Women and poverty: insights from individual consumption in Albania

This paper studies how a society with traditional gender norms and competitive marriage market conditions may favor unequal distribution of resources within households and a consequent increase in female poverty. We propose a method to estimate individual consumption from household expenditure data. After estimating individual consumption, we apply a fuzzy approach for poverty analysis. Compared to standard poverty measures, the approach is less sensitive to changes in the distribution of consumption around the poverty line, generated when accounting for unequal distribution of household resources. The approach, applied to the analysis of individual poverty in Albania, revealed considerable intrahousehold inequality that specifically affects women and is correlated with imbalances in the sex ratio induced by past migrations. This leads to an expected general increase in poverty rates, mainly driven by a previously unperceived issue, female poverty, which emerges as an aspect of concern to consider in future anti-poverty policies.     

Improving the measurement of child welfare in the context of intra-household inequality

This study aims to illustrate how to improve the evaluation of child economic well-being and child poverty using the collective approach. International organisations such as the World Bank, OECD and UNICEF have made important efforts in recent years to produce reliable data and to measure poverty according to the most relevant items of household consumption baskets. However, when measuring poverty, it is common practice to assume either that resources are distributed equally within the household or that there are fixed equivalence scales (for example, a child can be counted as 0.5 adults). The methodology based on collective models of consumption overcomes this rigidity by allowing inequality within each household to be taken into account. The method assumes that each household devotes a fraction of resources to children, which can be estimated using the observed expenditure on child-exclusive goods. An example of how child poverty measures can be inaccurately estimated is illustrated through the case of young children in Albania.     

A note on separability and intra-household resource allocation in a collective household model

This paper shows that it is possible to track the changes in the distribution of power within a couple by focusing on the changes in the pattern of private consumption when the consumption decisions are efficient and private consumption is separable from public consumption in individual preferences. We first show that the separability of private consumption from public consumption at the individual level carries over to the household level. Hence, changes in public consumption only matters through a change in the residual budget available for private consumption. When the consumption decisions within the household is efficient, private consumption decisions can be modeled as the solution of a problem consisting in maximizing a weighted sum of the private-consumption sub-utility functions of the spouses under the residual budget, the weights being unique and representing the distribution of power over the allocation of private consumption. The model presented in this paper can be used to analyze the changes in the household resource allocation due to, for example, childbirth.     

Extended Households at Work: Living Arrangements and Inequality in Single Mothers' Employment

This paper investigates how the presence of other adults in the household influences employment rates and inequality among single mothers who are White, Black, Mexican, or Puerto Rican. Data from the 1998 to 2000 Current Population Surveys shows that Black single mothers experience no employment inequality compared to Whites if they are cohabiting outside marriage or hosting an extended household. For Black single mothers, the employment disadvantage is concentrated among those without other adults in the household. Mexican and Puerto Rican single mothers, however, display an employment disadvantage across all household types. Although the presence of other adults in a single mother's household appears to increase employment, this advantage has important limits.     

Changes in durable stocks, portfolio allocation, and consumption expenditure in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake

To understand the household recovery process from unexpected serious damage caused by a natural disaster, we analyze household data from the Kobe earthquake in 1995. We address three questions—how damaged stocks of durable wealth are reinvested, how an ex post portfolio of borrowing or dissaving is reallocated to diversify the asset shocks caused by the disaster, and how formal and informal consumption insurance mechanisms are effective for amending home damage—all of which have been largely unanswered. We obtain three findings. First, people respond to negative income changes and housing damage by reinvesting damaged wealth. Second, households borrow extensively to amend the large housing damage caused by the earthquake. However, they dissave only for minor household asset damage. Third, consumption smoothing is not achieved for nondurable goods that are significantly affected by negative income changes and household asset damage. These findings suggest that asset shocks caused by a large natural disaster are not sufficiently diversified for households, indicating a large gap in designing effective insurance mechanisms.     

‘A place for men to come and do their thing’: constructing masculinities in betting shops in London

During fieldwork conducted with workers and customers in betting shops in London research participants consistently conceptualized betting shops as masculine spaces in contrast to the femininity of other places including home and the bingo hall. According to this argument, betting on horses and dogs was ‘men's business’ and betting shops were ‘men's worlds’. Two explanations were offered to account for this situation. The first suggested that betting was traditionally a pastime enjoyed by men rather than women. The second was that betting is intrinsically more appealing to men because it is based on calculation and measurement, and women prefer more intuitive, simpler challenges. I use interviews with older people to describe how the legalisation of betting in cash in 1961 changed the geography of betting. I then draw upon interviews with regular customers in order to show how knowledge about betting is shared within rather than between genders. Finally, I use my experience of training and working as a cashier to describe how the particular hegemonic masculinity found in betting shops in London is maintained through myriad everyday practices which reward certain kinds of gendered performances while at the same time suppressing alternatives. The article shows how particular spaces may become gendered as an unanticipated consequence of legislation and how contingent gendered associations are both naturalized and, at the same time, subjected to intense attention.     

