SOCI 348
Dr Brewer
Winsie Lee
25th October, 2013
Exam 2
1.
Orthodox development theory is based on the assumption that national economic (income)
growth leads directly to social and economic development and progress in the country.
However, critiques from a gendered perspective has challenged and deconstructed this
assumption. The gender-based critique argues that the three gender-blind assumptions implicit
in the conventional economic development theory and practice dismiss and perpetuate issues of
gender inequality and that economic development policies focused on cash crops, privatization
of land and the use of technology further disable women and trap them in the cycle of poverty.
The first assumption of economic development is that economic growth is gender-blind and
both sexes benefit equally from it (Jacobson, 9). However, the reality is not the case. According
to the ‘Human Development Index’ measure, women are behind men in access to resources in
every country with available data, including even the so-called developed counties with
dramatic improvement in economic growth and quality of life. Also, statistics have shown that
literacy rate has risen faster among men than women, widening the gap in literacy between the
sexes(Jacobson, 10). The above evidence has shown that even with development, gender gap has
persisted and could even worsen. The second assumption is that members of families share
common interests and goals regardless of their gender. However, the reality is that focus their
efforts in providing for the family’s basic needs such as food and clothing and schooling for
children while men focus on pursuits of business interests and consumption of alcohol and
tobacco which do not bear much relation to the family. This implies that household income is
not necessarily a measure of the benefits enjoyed by each member of the family. A man’s income
may not matter much if he is not contributing much to the family. The third assumption is that
distribution of income and resources between members of different gender within a household is
equal. However, in many cultures, males enjoy higher status and thus receive more benefits than
females within the family. There is still a significant gender-biased assumption that women tend
to be dependent on men and produce less economic value because they spend more time at
home. In fact, measurements of work have shown that in subsistence economics, women are the
main breadwinners with respect to the value of the goods they produce and the time they spend.
Since economic growth is often a measure of income gain mostly obtained by men, much of the
labor and economic value produced by women is discounted and becomes invisible. As a result,
measurements of economic growth in terms of income is not necessarily an accurate assessment
of social and economic development and progress. From a gendered critique, overall
measurements of economic growth in terms of income does not necessarily mean social progress
in gender equality.
Not only do measures of economic growth in term of income not capture social and
economic progress fully, economic development policies also hurt subsistence economies and
women in the long term. Many of them put control over natural resources within the hands of
men and profit-making enterprises are focused on short-time economic growth rather than longterm sustainability (Jacobson, 13).Women had been traditionally in charge of cultivating food
crops but governments and international agencies focused on cash crops and mostly put them
into the control of men because of their gender-biased perception that men are heads of
households. Consequently, a lot of the women experts had land shifted away from them and
forced to keep working on limited fields and exhaust them to the point of environmental
degradation. With men gaining better lands, women are obliged to spend more time working on
their husbands’ land and less time on their own crops and earning their own income. Women
end up having more workload for less pay. Also, the perception that cash crops are more
valuable has replaced traditional food crops that could have been more nutritious and beneficial.
Privatization of land has also taken forests from many women who had traditionally been their
managers, and negatively affect the environment. Also, modern mechanical technology like
tractors have displaced many jobs and increased unemployment, making many men move to
urban areas and reduce their support for their families and increase the pressure of support on
women. The overall pressure on women leads to high birth rate and thus population growth
which, combining with limited resources, continues the cycle of poverty. Evidently,
development policies that focus on economic growth actually hold back many women and lead
to environment degradation, and barely lead to social progress in the countries affected.
SOCI 348
Dr Brewer
Winsie Lee
25th October, 2013
Exam 2
2.
Global measurements have centered on absolute vs relative conceptualizations of
poverty. The absolute conceptualization of poverty centers on a certain threshold of the basic
and minimum needs that humans need to satisfy to survive in life as well as the dimension of
quality of life. Subsistence-level basic needs include sufficient food, clothing, shelter, and
household equipment. Dimensions of quality of life include nutrition and health, life expectancy,
and literacy. This conceptualization is focused on results rather than input and international
/universal comparability. The distribution of wealth and relative social positions don’ t matter as
long as everyone has enough to sustain his/herself and a decent quality of life. The relativist
conceptualization of poverty does not believe in an absolute threshold of the basic and minimum
basic needs that humans need to satisfy to survive in life that distinguish the impoverished from
those that aren’t. The poverty line is dependent upon the economic conditions of people in a
nation-state or era. The impoverished are not defined by whether their subsistence meets are
met but by their relative positions compared to people that occupy other socioeconomic
positions.
In the contemporary global development context in which the world’s poor only have
small or moderate income gains as the rich has sufficiently large gains that a great gap between
the world’s poor and rich has persisted or even worsened, both the absolutist and relative
conceptualizations of poverty may see the this income distribution and change in it over time as
problematic or unproblematic. From the absolutist perspective, the widening gap between the
rich and the poor is unproblematic because what ultimately matters is the absolute threshold of
minimum basic needs required to survive in life. That threshold would not change no matter
how the income distribution varies across nations and time and widens or worsens over time. As
long as the poor reach the threshold and have their subsistence needs met, they have a decent
life and how much richer than they the wealthy get does not affect their decent quality of life.
The absolute perspective is focused on the quality of life that include such dimensions as
nutrition and health, life expectancy and literacy. According to Morris, ‘Some countries with
relatively low average per capita incomes have relatively high literacy rates, long life
expectances, low infant mortalities, and low death rates. Countries have achieved different
qualities of life for their populations at almost any level of income and calorie consumption.’ (p3)
Also, no connection has been found between income and the quality of life. Even with the rise of
income, there is no guarantee that they would improve nutrition or general welfare or physical
well-being. Rising incomes may even bring adverse dietary changes. People of different regions
may be used to different food sources and thus have different physical make-up. Even if the poor
stay really poor and people higher up on the socioeconomic ladder get really rich, the poor may
still have their needs met and a decent quality of life. Therefore, global economic gap is not really
relevant.
From the relativist perspective, the widening gap between the rich and the poor is
problematic because poverty is not about reaching the subsistence level of minimum basic needs
but a relative position based on distribution of wealth. In the United States, someone living in a
poor neighborhood such as New Orlean’s Ninth Ward, may have electronic equipment such as
television and computers that are way beyond subsistence needs required for basic survival and
are considered really rich compared with the destitute in Africa and Asia, but in their own
country they are in a relatively deprived position. They struggle in life because in their own
country, things cost more and they need more things and money to achieve a decent standard of
living. The internet and phone may be luxuries in other countries and not necessarily needed for
human survival but they are necessities for getting by in the United States. According to some
studies, relative deprivation is also bad for health, as many relatively poor people engage in
behavior risky for health. According to Cassidy, it is possible that subordination leads to stress
and thus damages the body’s immune system. Neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky had conducted a
study on baboons and found that the low-ranking baboons have high levels of a stress hormone.
Other scientists have found that rhesus monkeys on the lower levels of the social hierarchy have
higher rates of heart disease than dominant ones. While the impoverished in the United States
may have the minimum basic needs required for survival satisfied, they are relatively deprived
compared to those higher up on the social hierarchy. This leads them to stress which affects
their performance, limits their capacity for achievement and prevents them from moving up the
social ladder, trapping them in a low position. From the relative perspective of poverty, a great
gap in the distribution of wealth within a region is a huge problem for those that occupy the
lower ladders of the social hierarchy.