Poverty and Famines Social World I
Yüklə
62,5 Kb.
tarix
08.08.2018
ölçüsü
62,5 Kb.
#62084
Poverty and Famines
Social World I
Some
Web Sites
USDA: Food and Nutrition Service; www.usda.gov/fcs/
HungerWeb: www.brown.edu/Departments/World_Hunger_Program
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research: www.cgiar.org/
Who’s Amartya Sen?
Economist, Philosopher, Scholar
Origin; career
Nobel Prize, Economics
Why Read This Book?
Still useful?
Research as process: new findings, conclusions, techniques modified
Recent events, and confirmation of analysis
Further: Poverty, Famine as
A concrete way to begin to talk about the social world
Illustrates
issues; vocabulary;
body of knowledge
way(s) of thinking
Specifically: Approach Involves
Definition
Description
Measurement
Analysis
Public policy [prescription]
Some Data
Numbers
Location: Hunger belt?
Who are the hungry?
Hunger in the U. S.
Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 1995
About 4% of households experienced reduced food intake and hunger as result of financial constraints
About 0.8% of households experienced severe hunger
Famine
vs
. Hunger
Distinction
Hunger: sustained nutritional deprivation
Famine: acute deprivation, sharp increase in mortality
Famine:
As a social problem
Some history
Famine deaths: hunger? Or disease?
Famine and children
“Missing women” issue
Where?
How many?
How do we know? Compare Female-to-Male
Ratios across countries
Famine and the Food Supply: Malthus
vs
. Sen
Population
vs
. food supply: how helpful is this comparison?
Malthus, and
Essay on Population
: the “race”
Sen, and famine, starvation as involving the
relationship
of people to food: the “entitlement approach”
Thinking About Famine
Malthus: difficulties?
Food increasing faster than population: no famine?
Population increasing faster than food: famine?
Sen, and the Entitlement Approach
Famine as a collapse of claims to food
Key: how do we get claims to food?
Production
Trade
One’s own labor
Inheritance or transfer
Exchange Entitlement
Definition: The set of all bundles of commodities we can acquire for what we own (see p. 3)
What affects exchange entitlement: that is, what affects our ability to exert command over food?
Can we find employment?
Can we sell assets?
What
can we produce
, sell?
What are our claims to social security?
What are our tax liabilities?
How does the price of what we have to sell compare with the price of what we buy (the price of food)?
Examples (from Sen)
Peasant
vs
. landless laborer: Who owns the product? What happens when typhoon destroys half the crop?
“boom famine”
Increasing price of food
China; and decreased starvation, though not large food production increases
Conclude: Useful to Focus On:
Distribution issues? Clarify:
Physical distribution? Possibly
Income distribution? Yes: this distributes claims to food
How food supply works through entitlement relationships
How claims to food are established
Paraphrasing from page 8: not focus so much on what is as on who can command what . . .
Is Food Supply Irrelevant?
More helpful to trace effects of changes in food supply through changes in entitlements
Why? May influence
understanding of why we see famine
policy
response
Example: typhoon destroys half of rice crop: effects?
Point: impact of natural disaster depends on how society is organized, especially to care for its economically vulnerable groups
Poverty
How does Sen proceed?
Definition
Description
Measurement, (aggregation)
Analysis (underlying analytical concepts)
Public policy
Definition
What’s poverty,
exactly
?
Why does it matter? Suggests ways to look for
Causes
Approaches to relief of the poor
Approaches to Definition
Absolute deprivation: minimum subsistence definition
A biological approach
Survival
Ability to work effectively
Problems: translating nutritional requirements into food requirements; actually drawing the nutritional line
Relative deprivation:
inequality definition
Rich
vs
. poor
Problems
Poverty never goes away
Income transferred from top to middle: inequality reduced, but not poverty
Decrease in overall income: no change in inequality, poverty increases
Aggregation
We want an indicator of poverty
Problem: how to do this,
exactly
?
Identifying the Poor
Direct method (a consumption-based definition)
Poor if consumption bundle leaves some basic needs unfulfilled
Problem: What’s the minimum acceptable bundle, in terms of specific goods?
Income method
Calculate minimum income
necessary to meet basic needs
; then identify those below that line
Catches ability to meet minimum needs
Permits us to measure the shortfall from the poverty line
Unit of Analysis
Individual?
Family? This is most typical
Common Measures
Head Count measure
Definition: proportion of the population defined as poor
U. S., and Mollie Orshansky
Problem: Not consider income shortfall
Income
Gap Ratio
Definition: the percentage shortfall of average income of the poor from the poverty line
Problem: not catch income distribution below poverty line
Example: income increases for some poor, decreases for others just enough to keep IGR constant; H constant, IGR constant, poverty up
Overall Difficulty?
There are multiple dimensions to poverty
Hard to catch them all in a single measure
Sen’s work: illustrates an important part of thinking about the social world
From the General (Poverty) to the Specific (Famine)
Issues requiring distinction regarding food consumption:
Low level
Decreasing trend
sudden
collapse
Importance of distinguishing trends, movements around trends: examples
Water levels, storm
vs
. calm
Gross Domestic Product
Regarding food: may see
Rising trend, production
Increasing size of fluctuations around trend
Seeming paradox: periodic famine accompanying decreasing starvation
Point: Does famine affect all groups in society equally?
How to Command Food
Legal means
Own production
Trade opportunities
Social security mechanisms
Command over goods depends on society’s characteristics:
Legal
Political
Economic
Social
And on one’s
place in society
Summary
How useful is it to compare total food to total population in analyzing famine?
How useful is the term “the poor” as a category of analysis?
Do market forces have a place in famine relief?
Role of increasing food prices
Where does purchasing power come from?
Hunger Policy
Grounding: protecting entitlements to food
Goal: secure
Lives
Livelihoods
Aid
vs
. development: a false choice?
Aid: getting food to the starving
Direct food aid
Employment subsidies; cash transfers
Development
Education; capital accumulation; growth
Social security system; and examples
Yüklə
62,5 Kb.
Dostları ilə paylaş:
Verilənlər bazası müəlliflik hüququ ilə müdafiə olunur ©genderi.org 2024
rəhbərliyinə müraciət
Ana səhifə
Psixologiya