This thesis explores three important factors that have been central to the pursuit of economic development especially in case of developing countries. These are human capital, corruption and institutions. The first chapter presents an analysis of the role of corruption in determining the distribution of income and, with this, the degree of poverty and inequality. The analysis is based on an overlapping generations model in which individuals may seek to improve their productive efficiency (and hence earnings) by supplementing or substituting publicly provided services (such as education and health) with personal expenditures on human capital investment. Because of capital market imperfections, their ability to do this depends on their inherited wealth which serves as collateral for loans. Corruption is reflected in the pilfering of public funds and a reduction in public service provision, the effect of which is to reduce the earnings of those who rely on such services and to exacerbate the extent of credit rationing for these agents. The dynamic general equilibrium of the model is characterised by multiple steady states to which different income classes converge. Higher levels of corruption lead to higher levels of poverty and may result in complete polarisation between the rich and poor by eliminating the middle class. The second chapter presents an analysis of the threshold effects of human capital on economic growth. Using a sample of 126 countries (1970-2012), we estimate a dynamic threshold panel model following Hansen (1999) and Caner & Hansen (2004). Our results are twofold: first, there exists a significant threshold level of development (proxied by capital stock per capita) below which the effect of human capital on economic growth is insignificant, whereas it is positive significant above it; second, while looking into the impact of institutional quality, we find significant thresholds of interaction between institutional quality and development.

Magister Artium - MA / The study focuses on primary and secondary education rather than tertiary education as primary schools enrol the largest number of Rwandan students and absorb the major share of public spending on education. / South Africa

