In this paper, we present evidence on the relationship between inequality and long-term development using data on different Brazilian regions. A new framework of analysis is provided in the sense that our empirical approach is developed within a constant de jure institutional environment - Brazil - accounting for possible differences in the de facto institutional environments (Brazilian regions) rooted in distinct colonial experiences within the same national territory. New inequality indicators are constructed from scratch for Brazilian municipalities in 1920 (using the Census of 1920, which, surprisingly, had thus far been ignored for such purposes). We find no significant relationship between economic (land) inequality (proxied by the Land Gini) and political concentration (proxied by the percentage of eligible voters) for Brazilian municipalities in the early twentieth century. And although our econometric analysis indicates a positive robust relationship between economic inequality and long-term development indicators for Southeastern states (São Paulo, the center of coffee production in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and a state with a large influx of European immigrants, which became the most dynamic Brazilian region; and Minas Gerais, the gold cycle region, shaped also by cattle-farming and coffee production), we find no relationship for Pernambuco, a state in the Northeast region representative of the old agrarian structure of colonial sugar plantations; and a positive and robust relationship for Rio Grande do Sul, a Southern state with a colonial experience more similar to that of the United States and Canada. We found no evidence of a robust relationship between the percentage of eligible voters and long-term development, a surprising result in light of the results provided in development literature, but likely consistent with a politically captured system with very low levels of enfranchisement. These results are shown to hold even when controlling for proxies for structural changes that happened in this time span, namely: urbanization, industrialization, and immigration. Moreover, land inequality in 1920 is at most weakly related to contemporaneous income inequality for Minas Gerais and São Paulo, but significant for Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Sul. In other words, evidence suggests that the positive effects of inequality are associated to a particular structural organization at a specific time, in contrast to a more structural inequality, which, as exemplified by the cases of Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Sul, would have negative or no significant effects on long-term development. Finally, we find no robust relationship between the overall land Gini and long-term economic development. These results highlight the importance of the study of historical and social elements in their respective context, as the results are consistent with the picture of a rural Brazil dominated by agrarian elites within a complex institutional environment. / Este estudo apresenta novas evidências sobre a relação entre desigualdade e desenvolvimento de longo prazo a partir de dados de diferentes regiões brasileiras. A análise é realizada a partir de uma original estratégia de identificação: trabalhamos dentro de um ambiente institucional de jure constante - o Brasil - permitindo possíveis efeitos heterogêneos a partir de ambientes institucionais de facto (estados brasileiros) diferentes, resultantes de diferentes experiências coloniais. Novos indicadores de desigualdade são construídos a partir de dados primários para os municípios brasileiros em 1920 (usamos o Censo de 1920, que não foi sistematicamente utilizado para tais propósitos): o índice de Gini da distribuição de terras (entre donos de terras e considerando toda a população) e a porcentagem de potenciais eleitores. Primeiro, não encontramos uma relação significativa entre a desigualdade da distribuição de terras e a relativa concentração política para os municípios considerados no início do século XX. Segundo, e, de certo modo, surpreendente, encontramos, através de exercícios econométricos, relações entre desigualdade e desenvolvimento no longo-prazo particulares para cada conjunto de observações: (i) uma relação positiva entre desigualdade da distribuição de terras e desenvolvimento para os estados da região Sudeste, São Paulo (o centro da produção cafeeira nos séculos XIX e XX que recebeu um forte fluxo de imigrantes e que se tornou o estado brasileiro mais dinâmico) e Minas Gerais (estado particularmente influenciado pelo ciclo do ouro, moldado também pela atividade de criação e produção de café); (ii) uma ausência de relação significativa entre os indicadores de desigualdade no início do século XX e desenvolvimento contemporâneo para o estado de Pernambuco (estado da região Nordeste, representativo da antiga estrutura colonial de produção de açúcar); e (iii) uma relação negativa entre desigualdade e desenvolvimento para o Rio Grande do Sul (estado da região Sul, com colonização mais associada a países da América do Norte). Terceiro, não encontramos uma relação estatisticamente robusta entre nosso indicador de concentração política e desenvolvimento no longo-prazo. O que seria um resultado possivelmente contra-intuitivo à luz da literatura internacional, é provavelmente consistente com um sistema político capturado e níveis bastante baixos de acesso ao voto. Os resultados acima são mantidos mesmo após controlarmos para proxies de mudanças estruturais ocorridas no período, entre elas: urbanização, industrialização e imigração. Além desses resultados, apresentamos evidência de que a desigualdade da distribuição da terra em 1920 é, no máximo, fracamente relacionada à desigualdade contemporânea para Minas Gerais e São Paulo, enquanto é significante para o Rio Grande do Sul e Pernambuco. Em outras palavras, nossas evidências sugerem que os efeitos positivos da desigualdade no início do século estão associados a uma particular organização em um período histórico específico, em contraste com uma desigualdade mais estrutural, exemplificada pelos casos de Pernambuco e Rio Grande do Sul, no qual os efeitos da desigualdade são negativos ou insignificantes no desenvolvimento de longo prazo. Finalmente, não encontramos uma relação estatisticamente robusta entre o índice de Gini da distribuição de terras considerando toda a população e o desenvolvimento das regiões consideradas. Estes resultados ressaltam a importância do estudo de elementos históricos no seu respectivo contexto, uma vez que são consistentes com um Brasil rural dominado por elites agrárias em um complexo ambiente institucional.