THE HOLOCAUST AS RECURRING REALITY: VICTIMIZATION THEMES AND JEWISH AMERICAN ETHNIC IDENTITY FORMATION

Drawing on sociological studies that document the regularity through which marginalized ethnic groups construct an ethnic identity, this article examines identity formation in the Jewish American context. A content analysis of 100 short stories written between 1946 and 1995 demonstrates how victim-oriented identities are created out of the more mundane experiences of everyday life. These stories, which were intended for consumption by Jewish American readers, describe daily life within the Jewish American community and, with surprising regularity, bring issues of victimization into the imagined experience for their readers. In addition, the analysis shows how Jewish American short story writers present the Holocaust, victimization, and anti-Semitism as contributing heavily to the processes of identity formation within the community. The discussion of the data concludes by arguing that, as the Jewish American community becomes further removed from the events of World War II, the Holocaust is becoming a more salient recurrent reality in the formation of a Jewish American identity that is increasingly tied to issues of victimization.     

Between Transition and Enlargement: The Composition of Consumption in European Households

The article aims to specifically consider the effect of the enlargement of markets, resulting from the process of transition in Central and Eastern European countries, on the structure of household consumption. On the basis of a discriminatory analysis performed on recent data published by OECD and Eurostat, this study proposes to address three main questions: if during transition the household consumption patterns, measured by budget shares, have changed; if from this point of view, Central and Eastern European countries are similar between them and diverge from Western ones; if today there are any signs of convergence between the two groups of countries. The dissimilarity in budget share in Eastern and Western countries is proven and persistent, appearing greater in real terms than in nominal ones. On the one hand, Engel’s law is confirmed, given that at lower income levels the percentage of food consumption is greater, even though in real terms the absolute level of consumption of food has, in most cases, been reduced. On the other hand, the historical experience of Eastern countries is evident in the prolonged productive-distributive role of the State, especially in the field of essential services: home, schooling, and health.     

Subjective measures of household preferences and financial decisions

In intertemporal models of household consumption or portfolio choice, household behaviour depends on, for example, the household's rate of time preference, the rate of risk aversion, and the household's information set. In this paper we use a survey of Dutch households which contains direct subjective information on risk aversion and time preference and on interest in financial matters. We first describe these data and analyze how they relate to household characteristics and household income. We then investigate whether these variables are related to households' financial decisions on home ownership, mortgages and ownership of risky assets. Our results are broadly in accordance with economic theory.     

Determinants of a throwaway society - A sustainable consumption issue

The purpose of this paper is to present a clearer understanding of how several key socio-economic variables impact municipal solid waste (MSW). Although the variables of interest arise from deeply entrenched micro-economic behaviors at the household level, the analysis can be extrapolated to the international level. Two of the variables, which are a time factor and a consumption discount rate, are empirically tested with an international dataset and have been found to be significant predictors of MSW per capita.     

Buying and selling breasts: cosmetic surgery,beauty treatments and risk

This paper is concerned with the ways in which women are sold cosmetic surgery, and how they ‘make sense of’ their own participation in this market. It draws on ongoing ethnographic research to explore how a group of young women who have paid for breast augmentation surgery narrate their decision to undergo surgery, the choices they make as consumers of cosmetic surgery, and their experience of having surgery. These narratives are compared with the ways in which breast augmentation surgery is sold to them by the companies and medical professionals involved in the rapidly expanding market for breast augmentation surgery. The paper shows how this particular group of young white working‐class women shift between imagining the breast augmentation operation as a simple beauty treatment and recognizing it as medical surgery, and explores how this shapes their perceptions of the risks and benefits of buying new breasts. It also shows how those who market such procedures manage and manipulate perceptions of the process of breast augmentation surgery and the risks that attend on it in an effort to encourage this form of consumption.     

The transnational work of kinship and caring: Bengali–British marriages in historical perspective

Abstract In this article, based on ongoing research carried out in Bangladesh since the mid‐1980s and field‐work in London in the late 1990s, I take a historical approach to the analysis of transnational Sylheti marriages. By showing how the form of these marriages has changed since the mid‐twentieth century, I argue that transnational migration is itself highly fluid. The role of wives in maintaining transnational links is central to the account. I focus in particular on the wives of ‘first‐generation’ migrant men who came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, and whose families were generally reunited in Britain by the 1980s. By describing the household and caring work of these wives both in Sylhet and London, I demonstrate that rather than being ‘dependants’ of their migrant husbands, women have been central to the success of migrant households. The rewards of transnational connectedness have, however, come at a cost — long‐term separation from loved ones. Isolation and loneliness have been hallmarks of the experiences of these earlier generations of women.     