Over the last two decades, the use of empowerment approaches to help reduce health-related vulnerabilities and violence among female sex workers has increasingly informed global health efforts directed at HIV/STD prevention. The empowerment approach to sex worker health rejects both abolitionist and narrowly conceived clinical approaches in favor of strategies that promote commercial sex as valid work, strengthen sex workers’ agency, reinforce female sexual autonomy, and support rights-based framing. A significant outcome of the empowerment approach to integrating health, social, and legal strategies has been the creation of numerous sex worker associations and NGOs, which advocate for collective mobilization and community-based HIV/STD prevention programs among sex workers. Despite numerous studies examining the efficacy of community empowerment approaches to sex worker health and the creation of civil society organizations to implement such approaches, there has been little theorization about how participation in sex worker NGO-based programming and activism shapes the personal, embodied experiences and subjectivities of sex workers. Similarly, questions of how sex worker associations and NGOs are shaped by the experiences, realities, feelings, and personal opinions of sex workers have received limited attention. Given the morally charged and highly stigmatized environments in which sex workers typically operate, studying how and which sex workers come into contact with these NGOs helps to illuminate how community and kinship relations, and individual and collective aspirations, shape sex work activism and contribute to the making (and unmaking) of related associations and NGOs. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research with female sex workers and sex work activists, this work combines medical anthropological and feminist perspectives to interpret sex worker associations and NGOs as “local moral worlds” that highlight how subjectivities, body, moral experience, kinship, care, and women’s agency relate. From the subjective experiences of older female sex worker/activist informants, I argue that sex worker associations and NGOs are best comprehended not simply as the outcomes of global health efforts to curb the spread of HIV and other STDs, but also as complex social arenas that need to be reconsidered in light of existing relationships between and among sex workers and their families and the state. This argument is informed by my yearlong engagement with Women’s Solidarity House (WSH), a pseudonym for an organized association of active and retired female sex workers in the red-light district of San José, which recently received NGO status from the Costa Rican state. One important dimension of WSH that requires careful consideration is the fact that most of the women who participate in its development and programming are over the age of 40, with an average age of about 52. This fact makes WSH an interesting and important case study, since it caters most especially to female sex workers who are generally outside of the purview of most sex worker empowerment and health-related prevention programs, which are designed and implemented by public health researchers and development specialists. While theories of gender, stigma, and social inequality have increasingly informed medical anthropological efforts to understand how structural factors shape the personal, embodied experiences of sex workers and the distribution of HIV/STDs, there has been very little effort to understand how aging and ageism factor into the making and unmaking of sex worker embodiment and subjectivity and older women sex workers’ risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Given that sex work is a profession or income-generating strategy that adult women in various stages of their lives perform, the lack of research and theorization about these aspects of female sex workers’ lives, I suggest, has prevented a broader research and programmatic response both to common risks such as HIV/STDs and violence, and to work-related health problems and occupational conditions that older sex workers may consider more important in their day-to-day lives. My research shows that a “structural approach” to sex work, which highlights the underlying social, historical, political, and economic forces that encourage and foster the economic exploitation, stigmatization, and negative health outcomes of women (and men) who sell sex, would benefit from adding a feminist anthropological perspective on aging. In this view, aging is a critical social structural inequality that society uses to devalue women’s status and which women often experience as stigmatizing and/or shameful. In Costa Rica, where recent reporting has suggested an increase in the number of older women in the local sex industry, studying women’s experiences of and responses to growing old in the sex trade reveals not only the long-term impacts of neoliberal reform polices, but also how gendered discourses about aging, increasing familial caregiving responsibilities, and growing inequality and economic pressure, together, conspire to limit older women sex workers’ employment opportunities and put them at greater risk of violence, discrimination, psychological distress, sexual assault, substance abuse, poverty, and HIV/STDs.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to establish happiness as a sociological research topic and examine the effects of economic inequality and marriage on happiness in cross-national contexts. Following a critical review on previous happiness studies, two cross-national studies and one longitudinal study focusing on Korean data are conducted for this purpose. In the first study, I examine the effects of objective and subjective inequality on happiness across 26 countries. Data from the International Social Survey Program 1999 and the World Values Surveys 1994-1999 are used for analyses. The results indicate that subjective inequality, not objective inequality, has a strong negative influence on happiness. In the second study, I examine the relationship between marriage and happiness across 72 countries, focusing on a comparison of marrieds, cohabitors, and never-married singles. Data from the World Value Surveys 1999-2008 are used for analyses. The results indicate that the relationship between marriage and happiness varies across nations. In the majority of countries, marriage is positively associated with happiness, but there are many countries where the relationship is non-existent or negative. Cohabitors are happier than never-married singles, but only in countries where marrieds are also happier than the never-married singles. Multi-level analyses show that the positive relationship between marriage and happiness is stronger in countries characterized by economic development and secular-rational culture. In the third study, I examine the continuation of the marriage effect on life satisfaction in Korea. Longitudinal data from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study 1998-2008 are used for analyses. The results indicate that the selection effect (i.e., People with greater life satisfaction are more likely to get married.) exists in general but is moderated by the age effect. The increase of life satisfaction caused by marriage is maintained at least for 6 years or more. Thus, the positive relationship between marriage and life satisfaction in Korea is explained by both of the selection effect and the causal effect of marriage.

This thesis examines the impacts of inclement weather days on AP exam scores in public schools, specifically low socioeconomic districts, and the assessment of their current closure procedures. By investigating the potential disruption in scores by inclement weather days, I can create a new dataset in analyzing a field that has yet to be studied through this lens, in addition to advising future policy for district superintendents and state government officials. The areas studied include Massachusetts and Georgia, representing states that are properly prepared for inclement weather closures and are under-prepared for inclement weather, respectively. I use two research methods to fully understand the quantitative and qualitative effects of inclement weather closures. The first is a quantitative analysis of district-level data on inclement weather days and AP exam scores over the past five years. To accomplish this, I contacted public-school districts in the two states involved in the case study to get raw data on school closures and combine this with already available datasets on AP exam score performance. The second is a qualitative account of inclement weather days from teachers and superintendents from districts across both states to establish their opinions regarding school closures and investigate the decision-making process in canceling school. In this qualitative assessment, I observe the roles that socioeconomic status and public transportation, among other factors, play in cancelations. This thesis seeks to challenge the argument proposed by previous research that snow days have no effect on test performance. Previously, this was measured by looking at state-wide exams. By using AP exams as a performance measure instead, a more direct impact on exam scores is expected due to the immovable testing dates and content- specific nature of the exams. Policy recommendations are given to accommodate the negative relationship between closures and test scores, given socioeconomic status.