This thesis describes a study undertaken in the semi arid areas of Limpopo among rural households with or without migrant workers in their households. The study aimed at analyzing and establishing the association between unequal distribution of land and other productive assets and rural household migration decisions; and to ascertain the relationship between migration remittances received by migration sending households and rural inequality in the migration sending economies. In essence, two important phenomena of inequality and migration are addressed simultaneously from two related angles: the effect of rural inequality on migration behaviour and the effect of migration (through cash and in-kind remittances) on rural inequality. A combination of explorative and confirmative economic analytical tools was used for empirical data analysis. Explorative analysis was meant to present distribution characteristics of the data including frequency analysis, descriptive statistics and cross tabulation; correlation and non-parametric analysis. In the confirmative analysis model specific deterministic relationships among variables or response models were used to confirm the existence of relationships. First, the Gini coefficient technique and Lorenz curves were used to measure inter household income and asset inequality. Factor Analysis (FA) was used to combine variables and create new but fewer factors; and logistic regression analysis LRA) was used to determine variables that positively or negatively affect migration. A survey was conducted among 573 rural households selected from 24 villages of Limpopo in the Central, Southern and Western Regions. Two types of research instruments were used. The first was a semi-structured village questionnaire to gather qualitative information about the villages by interviewing key informants. The second instrument was a structured household questionnaire, which provided information on household composition and characteristics, household income land and other assets, environmental issues, migration and remittances. The household head or his/her deputy responded to a major part of the questionnaire but the migrants responded to some of the migration and remittance related questions. Findings from the Gini coefficient measure and Lorenz curves indicated uneven assets distribution and that landlessness is common in Lebowa. However, comparatively, land and income are more evenly distributed than the other assets. The results of the correlation matrix indicate that there is a negative correlation between the presence of migrants and per-capita household assets and per-capita land ownership (-0.043 and – 0.126 respectively). A one tailed t test indicated that per-capita land is significantly related to the presence of migrants within households (p<05). The presence of migration in a household was also negatively correlated with adult equivalent landholding. Households with migrants tended to have smaller landholdings and the relationship between migration and other asset categories were negative, implying an inverse relationship between them and the propensity to migrate. Variables influencing migration were aggregated using Factor analysis and on the basis of the factor loadings four factors (components) with the largest loadings were identified as: household land and income factor, livestock factor, asset (farm and non farm) factor and lastly pension and household composition factor. The Logistic regression analysis (LRA) using a non-metric, dichotomous dependent ‘dummy variable for presence of migrants in households showed that: the presence of migrant(s) is significantly influenced by per-capita land, per-capita income, per-capita all assets, and total assets (p<05). The results show that a unit increase in value of per capita assets will result to 0.1 percent change in the odds ratio against migration; a unit increase in pension received by a member in a household will result in a 0.6 per cent change in odds ratio against migration; as pension money increases there would be less incentive for members of the household receiving it to migrate. However, a unit increase in per capita income will not result in any change in the odds ratio of migration. In the Central, Southern and Western regions of Limpopo households with smaller land holding per capita tended to have migrants, however, the pattern of migration from these areas does not support the hypothesis that higher inequality of land holding lead to higher out-migration. The Western Region, which has better land distribution than the other two regions, has a higher proportion of households with migrants than the other two regions. Thus, migration must be influenced by a complex association of variables other than just land. Livestock did not have significant influence on migration from the rural areas. This is not surprising for Limpopo, since the province is not well endowed with livestock as a form of asset. Nevertheless, households with migrants have higher total value of livestock than those without migrants. The empirical findings have shown that remittances are an important source of livelihood and the relationship between migration and rural inequality depend critically on how remittances and the losses and gains of human resources through migration are distributed across households. Different income sources add to income inequality but at different rates and extent. In the case of Limpopo, remittances account for a smaller percentage of total inequality (14.9%) than that of salaries and wages (72.3%); pensions contribute the least to the rural income inequality, contributing only 4.3%. This means that remittances are distributed more evenly than salaries and wages among the households that receive them. It means also that even some migration sending households at the lower end of the income spectrum in rural areas have access to some migrant remittances. Income inequality decreases considerably when migrant remittances are combined with income from other sources; in our case it drops by fifteen percentage points from 0.62 to 0.47. The influence of migration remittances upon income inequality will tends to become more favourable as migration opportunities spread throughout the villages. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD / unrestricted

