NOTES ON UNEQUAL SOCIAL RELATIONS
(Róbinson Rojas Sandford)(1998)
Economic, cultural-religious and political relations lead to unequal
access to resources among social groups. In the case of industrialized
societies, the market system leads to economic inequalities, and
cultural and racist attitudes create instances of social exclusion
where non-white people and women became the overwhelming majority of
the poor. (See BOX 1) In less developed societies, cultural-religious
variables condemn women to a secondary role in society, which, added to
racial intolerance, create a mirror image of social exclusion as the one
taking place in industrialized societies. (See BOX 2)
(see UNCTAD: The Trade and Development Report,1997 (press release 1)
UNCTAD: The Trade and Development Report,1997 (press release 2)
UNCTAD: Human Development Report 1996, Second Chapter)
Today, when globalization is sending the dynamics of capitalist market
to every corner of planet earth, the creation of poverty and wealth as
an outcome of capitalist competition is at its peak.
Consider the case of a very efficient capitalist market: the British.
From Social Trends 18, 1988, the figures for distribution of original
household income:
UNITED KINGDOM
Quintile groups of households
Bottom Next Middle Next Top Total
fifth fifth fifth fifth fifth
Original income
1976 0.8 9.4 18.8 26.6 44.4 100.0
1981 0.6 8.1 18.0 26.9 46.4 100.0
1984 0.3 6.1 17.5 27.5 48.6 100.0
1985 0.3 6.0 17.2 27.3 49.2 100.0
The figures for 1985 show that the bottom fifth earned 0.015 of
the income per household, while the top fifth earned 2.46
times the income per household. Put in a different way, if we consider
the bottom fifth's original income as 1, the following dramatic
polarized distribution of income appears:
Bottom fifth = 1
Next fifth = 20
Middle fifth = 57
Next fifth = 91
Top fifth = 164
If in 1997 income per household was £24,000 per year, then, the
different incomes will be: £
Bottom fifth = 336
Next fifth = 6,720
Middle fifth = 19,152
Next fifth = 30,576
Top fifth = 55,104
Calculating for 1976, when the rate of unemployment was 4.0 (in 1985
it was 11.3 per cent), distribution of income changes to the following:
Bottom fifth = 896
Nexth fifth = 10,752
Middle fifth = 21,504
Next fifth = 29,568
Top fifth = 50,176
Considering that the rate of unemployment (measured by the same
parameters -OECD- utilized for 1976 and 1985) is 7.6%, the distribution
of original income should be approximately as follows
Bottom fifth = 0.0272 1 £ 615
Next fifth = 0.385 14 8,610
Middle fifth = 0.900 33 20,295
Next fifth = 1.348 50 30,750
Top fifth = 2.340 86 52,890
It is apparent that without welfare benefits 40% of the British
households had to survive in poverty, from destitution to absolute
poverty.
The effect of welfare state is as follows:
Bottom fifth = 0.380 1 £ 8,589
Next fifth = 0.635 1.67 14,344
Middle fifth = 0.795 2.09 17,951
Next fifth = 1.150 3.03 26,025
Top fifth = 2.040 5.37 46,123
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ETHNIC DIFFERENTIALS
For all industrialized societies, poverty, low wages and social
exclusion affect more the non-white minorities
From "Labour Force Survey 1996", Central Statistical Office, Britain
the following emerges:
ECONOMIC STATUS OF PEOPLE OF WORKING AGE: BY GENDER AND ETHNIC GROUP.
SPRING 1995
Great Britain Percentages
------------------------------------------------------------------------
White Black* Indian Pakistani/ Other**
Bangladeshi
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MALES
Working full time 72 49 65 41 51
Working part time 5 8 7 8 8
Unemployed 8 21 10 18 12
Inactive 15 22 18 33 29
All (=100%)(thousands) 16,993 273 306 216 224
FEMALES
Working full time 38 37 36 12 30
Working part time 29 15 19 6 16
Unemployed 5 14 7 7 8
Inactive 28 34 38 75 46
All (=100%)(thousands) 15,420 296 279 191 238
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* includes Caribbean, African and other Black people of non-mixed origin
** includes Chinese, other erhnic minority groups of non-mixed origen
and people of mixed origin
(from table 4.3 Social Trends 26, 1996)
________________________________________________________________________
Summary: 6.3% of people of working age is non-white, but they account
for 11.6% of unemployed people, which indicates a heavy bias.
Among males: 5.7% are non-white, but they account for 10.2%
of unemployed males.
Among females: 6.2% are non-white, but they account for 10.9%
of unemployed females.
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UNITED STATES.- Poverty status of persons by age and ethnic origin
(per cent of each group)
1980 1995
White
less than 18 years 13.9 16.2
18 years to 64 years 8.0 9.6
65 years and over 13.6 9.0
Black
less than 18 years 42.3 41.9
18 years to 64 years 25.6 22.5
65 years and over 38.1 25.4
Hispanic
less than 18 years 33.2 40.0
18 years to 64 years 20.2 24.9
65 years and over 30.8 23.5
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Table built from E. Baugher and L. Lamison-White, "Poverty in the
United States:1995", U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1996
---------------------------------------------------------------------
From the same source:
UNITED STATES.- Poor people. Persons
1980 % 1995 %
White 19,699,000 10.2 24,423,000 11.2
Black 8,579,000 32.5 9,872,000 29.3
Hispanic Origin 3,491,000 25.7 8,574,000 30.3
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Total population. Percentages.
