Livelihoods Limitations: The Political Economy of Urban Poverty in Dhaka,Bangladesh

Research in Bangladesh reveals the limitations of actor‐oriented frameworks for understanding urban poverty that assess household livelihoods on the basis of a household's portfolio of assets or capitals. The narrow focus of these frameworks on households and their depoliticized definition of social capital overlook the political roots of urban poverty. The informal systems of governance that dominate resource distribution within low‐income settlements ensure that the social resources necessary for long‐term household improvement are confined to a small elite. Only through extending our analysis beyond the household level, to explore their position within this local political economy of employment and enterprise, can we recognize the limitations placed on household efforts to improve their livelihoods.     

Poor Areas,or Only Poor People?

Anti-poverty programs often target poor areas even when there is seemingly free migration. Should such programs focus instead on households with personal attributes that foster poverty, no matter where they live? Possibly not; there may be “hidden” constraints on mobility, or location may reveal otherwise hidden household attributes. Using survey data for Bangladesh we find significant and sizable geographic effects on living standards after controlling for a wide range of nongeographic characteristics of households, as would typically be observable to policy makers. The geographic structure of living standards is reasonably stable over time, consistent with observed migration patterns, and robust to testable sources of bias.     

WHAT SCALE MATTERS? EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS' SOCIAL POSITION,NEIGHBOURHOOD CONTEXT AND THE SCALE OF NEIGHBOURHOOD

Over the past few years, neighbourhood effects research has received significant attention from the academic world, not only in the US, where that attention has a longer tradition, but also in Western Europe. There is also substantial interest among policy makers. Most policy makers intend to reduce concentrations of poverty by enhancing the social mix of neighbourhoods. Avoiding high immigrant concentrations in particular neighbourhoods is another issue that fuels political debate and policy intervention in many Western European countries, Scandinavian countries included. However, there are clear gaps in the understanding of the relationship between neighbourhood composition and social outcomes. One of these gaps regards the scale of the neighbourhood; if there would be neighbourhood effects, what scale is it relevant to consider? Is mix good or bad for the social prospects of individuals at a level that is very local, for example a few neighbouring streets, or could mix be helpful at a somewhat higher scale? This article will focus on this issue, applying individual longitudinal data in multi‐level models for the entire active population of the three largest metropolitan areas in Sweden. We will explore the degree to which the social and ethnic composition of geographical districts, at a variety of scales (measured at time t), are statistically related to individual employment and earnings for adult metropolitan residents at time t+1, controlling for relevant personal and household characteristics.     

Fearsome people and places,narratives of street and hideout children in Freetown,Sierra Leone

This article is based on a GOAL Global field study of street children in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It draws on narrative accounts given by street children who have migrated to Freetown from rural Sierra Leone. The study used the participatory ranking method to generate data about children’s street and hideout (a room, shack or part of a building where children live in groups) lives post-migration. These data contained much about children’s fears, and the article explores their experience of fearsome people and places, showing that fear is a dominant aspect of these children’s lives. Fear shapes their day-to-day choices and decisions: their agency. It also suggests that agency should be seen as complex, contingent and sometimes paradoxical. The article concludes by identifying implications for social policy and practice, suggesting that these necessarily entail risky engagement with fearsome people in the liminal spaces of children’s street and hideout lives.     

A Bigger Piece of a Very Small Pie: Intrahousehold Resource Allocation and Poverty Reduction in Africa

Feminist research has convincingly shown that an increase in household income does not necessarily lead to improvement in the well‐being of all members of the household. More questionable is the policy conclusion often drawn from this research for rural Africa: redressing gender imbalance in control of productive resources will significantly reduce poverty. This contribution argues that the evidence and analysis presented by two studies repeatedly cited to show that gender inequality is inefficient are problematic. It is mythical to suggest that tinkering with women's market position by exchanging unequal collective rights to productive resources for individual ones will decisively reduce rural poverty in Africa. That will depend on the restructuring of long‐term and deeply unequal processes of integration in the market, not on a firmer insertion of women within existing patterns of individualization and commodification of productive resources.     