No abstract available / Dissertation (MSc (Mathematics))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Mathematics and Applied Mathematics / unrestricted

Recent years have witnessed renewed global attention to persistent spatial inequalities and the potential role of politics and power relations in redressing and reinforcing them. This thesis offers a political analysis of the problem of regional inequality in Ghana, with particular attention to the role of inter-elite power relations in underpinning the country’s historical North-South divide. The analysis is based on three main sets of data: the regional distribution of political power during 1993-2008; the regional composition of public expenditure; and elite interviews. The thesis argues that a key factor that explains Ghana’s stark unbalanced regional development has been the continuous exclusion of the historically poorer Northern regions from a fair share of both productive and social sector spending. The socio-economic marginalisation of these regions has been underpinned principally by a weaker influence of Northern elites on resource allocation decisions within a political environment that is driven largely by patron-client relations. Consequently, even policies and programmes designed with the formal objective of targeting the ‘poor’ often end up discriminating against the poorer Northern regions at the level of implementation. However, Northern elites’ lack of ‘agenda-setting powers’ is not a function of their exclusion from government, but rather of their ‘adverse incorporation’ into the polity, whereby they have often been included on relatively unfavourable terms. This explanation differs significantly from much of current mainstream thinking regarding the underlying drivers of persistent unbalanced regional development, including dominant accounts of Ghana’s North-South inequalities. Notably, there has been a tendency of both academics and policy makers to put the blame on certain innate characteristics of the North, such as the region’s fewer production potentials associated with its ‘bad geography’ and Northerners’ proclivity for violent conflicts. Such accounts therefore tend to blame the relative socio-economic backwardness of the Northern regions on the North itself rather than the nature of its incorporation into broader political formations.

No abstract available / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Psychology / unrestricted

Women working in the current Canadian academic system face challenges which their male colleagues do not; one such challenge lies in dressing for work in the university setting. This paper examines the role dress plays in the workplace experiences of female professors at a large Canadian academic research institution. Through on-line and face-to-face focus groups as well as one-on-one interviews with 16 female professors, this study examines how these women decide what to wear to work. Using Goffman’s (1959) symbolic interactionist approach to self-presentation, in combination with Simmel (1957) and Blumer’s (1969) work on fashion, the various meanings attributed to women’s dress are explored. Women’s self-presentation in professional settings is significant, as theorized by Ridgeway’s (1991; 1993; 2011) theories of gender inequality in the workplace. Finally Scott’s (1990) theories of everyday resistance explore the potential for female professors to resist the dominant power structure through their choice of dress and self-presentation at work. The preliminary findings indicate that for those individuals for whom power and authority are not as accessible, dress and self-presentation can be avenues through which these individuals can access this authority and at times some may push back against the unequal power structures which exist in the current Canadian academic system.

Master thesis is the assessment of the income situation of men and women in the Czech Republic or other European Union countries, according to various socio-economic, demographic and regional factors. Income of persons is influenced by many factors. There are some of them analysed in distribution according to gender, with a focus to find differences and compliance. The effort to detect influential factors on total income is a part of this thesis. The theoretical and methodological section describes the current situation of this issue not only in the Czech Republic, together with a reflection on the causes of differences in income and the precaution taken mainly in the Czech Republic. In the practical part there are tested two hypotheses related with income disparities and gender (sex). Central values of incomes were processed broken down by gender and selected factors. Also absolute and relative frequencies in data were analysed and were created two models which examine the dependence of income on selected factors. Incomes in selected countries were compared as supplement. Results are achieved by statistical methods. Output of this work is to assess the income gap between men and women based on available data and to verify hypotheses.

