationships between the structure of labor in census tracts, economic indicators, and violent crime. It tests the thesis that relationships between poverty, income inequality, and violent crime are affected by the distribution of workers into the primary and secondary sectors of the labor market. The results indicate that, when three measures of the conditions of employment are controlled, the association between the poverty rate and the overall violent crime index is reduced, and that the relationship between income inequality and violent crime rates is limited to murder rates. The implications of these results for future research on social economy and violent crime are discussed. The history of speculation and research concerning poverty as a crimogenic factor (Bonger 1916; J. Cohen 1957; Merton 1949; Miller 1958) is long and notably inconsistent. For collectivities such as states, cities, and census tracts, research results consistently show a positive relationship between crime rates and levels of poverty, although the strength of this relationship varies (e.g., Boggs 1965; Chilton 1964; Jarvis & Messinger 1974; Loftin 1980; McCarthy, Galle & Zimmem 1975; Schuessler 1962). For individuals, the findings are much less consistent. In his review of the empirical literature, Braithwaite (1981) concluded that a negative relationship between social class and criminal involvement has been demonstrated, but other reviews (e.g., Tittle, Villemez & Smith 1978, 1982) report no relationship between social class and crime. Brownfield (1986) found that the strength of the association between social class and violent crime *1 thank members of the "Deviance and Social Control" seminar at the University of Washington, George Bridges, Brian Galvin, Avery Guest, Elise Lake, James McCann, and especially Herbert Costner for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and Charles Freeman, David Hachen, and Adrian Raftery for helpful suggestions and direction during the course of this project. Direct correspondence to the author, Department of Sociology DK 40, University of Washington,.Seattle, WA 98195. O The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, December 1989, 68(2):489-512

How Serious Is The Neglectof Intra-Household Inequality?

Abstract: In this report the authors develop a framework for assessing the consequences of ignoring intrahousehold inequality in the measurement and analysis of poverty and inequality. They apply this framework to data for the Philippines and conclude that : 1) the result of neglecting intrahousehold inequality will probably be considerable understatement of the levels of poverty and inequality. With the Philippine data, measured levels of inequality and poverty were off 30 percent as a result of ignoring intrahousehold variation, and 2) patterns of inequality revealed by household level data are somewhat different from patterns revealed by individual level data, but the differences seem not to be dramatic. To confirm these results, the exercise should be repeated with data from other countries. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Developing Country Debt and the World Economy

Abstract: For dozens of developing countries, the financial upheavals of the 1980s have set back economic development by a decade or more. Poverty in those countries have intensified as they struggle under the burden of an enormous external debt. In 1988, more than six years after the onset of the crisis, almost all the debtor countries were still unable to borrow in the international capital markets on normal terms. Moreover, the world financial system has been disrupted by the prospect of widespread defaults on those debts. Because of the urgency of the present crisis, and because similar crises have recurred intermittently for at least 175 years, it is important to understand the fundamental features of the international macroeconomy and global financial markets that have contributed to this repeated instability. "Developing Country Debt and the World Economy" contains nontechnical versions of papers prepared under the auspices of the project on developing country debt, sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The project focuses on the middle-income developing countries, particularly those in Latin America and East Asia, although many lessons of the study should apply as well to other, poorer debtor countries. The contributors analyze the crisis from two perspectives, that of the international financial system as a whole and that of individual debtor countries. Studies of eight countries Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, and Turkey explore the question of why some countries succumbed to serious financial crises while other did not. Each study was prepared by a team of two authors a U.S.-based research and an economist from the country under study. An additional eight papers approach the problem of developing country debt from a global or "systemic" perspective. The topics they cover include the history of international sovereign lending and previous debt crises, the political factors that contribute to poor economic policies in many debtor nations, the role of commercial banks and the International Monetary Fund during the current crisis, the links between debt in developing countries and economic policies in the industrialized nations, and possible new approaches to the global management of the crisis."

Changes in poverty and inequality in developing countries

Abstract: This paper presents new data on poverty, inequality, and growth in those developing countries of the world for which the requisite statistics are available. Economic growth is found generally but not always to reduce poverty. Growth, however, is found to have very little to do with income inequality. Thus the "economic laws" linking the rate of growth and the distribution of benefits receive only very tenuous empirical support here. Copyright 1989 by Oxford University Press.

RAGS, RICHES, AND BOOTSTRAPS: Beliefs about the Causes of Wealth and Poverty

Abstract: Specific beliefs pertaining to wealth and poverty emanate from metatheories about socioeconomic inequalities. As cognitions, these metatheories filter social perceptions and generate beliefs about the specific causes of wealth and poverty. Four metatheories coexist in American culture and compete for public support. The four are individualism, culturalism, structuralism/situationalism, and fatalism. Using public opinion data on beliefs about 38 often-mentioned causes of wealth and poverty, the degree of support for each metatheory was determined. Individualism was the metatheory of choice in specifying the causes of poverty, whereas culturalism and individualism vied for superiority in identifying the causes of wealth.