Adequate public transport infrastructure and services are essential to facilitate access to basic opportunities, such as jobs, healthcare, education, recreation or shopping, especially in low-income cities where the majority of the low-income population have no access to the car. In the context of transport exclusion and urban poverty, access and accessibility metrics can serve as good indicators for the identification of transport-disadvantaged zones or population groups in a city. In Cape Town, accessibility-based planning is being embraced by the authority as a means of addressing the planning defects of the past apartheid regime, which created a city that is spatially fragmented by race and income levels. Among the agenda outlined in its 5-year Integrated Transport Plan of 2013-2018, is the need to develop a highly integrated public transport network in which all households would have equitable access to the public transport system, especially for the majority of the urban poor who reside in the city outskirts far from major economic centres. Although planning efforts are being made to redeem the defects of the past, there is still the need for tools and indicators to understand the current situation, as well as to further aid planning and decision making about land-use and transport. The objective of this research, therefore, is to develop suitable indicators of accessibility, identify possible spatial and socioeconomic drivers of accessibility and evaluate equity in the distribution of accessibility benefits for various population groups in Cape Town. In the study, transport network data of Cape Town are utilised to develop GIS-based indicators of network access and origin accessibility to various opportunities like jobs, healthcare and education, across various modes of travel. An Access Index measures public transport service presence within a zone, based on route and stops availability. The index is used to compare the coverage levels provided by each mode of public transport in the city. Also, an Accessibility Index is proposed, that measures the number of opportunities 'potentially reachable' within a specified 'reasonable’ travel time. A key consideration in measuring accessibility by public transport is the monetary cost of overcoming distance, based on the pricing structure that exists in Cape Town. Equity in accessibility is further evaluated both vertically and horizontally. Vertical equity is evaluated using a proposed Accessibility Loss Index, which analyses the potential implication of affordability and budget restrictions on accessibility, based on the income level of the poor households. GINI type of measures is also proposed to evaluate horizontal equity across the various population groups for various travel modes. To further understand the likely drivers of accessibility, an exploratory OLS regression technique is employed to investigate the relationship between accessibility and a combination of socioeconomic and built environment features of the study area. The study reveals among other things that potential accessibility achievable by car is far higher than that achievable by public transport. The paratransit mode provides the most extensive access coverage, and the highest level of accessibility among all the public transport modes investigated. However, this mode shows to be one of the most expensive options of travel, especially for low-income households who are likely to be restricted by travel monetary budgets. The train turns out to be the most affordable travel option, although the level of accessibility achievable with the train is much lower compared to the paratransit or regular bus. From a vertical equity perspective, the consideration of transport affordability drastically reduces the opportunity space and potential accessibility for the poorest population group compared to the higher income groups. The study further interrogates the distance-based tariff model of public transport services in Cape Town, which it considered to be detrimental to the welfare of poor households, regarding the potential to access essential opportunities. The contribution of this study to the body of research on accessibility is twofold: methodological and contextual. On the methodological dimension, it presents a GIS based approach of modelling accessibility both for the car and for a multimodal public transport system that combines four modes; bus, train, BRT and a minibus taxi (paratransit). It also builds on existing gravity-based potential accessibility measure by incorporating an affordability dimension. The consideration of affordability adds a further layer that enables vertical equity evaluation by judging the potential for destination reachability by the monetary out-of-pocket cost of travel. This approach is considered to be more sensitive to the context of low-income cities like Cape Town, where low-income household’s daily travel decisions are likely to be more guided by monetary cost.