Sustainable Graduation from Social Protection Programmes

Efforts to reduce extreme poverty by assisting poor people to cross income or asset thresholds are receiving increasing attention in social protection programming. Livelihood‐promoting interventions aim to reduce vulnerability, so that participants can manage moderate risk and ‘graduate’ from social protection provision. This article elaborates the theory of change underpinning the notion of graduation and explores the range of enabling and constraining factors that facilitate or undermine this change process, drawing on case studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Rwanda. The authors distinguish ‘threshold’ graduation from ‘sustainable’ graduation and argue that multiple factors operating beyond the household level — such as market conditions, community investment and scale effects — have significant implications for the graduation potential of social protection programmes.     

Women Beneficiaries or Women Bearing the Cost? A Gendered Analysis of the Red de Protección Social in Nicaragua

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes aim to alleviate short‐term poverty through cash transfers to poor households, and to reduce longer‐term poverty through making these transfers conditional on household investment in the health and education of children. These programmes have become increasingly popular with institutions such as the World Bank. However, the need for conditionalities has been questioned on a number of levels, including its necessity: it has been suggested that the cash transfer in itself may be sufficient to secure most of the programme's wider aims. The example of Nicaragua supports this contention, demonstrating that only a small incentive is needed to bring the desired changes in the uptake of education, since this is something prized by the poor themselves. In health, the Nicaraguan case suggests that demand‐side initiatives might not be as important as supply‐side changes that improve the affordability and accessibility of services. The Nicaragua case also highlights the long‐term limitations of applying such programmes in countries with high levels of poverty and low economic growth. A gendered analysis of the programme highlights the fact that women ‘beneficiaries’ bear the economic and social cost of the programme without apparent benefit to themselves or even necessarily to the household in the short or longer term.     

Environmental influences on skilled worker migration from Bangladesh to Canada

We conducted focus groups in Toronto with 44 recent skilled worker immigrants from Bangladesh to explore whether their decisions to migrate to Canada may have been influenced by environmental problems. Previous research has documented how floods, cyclones, droughts, and seasonal precipitation variations affect rural‐urban migration patterns within Bangladesh, and to its neighbours. Most participants had not experienced such environmental hazards, having lived in Dhaka prior to migrating. However, Dhaka's ongoing problems with air and water pollution, sanitation, lack of green space, and food adulteration were cited by 70% as being relevant considerations for the decision to migrate. The degree of influence varied considerably among participants. Roughly 16% said pollution was their primary motivation for leaving, household members having suffered from illnesses traceable to air pollution or poor sanitation. Another 54% stated that Dhaka's environmental problems were part of a wider range of quality‐of‐life concerns that had some influence on their decision. The findings suggest that current migration to Canada is not connected with environmental migration that takes place within Bangladesh, but that urban environmental problems combined with other social, economic, and political factors can help drive migration.     

Why can't you change? Stories of parents and street educators about adolescent girls in street situations

For children and young people in street situations, to give up street life is easier said than done. The study reported in this article aims to contribute to the field of children and young people in street situations by introducing the voices of parents whose daughters live on the streets. In biographical narrative interviews, we asked parents together with street educators from Bolivia to share their stories of girls entering and leaving street life. Our findings showed that a child's act of running away made parents aware about their parenting, leading to new openings and possible renewed social bonds with their children. At the same time, street educators’ stories exposed the importance of the family support during the process of exiting street life. Nevertheless, even though parents no longer want to stand on the sidelines, the stories also revealed that parents are still forgotten throughout interventions with street children in Bolivia.     

LOOKING BEYOND UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION

This paper addresses gender equity in parents' educational investments in children in rural Bangladesh. The authors analyse correlates of time spent in school, studying outside school and work, using a dataset on time-use patterns of school-going children. The authors find that time spent at work varies inversely with the amount of time spent studying at home. Time spent in school is insensitive to factors such as poverty and gender. Time spent studying outside school is strongly influenced by household decisions that favour boys, who appear to have about 30 minutes more discretionary study time than girls.     