The Impact of New Crop Technology on the Agricultural Division of Labor in a West African Setting

Abstract: Scope of the Article The analysis of intrahousehold economics has received increasing attention during the past few years, as planners and policymakers have become increasingly aware that neither poverty nor development interventions affect all individuals in households uniformly. In particular, the dual issues of gender bias and intrahousehold inequalities, and their relationship to technological change in agriculture, have become central concerns.1 This article sets out to examine the impact of technological change in a West African environment (The Gambia) where a project introducing new technology in rice production (centralized pump irrigation) was specifically designed to address the issue of differential gender roles in farming. Rice was traditionally a "woman's crop." Today, despite attempts to preserve women's customary role in rice farming, changes in rice-production technology have seen rice become a malecontrolled crop. We shall, therefore, consider how households in The Gambia organize their labor resources in agriculture toward production, storage, and crop disposal, as a result of the changing roles of men and women in rice production. The question to be examined is, What has happened to the division of labor in agriculture between women and men in communal and individual farming? An understanding of how technological change affects the distribution of resources at the intrahousehold level is essential both to an evaluation of the distribu-

Information Poverty and Political Inequality: Citizenship in the Age of Privatized Communications

Abstract: Debat su la nature du droit civique en sociologie politique qui assigne un role central et complexe aux media de communication. Reflexions critiques sur la privatisation des sources de communication et d'information dans les regimes democratiques et liberaux susceptibles de desservir le citoyen

Women in the Third World: Gender Issues in Rural and Urban Areas

Abstract: Social scientists critique womens roles and their status in developing countries. They specifically look at their roles in child care housework subsistence farming employment and health care. They address status by examining wider societys value and meaning given to womens roles which in turn reflect and influence gender relations. They highlight the ideological and practical gender inequality that is incorporated into development. The majority of women in this book are low income women since poverty is widespread in developing countries and most of the literature covers low income women. They 1st examine women in rural areas then those in urban areas. 5 major themes relevant to gender questions are used. Households present the 1st theme since they are the fundamental site for sexual division of labor. The next theme is reproduction meaning transformation of good and services for household use (nonincome generating activities) as well as welfare family planning health care and urban housing and services. Reproduction in the former meaning limits women from partaking in public life and politics. The 3rd theme is production which refers to all income generating activities. In rural areas however it is often more difficult to distinguish between production and reproduction because of the intermediate category of subsistence farming. The 4th theme incorporates both policy and planning. They look at agricultural and rural development planning; urban planning including housing programs service provision and community development projects; and government and development agencies consideration of women and womens work. The last theme is rural-urban migration. They attempt to make generalizations about each major developing country region: Latin America the Caribbean Middle East and North Africa Sub-Sahara Africa South Asia and Southeast Asia.

Lords of Poverty

Abstract: Critically examines the international industry that currently channels some $50,000 million from the rich, industrialized nations to the "aid" of the Third World.

America's Ailing Cities: Fiscal Health and the Design of Urban Policy

Abstract: In the past two decades powerful economic, social, and fiscal forces have buffeted America's major cities. The urbanization of poverty, the shift in employment from manufacturing to services, middle-class flight to the suburbs and Sunbelt, the tax revolt, and cuts in federal aid have made it difficult for many cities to pay for such basic services as police and fire protection, sanitation, and roads. In "America's Ailing Cities" Helen F. Ladd and John Yinger identify and measure the impact of these broad national trends. Drawing on data from 86 major cities, they offer a rigorous and innovative analysis of urban fiscal conditions. Specifically, they determine the impact of a wide range of factors that lie outside municipal control, including a city's basic economic structure and state-determined fiscal institutions, on a city's underlying fiscal health-- the difference between potential revenue and the expenditure needed to finance public services of acceptable quality. Concluding that the fiscal health of America's cities has worsened since 1972, the authors call for new state and federal urban policies that direct assistance to the neediest cities.

