Search results for "Poverty"
showing 10 items of 492 documents
Data practices and inequality in South African early childhood development policy: Technocratic management versus social transformation
2019
Background: In 1994, the African National Congress identified early childhood development as a potential strategy to redress the inequalities of apartheid, however, two and a half decades later, poverty still persists, and South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Aim: This article explores how policy texts based on and with the use of certain data practices establish ‘truths’ about childhoods and society, construct families and communities, and determine forms of provision to address inequality. Setting: In 2015, the South African government published the National Integrated Early Childhood Policy (NIECDP) to continue to address poverty and inequality. Its implementat…
Global climate policies, local institutions and food security in a pastoral society in Ethiopia
2011
This paper explores climate change adaptation within national policy priorities in a least developed country (LDC). The premise of the article is that when considering food security, climate is an exogenous trigger, while the deeper causes lie in social problems. Therefore, adaptation is subordinate to poverty alleviation. The paper examines how these two goals, climate adaptation and poverty alleviation, can be combined. Recent studies have shown that the most effective way to adapt to changing climate conditions in a poor country is to rely on local institutions that have established and sustainable mechanisms to deal with extreme climatic conditions. This research analyzes the stakeholde…
Victims, villains or organized community? : discrimination, social exclusion and empowerment in the media representation of urban poverty : case of b…
2012
The purpose of this thesis is to study the media representation of urban poverty in a developing country context, focusing specifically on the connections between media representation and social exclusion. The theoretical-methodological basis of this work draws from critical cultural studies and sociological media research, specifically from the theoretical assumptions of critical discourse analysis about media representation. The premise is the constructionist view that the media does not directly reflect the reality of urban poverty, but constructs journalist reproductions of it from a particular perspective and in a certain social context. Media representation of the subordinated groups …
Cultural Politics of Love and Provision among Poor Youth in Urban Tanzania
2015
This article examines how urban youth in the poorest neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam negotiate the terms of transactional intimacy, that is, heterosexual relations in which men are expected to provide for women materially. Using the concept of ‘affect’, I argue that this negotiation involves different levels of male providership, as well as moral values attached to notions of ‘true love’ and the Swahili concept of tamaa. Poor men and women view their agency differently within transactional intimacy, with women describing themselves as exploited by men who do not fulfil their end of the transactional bargain, and poor men portraying themselves as deeply disempowered in comparison to wealthie…
Dynamic Sustainability. Sustainability Window Analysis of Chinese Poverty-Environment Nexus Development
2015
Sustainability Window is a new analysis tool for assessing the sustainability of development simultaneously in all of its three dimensions (environmental, economic, and social). The analysis method provides information of the maximum and minimum economic development that is required to maintain the direction of social and environmental development towards more sustainable targets. With the Sustainability Window method it is possible to easily analyze the sustainability using different indicators and different time periods making comparative analyses easy. The new method makes it also possible to analyze the dynamics of the sustainability and the changes over time in the width of the window.…
Democracy, poverty and civil society in Mozambique
2015
National elections were held in Mozambique for the fifth time in October 2014. As a state, Mozambique – like many ‘fourth-wave’ transition countries – fulfils the formal criteria of democracy. But to what extent are the mechanisms of accountability implemented? In Africa, two issues have been identified as key impediments for successful democratic transition: failure to improve the welfare of the poor and the ‘pre-modern’ character of civil society. In Mozambique, robust economic growth has been accompanied by growing inequality, while traditional civil society organisations (CSOs) have become increasingly visible on local level since the political transition in 1994. Based on the analysis …
Technical Education in Jeopardy? Assessing the Interdisciplinary Faculty Structure in a University Merger
2019
AbstractThe social responsibility of universities is to contribute to solving the ‘wicked problems’ facing humanity, including climate change, poverty, conflicts and the lack of energy resources. Interdisciplinarity is an approach that enables solving these problems and helps higher education institutions become more socially responsible while meeting the requirements of their stakeholders. In this chapter, we analyse a multidisciplinary and sector-breaking merger of three higher education institutions in Finland, where the merger is justified by its contribution to solving wicked problems through increased structural interdisciplinarity. We examine the suggested faculty structures and view…
Depressive symptoms and long-term income: The Young Finns Study
2016
Abstract Background Higher depressive symptoms have been associated with lower future income. However, studies examining this issue have had limited follow-up times and have used self-reported measures of income. Also, possible confounders or mediators have not been accounted. Methods 971 women and 738 men were selected from the ongoing prospective Young Finns Study (YFS) that began in 1980. Depressive symptoms were measured in 1992 when participants were from 15 to 30 years old. Information on annual income and earnings from 1993 to 2010 were obtained from the Finnish Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data (FLEED) of Statistics Finland and linked to the YFS. Results Higher depressive symptoms…
The Effects of the Value-Added Tax on Revenue and Inequality
2019
This paper examines the impact of the introduction of the value-added tax on inequality and government revenues using newly released macro data. We present both conventional country fixed effect regressions and instrumental variable analyses, where VAT adoption is instrumented using the previous values of neighbouring countries’ VAT systems as an instrument. The results reveal – in contrast to earlier work – that the revenue consequences of the VAT have not been positive. The results indicate that income-based inequality has increased due to the VAT adoption, whereas consumption inequality has remained unaffected. Peer reviewed
Poverty, Consent, and Choice in Early Marriage : Ethnographic Perspectives from Urban Tanzania
2018
The assumed inability of adolescents to voluntarily consent to marriage is a key definition of child marriage. Using ethnography, this study approaches consent, self-determination, and fulfillment ...