Preparing for Practice: An Evaluation of an Undergraduate Social Work ‘Preparation for Practice’ Module

The requirement for social work students to undergo assessed preparation prior to undertaking their first practice placement raises key questions about the type of knowledge and experience that is needed for those at the start of their training. This paper shows the need for social work educators to become re‐engaged in debates about the practice–theory relationship and to explore what is meant by an incremental approach to learning. A Preparation for Practice Learning module which was delivered to a cohort of Level 1 undergraduate social work students at a London university is described and evaluated. The paper highlights the key themes which emerged from the evaluation; these include the importance of work shadowing, observational learning and the centrality of critical reflection in aiding students' personal and professional learning. A discussion of its effectiveness in preparing students for their first practice learning experience follows. It concludes by recommending how students' learning in relation to the nature of social work and the skills required to undertake the role effectively might be addressed within the curriculum. Finally, a Preparation for Practice Learning model based on these findings is proposed.     

Collective consumption: an application to the passive drinking effect

This study introduces a new collective complete demand system with individual Engel effects that is easy to estimate and permits undertaking policy analysis at the individual rather than household level. Previous estimations of collective demand were limited to single equations. The empirical application investigates the passive drinking effect, that is, whether consumption of alcohol affects the distribution of resources among household members and their level of wellbeing. The results show that a high level of alcohol consumption of one household member significantly affects the allocation of household resources and suggest thought-provoking policy implications.     

The Use of Remittance Income in Mexico

Immigration affects sending countries through the receipt of remittance income. The impact of these cash transfers on households and communities has brought attention to remittances as a development mechanism. This study attempts to understand the degree to which household consumption is affected by the receipt of remittance income and the ways in which the broader communities may be impacted. Using household income and expenditure data for Mexico, expenditure patterns of remittance‐receiving households are analyzed. Regression analysis indicates that remittance‐receiving households spend a greater share of total income on durable goods, healthcare, and housing.     

England – whose England? Narratives of nostalgia,emptiness and evasion in imaginations of national identity

This paper explores the contested and racialised nature of Englishness as a national identity. Based on qualitative interviews of white mothers in London, the paper examines the different ways in which the interviewees positioned themselves in relation to concepts of Englishness. National identity involves ways of being, a sense of place and belonging. It is produced through forms of myth‐making and narrative production which depend on particular constructions of time and space. This paper examines how nation‐ness is imagined and lived by the interviewees. It asks how constructions of Englishness related to constructions of the self and how imaginings of belonging involved imagining of otherness. It also describes how, for some of the interviewees, the domestic, particularly in notions of cleanliness and dirt, as well as food and consumption, was a key metaphor for explaining their relationship to national identity.     

Money and relationships online: communication and norm formation in women’s discussions of couple resource allocation

Research on intra‐household resource allocation practices has largely ignored the role of communication within but especially beyond the household. This article shows that discussions engaged in outside of the household shed light on intra‐household deliberation and also contribute to an understanding of how norms are formed and used in discussions and negotiations. Using data from the website Mumsnet, and grounding our analysis in a framework that combines the literature on gender norms in allocation practices with insights from the study of online communication, we contribute to the sociological literature on household distribution in three ways: first, we show that women use discussion sites like Mumsnet to clarify and sometimes contest social norms regarding money and relationships; second, we show that users conceive the ability to communicate with partners as a source of ‘relationship power’ and use online discussion with other women to develop that skill; third, we argue that sites like Mumsnet provide fresh insights into household resource allocation processes. The article concludes with a broader discussion of the role of communication in household distribution and the value of online data for understanding such processes.     

The dynamics of time use: Context and meaning

In this article, earlier work on the organization of the household day is revisited to bring a sociological perspective to the study of household time. There is much to be gained from elaborating the conceptualization and measurement of time use to acknowledge and the employment of its dynamic qualities and meanings. That is, analysis of household time use must become far more than a longitudinal accounting process. In this article, no roadmap to such a destination can be provided but perhaps movement in a new direction. The practical application of insights from research on household time use requires conceptual frameworks that allow household time to be depicted as it unfolds and as participants experience it. That is, serious attention might be lent not only to studying where time is spent but also to how activities are situated and experienced in time to realize human affairs.She is the author ofThe Gender Factory: The Apportionment of Work in American Households, and in 1995 she coeditedindividual Voices, Collective Visions: 50 Years of Women in Sociology, published by Temple University Press. Her current work focuses on the theoretical articulation of race, class and gender in women's work.This paper required a good deal of reflection on a project I undertook with Richard A. Berk in 1975. I am grateful for his comments and suggestions.