Rural and Small Town America

Abstract: This study conducted for the National Committee for Research on the 1980 Census is one in a series presenting analyses of data from the 1980 U.S. census. This volume provides a detailed picture of rural America and includes chapters on population distribution; small-town growth and population dispersal; age and sex composition; race and ethnicity; household growth and structure; fertility; labor force and employment; industrial structure and change; the farm population; income and poverty; characteristics of cities towns and rural areas; and the persisting importance of residence. "The authors find that size of place is a critical demographic factor affecting population composition... the distribution of poverty... and employment opportunities....Pointing out that rural life is no longer synonymous with farming they explore variations among nonmetropolitan populations. They also trace the impact of major national trends--the nonmetropolitan growth spurt of the 1970s and its current reversal for example or changing fertility rates--on rural life and on the relationship between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan communities." (EXCERPT)

Family, Race, and Poverty in the Eighties

Abstract: The 1960s Civil Rights movement overturned segregation laws, opened voting booths, created new job opportunities, and brought hope to Black Americans. As long as it could be said that conditions were improving, Black family structure and life-style remained private matters. The promises of the 1960s faded, however, as the income gap between whites and Blacks widened. Since the middle 1970s, the Black underclass has expanded rather than contracted, and along with this expansion emerged a public debate about the Black family. Two distinct models of the underclass now prevailone that is cultural and one that is structural. Both of them focus on issues of family structure and poverty.

American Federalism, Welfare Policy, and Residential Choices

Abstract: The relationship between welfare benefit levels and the residential choices of the poor raises two issues for federalism in the United States. Do state benefit levels affect the residential choices of the poor? Do residential choices of the poor affect the level at which a state sets its benefit levels? Empirical studies have seldom studied the interconnection between these two issues. This research estimates simultaneously the mutual effects of welfare benefits and poverty rates while controlling for other economic and political variables. When benefit levels become high, the size of the poverty population increases. Conversely, when poverty rates become high, benefit levels are cut. The findings are consistent with the claim that state-determined benefit levels distort policy and residential choices.

For Reasons of Poverty: A Critical Analysis of the Public Child Welfare System in the United States

Abstract: Introduction Child Welfare Through the Twentieth Century: Policy and Reality The Crusade Against Child Abuse Whose Neglect? The State Intervenes The Permanency Planning Movement An Analysis of the Dual Role Structure of the Child Welfare System Restructuring the Public Child Welfare System Bibliography Indexes

Poverty and the Environment: Reversing the Downward Spiral

Abstract: The author discusses the poverty situation in developing countries and their impact on environmental degradation as the poor deplete natural resources such as forests, soils, and water supplies faster than fear they will soon loose access to them, drawing numerous examples. The author suggests some of the most innovative strategies for dismantling the poverty traps' local parts-lack of secure control over productive resources (e.g. information, financial support), physical weakness and illness, population growth and powerlessness

Race, Employment Hardship, and Inequality in the American Nonmetropolitan South

Abstract: The present study (1) examines changing levels of employment-related hardship among southern nonmetropolitan blacks for 1970-85, (2) compares the employment circumstances of nonmetropolitan black men and women with those of whites and blacks in the metropolitan South and in the North, and (3) assesses the contribution of black deficits in human capital and job characteristics to persistent racial inequality in rural employment adequacy. Data from the March annual demographic files of the Current Population Survey indicate that black employment hardship continues to be felt in nonmetropolitan areas, where two out of every five blacks are without jobs, cannotfind a full-time job, or cannot earn enough to raise themselves significantly above poverty thresholds. Employment hardship among nonmetropolitan blacks continues to exceed that of blacks elsewhere, despite the comparatively rapid deterioration in employment conditions for northern and southern metropolitan blacks in the past decade. Finally, racial inequality in nonmetropolitan employment adequacy remains substantial in the 1980s and cannot be explained away by black deficits in human capital or by the disproportionate concentration of blacks in declining industrial sectors or in blue-collar occupations.

Class mortality differentials, income distribution and trends in poverty 1921-1981.

Abstract: The official figures which appear to show a widening of class differences in health in England and Wales during the post-war period have been controversial partly because they do not fit with common perceptions of what has happened to differences in the standard of living. As a result, a great deal of effort has gone into investigating suggested weaknesses in the decennial social class mortality data. Though initially plausible, the artifactual and selective explanations of the widening mortality differences which were put forward have not usually been borne out by closer investigations. The only fault in the broad picture presented by the official data which we do perhaps need to bear in mind is the tendency for a narrowing of mortality differentials among younger women to be masked by the widening among older women. This paper is an attempt to look at the other side of the coin--namely, to investigate trends in differences in the standard of living in relation to mortality differentials. It concludes that trends in mortality differences have not been related to trends in class differences in average earnings, but have been fairly clearly related to trends in relative poverty. Relative poverty and class differences in mortality declined before the war but have both increased, decade by decade, since the war. Younger women have perhaps been protected from the increase in relative poverty during much of the post-war period by their increased economic activity rates and the relative improvement in earnings of women in poorly paid manual occupations.