<p>In this dissertation, I analyze the Brony community to better understand reconstituted forms of masculinity. Specifically, I focus on the following questions: What does it mean when men incorporate what has traditionally been viewed as stigmatized or feminine into their gender presentations? How do these forms of masculinity represent a challenge to gender politics and how do they reinforce gender inequality? How do women navigate spaces defined by reconstituted forms of masculinity? In what ways do women within these spaces both challenge and maintain power relations? I address these questions through an analysis of interviews with 43 men and women who are fans of <i>My Little Pony </i>and ethnographic observations at four <i>My Little Pony </i>fan conventions. In doing so, this dissertation nuances and extends the literature on reconstituted forms of masculinity, including hybrid masculinities. </p>

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Thesis advisor: Andrew Jorgenson / In 2015, the United Nations implemented the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which cover a wide range of social, economic and environmental issues. While there is a virtual international consensus regarding the importance of these goals, and reconsidering the ecological costs of human development, there are disagreements on the best approaches to actually achieving sustainability. Mainstream perspectives argue that the most feasible and effective path to sustainable development is to decouple economic growth from its environmental impacts, largely through the advancement and implementation of green technologies. In this framework, economic growth is seen as synonymous with development and a necessary prerequisite for improving human wellbeing. On the other hand, many scholars are critical of this approach to sustainable development and argue that economic growth is not only antithetical to achieving environmental sustainability, it also has limited appeal for improving social and economic wellbeing in developed countries. With this in mind, in this dissertation I examine alternative pathways to sustainable development that move beyond the growth-consensus. Previous studies argue that a working time reduction potentially represents a multi-dividend sustainability policy that could improve social, economic and environmental outcomes. Similarly, previous research also indicates that inequality is negatively associated with human wellbeing and can lead to increased environmental pressures. Across three empirical chapters, I investigate the effects of working hours and inequality, and their interaction, on measures of environmental and human wellbeing across US states over time. In the first chapter, I assess the relationship between average working hours and CO2 emissions from 2007 to 2013. This chapter is the first examination of this relationship at the US state level and finds that longer working hours are associated with increased emissions over time. The second empirical chapter takes this research one step further and examines how inequality shapes the relationship between working hours and emissions from 2005 to 2015. The results of these analyses again find that longer working hours are associated with increased emissions but that the relationship becomes more intense at higher levels of inequality. The third empirical chapter investigates the claim that a working time reduction could be a multi-dividend sustainability policy by examining the relationship between work hours and life expectancy from 2005 to 2015. I also examine how inequality shapes this relationship as well. Results indicate that longer working hours are associated with decreases in life expectancy, and that this effect is larger at higher levels of inequality. In all, these studies provide more evidence that reducing working hours could potentially be an effective sustainability policy that could contribute to achieving multiple sustainable development goals. Further, they show that inequality is an important factor shaping socio-environmental relationships and population health relationships. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

Recent writing in the anthropology of affect and cognate fields has positioned hope as a useful category with which to examine socio-political life and formulate a political and theoretical response adequate to its form. This dissertation extends this endeavour by exploring the ‘hopeful projects' mothers and families undertake in order to secure their children's futures in contemporary Cape Town. Based on ethnographic research conducted with Black mothers between March and October 2018, I argue that the supposedly private maternal hopes my interlocutors hold are in fact indexical of the ways in which social inequality functions and becomes manifest in everyday life and care. Situated at the interface of embodied experience and political histories, their hopes are indicative of how liberal logics of selfextension, self-mastery, and self-maximisation are inhabited to produce alternative futures. At the same time, however, such hopes are continually undone by contexts of intractable structural violence and deprivation, reinvested into normative notions of kinship, domesticity, sexuality, and the body, or marshalled to perform reparative work that should properly fall under the purview of the state. In detailing the ways in which my interlocutors attempt to craft more capacious, more just, and more materially abundant futures for their children, I illustrate the affective entailments of life-building in post-Apartheid South Africa