Global Stratification

Questions we want to answer

• How do we look at poverty differently when it is on a global scale?

• How bad is global inequality• How did it get to this point? How did

this global inequality happen?• What are the consequences of global

inequality today?

Poverty

• Huge, worldwide, inequality gap– The richest 20% receives at least 150

times more income than the poorest 20%– The top 20% consumes 86% of the world’s

goods and services– Poorest fifth consumes about 1% of world’s

goods and services

Types of Poverty

• Subjective – compare against expectations and perceptions

• Relative – cannot afford basic necessities, but can maintain a minimal standard of living

• Absolute – cannot secure the most basic needs of life; this brings life-threatening malnutrition and disease

• Isbister (1995) defines poverty is the inability to make choices

Global Inequality

• The three richest people in the world have wealth that exceeds the combined economic output of the 47 least-developed nations

• The world’s richest 200 people together have more money than the combined income of the lowest 40% (2.4 billion people)

• About half of the world’s people live on less than $2 a day (the World Bank’s definition of poverty

Global Inequality

• Girls and women are disproportionately disadvantaged. Women represent 2/3 of the world’s illiterate people and 3/5 of its poor.

• Stemming from cultural practices, food rations are often given to fathers and sons before daughters and mothers, resulting in greater malnourishment and disease.

Why is there global inequality?

• Geographic isolation, climate, and natural resources

• Power

Gini Coefficient

• Used to measure income inequality• Number between 0 and 1• 0 means perfect equality (all resources

are evenly distributed)• 1 means perfect inequality (one person

has control of all resources)

Gini Coefficient

Australia = .352 Mexico = .546

China = .447 UK = .360

France = .327 US = .408

Germany = .283

India = .325

Japan = .249

Theories of Global Inequality

• How does the first world explain global inequality?• Modernization theory• Focuses on deficiencies in poor countries –

absence of democratic institutions, of capital, technology and initiative and speculate how to repair deficiencies

• Global wealth and poverty are linked to industrialization

Modernization Theory

• Rostow’s four stages of Economic Development (1960)– Traditional society – no change– Preconditions for take-off – traditional society

challenged– Take-off – belief in individualism, capitalism– Drive to technological maturity – High Mass Consumption

Modernization Theory

• Polarizes “tradition” and “modernity”• Looks at global economic integration

especially by the International Monetary Find and the World Bank

Theories of Global Inequality

• How does the third world explain global inequality?

• Dependency theory• Third World countries are exploited by

first world countries• Economic growth in advanced countries

created third world poverty in its wake

Dependency theory• 16th Century capitalism developed as a

global system• Workers produced raw material for

export to rich countries• After independence, countries borrowed

money from the First World in the 50s and 60s during the Cold War

Dependency theory

• Money was given to dictators that went to the military or the dictator’s family

• Oil in OPEC countries went to Western Banks and was loaned to Third World countries

• Interest rates on the loans went up/OPEC crisis made cost of oil go up

Dependency theory• Countries went into debt to pay off loans and

used this money to pay for food for their populations

• Success of capitalism depends on labor earnings of third world staying low

• Third World does not have economic independence; they give up more than they get back

World Systems Theory

• Capitalism is truly a global system that is held together with economic ties

• Three types of nations– Core– Semi-Peripheral– Peripheral

New International Division of Labor• Commodity production is split into

fragments that can be assigned to the part of the world that can provide the most profitable combination of capital and labor

Promises not Kept

• People’s labor would be used for their own progress

• Cooperation between rich and poor nations for economic development

Consequences of PovertyFood and Hunger

• World’s agriculture produces enough food for 6 billion people

• 1.1 billion people are undernourished and underweight due to uneven food distribution

Consequences of Poverty Sickness and Disease

• Chronic malnutrition:– Results in shorter life expectancies– Results in vitamin deficiencies– Produces low levels of energy

Consequences of Poverty HIV and AIDS

• Pandemic: a worldwide epidemic• Seventy percent of people with HIV live

in sub-Saharan Africa• Expensive drugs are unavailable to

most people in these countries

Consequences of Poverty New Slavery

• Not usually a lifelong condition• Sometimes people become a slave by a

choice forced by extreme poverty• Prostitution, domestic workers,

plantation workers• 27 million slaves in the world today