Poverty,School and Work: Children during the Economic Crisis in Indonesia

The problem of child labour in Indonesia, although generally less prevalent than in other developing countries at a similar stage of development, is significant. As in other countries, this study finds a strong link between the child labour phenomenon and poverty, with the profile of child labour largely mirroring the profile of poverty. Furthermore, poverty is found to be an important determinant of whether children work. However, working does not always completely eliminate a child's opportunity to obtain formal education: children from poor households can still go to school by undertaking part‐time work to pay for their education, implying that banning these children from working may force them to drop out of school instead. Since the phenomenon of child labour is strongly associated with and determined by poverty, the most effective policy for eliminating child labour is through poverty alleviation. Other policies that can foster the rate of reduction in child labour are those which make it easier for children from poor families to access education and increase the opportunity cost of working by improving the quality of education. Such policies will increase the rate of return to education.     

Justice Not Benevolence

Abstract

Although there are many migration theories that purport to explain why people migrate, many theologies and ethics of migration rely on neoclassical migration theory, which views migration solely as the result of poverty and unemployment in sending countries. This paper reviews various migration theories in order to argue that Catholic social teaching on migration has primarily relied on neoclassical theories of migration. This over-reliance on neoclassical migration theory has led to flawed policy recommendations and ethical analyses.

Christian ethics must respond to the reality of migration as described by migration systems theory, which suggests that migration systems are actually initiated by the policies of receiving countries, primarily colonial and organized guest worker recruitment. The ethical principles required to respond to migration are not only benevolence and hospitality. Christian ethics must begin by seeing migration as a problem of exploitative relationships between citizens and migrants.     

The Importance of Household Size and Composition in Constructing Poverty Profiles: An Illustration from Vietnam

The calculation of income–poverty profiles should allow for household size and composition, but rarely does so. Failure to do this means that the poverty profile will be distorted. The appropriate adjustments are straightforward, requiring simple assumptions which, whilst arbitrary, are better than ignoring the problem. Not making these adjustments distorts not only the relationship between household size and poverty, but all aspects of the poverty profile correlated to household size. For the case of Vietnam, this article shows that, if the adjustments are not made, rural poverty is under–stated as is poverty amongst those with little education, minority ethnic groups and female–headed households. Far fewer children live in poverty than is suggested when the appropriate data adjustments are not made.     

Policy Styles and Degenerative Politics: Poverty Policy Designs in Newfoundland and Quebec

This article examines the proposal suggesting that policy designs are consistent with the social construction of target groups. Associated with policy design theory, the proposal pessimistically suggests that underprivileged citizens will be targeted with policies that do little to help them, creating a vicious circle of degenerative politics. This article argues that the prevalence of degenerative politics depends on policy styles. Significant where the adversarial style prevails, degenerative politics is less common in consensual systems. This proposal is examined through a systematic content analysis of action plans to reduce poverty in Newfoundland and Quebec.     

国外女性贫困研究进展与启示——基于地理学领域的研究

男性和女性除了有生理性别差异,还有通过心理、文化和社会手段构建的社会性别差异,两者共同导致女性在健康、就业、教育、人际、资产等领域的相对弱势地位。近年,由发达国家主导的女性贫困研究热度持续增加,发展中国家研究逐渐增多,但国内研究仍在起步阶段。运用CiteSpace软件分析国外地理学领域的女性贫困研究最新进展,发现研究热点集中在基于空间差异的女性贫困研究、基于社会剥夺的女性贫困研究,以及女性减贫的政策建议研究。基于研究热点与社会性别理论,本文提炼出女性贫困研究框架体系,并总结了内在因素和外部环境共同作用的女性致贫解释机制,认为女性贫困是地区经济、文化与政治的折射。最后提出未来中国女性贫困地理研究建议,以期为推进以性别为切入点的精准扶贫做出贡献。     

Migration,mobility and changing power relations: aspirations and praxis of Bangladeshi migrants

This article, based on empirical research in two villages in Bangladesh, examines the ways in which migration is not a mere response to poverty and family survival, but becomes an instrument to interrogate the power of the traditional elite and contribute to social and status mobility in the local context. By focusing on four key inter-related dimensions of place, work, consumption and marriage, and on the hierarchies embedded within different migrant destinations, it points to the ways in which migration strategies are related to mobility strategies, and contributes to refiguring class and gender identities. Religion and the construction of a modern Islamic identity, bearing simultaneously elements of materiality and spirituality, serve as a crucial mediating force in this process, bridging the gap between aspirations and praxis.     