Ab den 1980er Jahren entwickelte Amartya Sen eine neue Wohlfahrtstheorie: den Capability Approach (Sen, 1979; 1985; 1992; 1999; 2009). Dabei ersetzen Capabilities und Functionings, d.h. das, was Personen tatsächlich in der Lage sind zu tun und zu sein, den traditionellen Einkommensansatz. Armut ist im Capability Approach das Unvermögen, ein bestimmtes Minimum an zentralen Capabilities zu erreichen, die benötigt werden, um das Leben nach den eigenen Vorstellungen zu gestalten. Der Capability Approach hat so viele interessante Eigenschaften, besonders in Bezug auf die Armutsmessung, dass er zunehmend Einfluss in der Wohlfahrtsökonomie gewinnt. Diese Entwicklung wird durch empirische Untersuchungen gefördert, die zeigen, dass dieser multidimensionale Ansatz zur Armutsmessung deutlich andere Ergebnisse generiert als der traditionelle Einkommensansatz (vgl. Klasen, 2000, Alkire und Santos, 2010, Figari, 2012). Der derzeitige multidimensionale Ansatz hat jedoch eine methodische Schwäche: Ungleichheit zwischen Armutsdimensionen wird entweder als Korrelationssensitivität definiert – womit Effizienz aber nicht Verteilungsgerechtigkeit berücksichtigt wird – oder als die Verteilung multipler Mangelerscheinungen in einer Gesellschaft – womit Verteilungsgerechtigkeit aber nicht Effizienz berücksichtigt wird. Die ersten beiden Kapitel dieser Dissertation widmen sich der Behebung dieser methodischen Schwäche. Dazu wird Ungleichheit zwischen Dimensionen zunächst als „korrelationssensitive Verteilung multipler Mangelerscheinungen in einer Gesellschaft“ definiert. Die ersten beiden Kapitel operationalisieren diese erweiterte Definition für den Fall ordinaler und kardinaler Armutsindices. Im Einzelnen wird ein neues Axiom für den ordinalen sowie den kardinalen Fall eingeführt, das das Ausmaß, mit dem ein Ungleichheitsfördernder Tausch Armut sinken (oder steigen) lässt, von der Beziehung zwischen den Armutsdimensionen abhängig macht. Diese Neuerung wird benutzt um eine neue Klasse ordinaler bzw. kardinaler Armutsindices herzuleiten. Diese zwei Klassen sind die ersten additiven Armutsindices die in der Lage sind, sowohl Ungleichheit als auch Korrelationssensitivität zu erfassen. Das dritte Kapitel nutzt das deutsche sozio-ökonomische Panel um zwei ordinale Armutsindices für Deutschland vorzuschlagen, die auf der zuvor entwickelten Methode basieren: den „Deutschen Korrelationssensitiven Armutsindex“ und den „Subjektiven Korrelationssensitiven Armutsindex“. Die beiden Indices werden mit dem offiziellen deutschen Armutsmaß, der Armutsgefährdungsquote, über Dimensionen, Regionen und über die Zeit hinweg verglichen. Die Resultate zeigen vor allem eines: die signifikanten Unterschiede in der Beurteilung von Armut und Armutstrends die durch die verschiedenen Indices versursacht werden und den hohen Mehrwert den die Operationalisierung des Capability Approachs darstellt.

Magister Legum - LLM / Refugee women experience the full spectrum of Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) throughout the refugee experience. SGBV is a global crisis that refugee women are subjected to daily. Refugee women face SGBV in their countries of origin, during the journey, in transit, and upon arrival within their country of asylum. The SGBV that refugee women experience is often not considered a priority and the physical consequences of SGBV such as sexually transmitted diseases, infertility, unwanted pregnancy, injury and vulnerability to disease is often overlooked or ignored. Although there are international laws and domestic laws which are drafted to prevent and protect refugee women against SGBV, refugee women are in reality not effectively protected and refugee women have remained extremely vulnerable to SGBV.

Income inequality has been showing a steady increase for past decades and will be worsened in the future (Piketty, 2014). One of the most important factors to explain the worsening income inequality can be aging. Previous studies on aging focus on its impact on traditional issues such as health, retirement, and economic growth. This study finds the direct relationship between aging and income inequality using the vector autoregressive (VAR) model (Blanchard and Quah, 1989). The VAR model is useful to analyze the long-run response of aging on income inequality. The empirical results will verify the negative impact of aging on income inequality in the U.S. The governmental efforts to reduce the negative impact of aging on health care and pensions could delay the worsening income inequality.