Homelessness,poverty, and risks to health: beyond at risk categorizations of street children1

Homeless and street children are commonly portrayed in the academic and welfare literature as a prime category of ‘children at risk’. They have attracted world‐wide attention due to rising numbers in cities of the Western and developing world coupled with a discourse of childhood that ascribes risk to poor urban children unaccompanied by adults on the streets. This paper presents a critique of views about homeless and street children that rest upon an unhelpful blanket generalization of risk and, more specifically, that adopt polemical or categorical statements about homelessness as the most salient risk factor for poor health. Current research is distancing itself from a discourse that sets global characteristics for a ‘street lifestyle’, aiming instead to contextualize research on street children. Many studies have also questioned the stereotypical expectation that homeless children are the most vulnerable in deprived environments, arguing that poverty, not homelessness per se, carries the most significant risks to children's health. A risk discourse is unhelpful where it promotes a stereotype of vulnerability about children, resulting in further discrimination and social exclusion; it is most helpful when it focuses attention on ways to negotiate adverse situations. Some challenging academic and practical questions need to be raised regarding risk assumptions and risk assessment.     

Thousands gather in Beijing for fourth women's conference

The Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing in September 1995, is expected to issue a Platform for Action to advance the status of women, identify priority actions to be taken by the international community, and mobilize those at both the policy making and grass-roots levels to implement these goals. The draft Platform for Action addresses the following critical areas: poverty, women's education, reproductive health and sexuality, violence and armed conflict, economic disparity, power-sharing, institutions, human rights, mass media, environmental degradation, and female children. Parallel to the UN conference, a Nongovernmental Forum on Women will meet, with an emphasis on the concept of sustainable human development.     

What do the World Bank's Poverty Assessments teach us about Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa?

As part of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy, Poverty Assessments have been carried out for a number of countries which analyse who the poor are, the causes of poverty and poverty reduction policies. This article reviews what can be learnt from the twenty-five Assessments prepared for countries in sub-Saharan Africa up to 1996. Whilst other factors are acknowledged in identifying the poor, the Assessments over-emphasize income-poverty defined against an inevitably arbitrary poverty line. The Assessments are shown to be weak in addressing the causes of poverty, often ignoring the historical perspective, political context, and international dimensions such as debt and commodity price trends, focusing instead on the lack of growth in recent years as the main cause of poverty. Weak understanding of the causes of poverty undermines the basis for country-specific poverty reduction strategies: policy recommendations are usually an uncritical presentation of the World Bank's three-pronged strategy of growth, investment in human capital and social safety nets. Although the Assessments do not explicitly acknowledge the point, they suggest that the number of poor people in Africa will continue to rise; nor is there any basis for confidence that policies are being put in place to redress the situation.     

The Indian nation and selective amnesia: representing conflicts and violence in Indian history textbooks

‘Unity is always obtained by means of brutality’ wrote Ernest Renan. Following this idea, this article investigates how social conflicts and violence are included or muted in national history. This is done by comparing the successive series of history textbooks used in India in the postindependence period. The historical narratives contained in the textbooks were influenced by different conceptions of the Indian nation, and these variations allow us to observe and better understand what is remembered or forgotten in the national narrative. We will see that conflicts and violence are referred to when they involve the nation against its ‘other’ but depictions of conflicts within the nation as it is imagined are avoided. Thus, certain violent episodes of the past find a place in the national historical narrative, yet violence in itself is never described.