White 78%
Black 12%
Hispanic 10%
-----------------------------------------------------------------
A. Women and poverty
B. Education and training of women
C. Women and health
D. Violence against women
E. Women and armed conflict
F. Women and the economy
G. Women in power and decision-making
H. Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women
I. Human rights of women
J. Women and the media
K. Women and the environment
L. The girl child
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_________________________________________________________________________
EMPLOYEES AND SELF-EMPLOYED BY SEX AND OCCUPATION, Spring 1990
BRITAIN.- Source: Social Trends 1992
Male Female
Managerial and professional 36.3% 28.7%
Other non-manual 6.2% 9.3%
Clerical or related 5.6% 30.6%
Craft or similar 25.5% 27.5%
General labourers 0.9% 0.1%
Other manual 25.0% 3.8%
________________________________________________________________________
Spring 1995
Managers and administrators 19.0% 10.0%
Craft and related 17.0% 3.0%
Plant and machine operatives 15.0% 4.0%
Professional 12.0% 9.0%
Associate professional and technical 8.0% 10.0%
Clerical and secretarial 7.0% 26.0%
Personal and protective services 7.0% 16.0%
Sales 5.0% 12.0%
Other 7.0 10.0%
________________________________________________________________________
FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES ON ADULT RATES (April of each year, all industries)
Average weekly earnings (£)
1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Men 164.7 178.8 192.4 207.5 224.0 245.8 269.5 295.6 318.9
Women 109.5 117.2 126.4 137.2 148.1 164.2 182.3 201.5 222.4
Unemployed (thousands)
Men 1949 1960 2018 2064 1890 1519 1202 1121 1668
Women 750 828 889 934 826 666 484 401 532
Employees in employment
Men 11674 11625 11637 11481 11437 11706 11725 11783 11315
Women 8882 9106 9273 9395 9643 10042 10417 10551 10355
________________________________________________________________________
source: Annual Abstract of Statistics and Employment Gazette
________________________________________________________________________
In International Labour Review, Vol. 136, No. 7, Summer 1997, A. K. Sen,
"Inequality, unemployment and contemporary Europe", answered to the
question "What, then, are the diverse penalities of massive unemployment,
other than its association with low income? The list would have to
include at least the following distinct concerns:
(1) loss of current output and fiscal burden
(2) Loss of freedom and social exclusion
(3) Skill loss and long-run damage (just as people "learn by doing",
they also "unlearn" by "not doing" -by being out of work and out
of practice.
(4) Psychological harm (intense suffering and mental agony)
(5) Ill health and mortality
(6) Motivational loss and future work (discouragement)
(7) Loss of human relations and family life
(8) Racial and gender inequality
(9) Loss of social values and responsibility
(10) Organizational inflexibility and technical conservantism
And Sen finishes his paper with the following illustration:
"...high levels of mortality among socially deprived groups in the
United States. For example, African-Americans -American blacks- have a
lower chance of reaching a mature age than the people of China, or
Sri Lanka, or the Indian state of Kerala...The fact that these people
from the Third World are so much poorer than the United States
population (and also poorer than the American black population, who are
more than 20 times richer in terms of per capita income than, say,
Indians in Kerala), makes the comparative disadvantage of African-
Americans in survival particularly disturbing".
..."it is amazing that so much unemployment is so easily tolerated in
contemporary Europe".
________________________________________________________________________
BOX 1___________________________________________________________________
Economic Growth and Equitable Human Development: The Launch of the
1996 Human Development Report
Event:Statement for the USA
Release of the 1996 Human Development Report
Speaker:Mr. James Gustave Speth, Administrator, UNDP
Location:National Press Club, Washington DC
Date: 16 July 1996
(excerpts)
The first myth is that most of the developing world is doing rather
well, led by some 15 rapidly growing developing economies and
spurred by the opportunities of market globalization. As a result,
the myth has it, the poor are catching up, and we are seeing a
convergence of rich and poor. As the report amply documents, this
is simply not the case. Unfortunately, we live in a world that has
in fact become more polarized economically, both between countries
and within them. If current trends continue, if they are not
quickly corrected, economic disparities will move from inequitable
to inhuman -- from unacceptable to intolerable.
The second myth is that the early stages of economic growth is
inevitably associated with growing inequality within the country.
Again, this report marshals convincing evidence that this need not
be the case. Equitable growth is not only ideal in the abstract, it
is possible in the real world.
Today, we live on a planet which increasingly represents not `one
world', but `two worlds'. The `two worlds' result in part from the
failure of growth in more than 100 countries. As the Human
Development Report 1996 indicates, these countries' per capita
income is lower than it was 15 years ago, and, as a result, more
than a quarter of humanity -- 1.6 billion people -- are worse off
today than they were 15 years ago.
In 70 developing countries, today's levels of income are less than
those reached in the 1960s or 1970s. In 19, per capita income is
less than it was in 1960 or before. Economic decline in much of the
developing world has lasted for longer and gone deeper than the
Great Depression of the 1930s.
This economic growth came with mixed blessings. Too often it was
associated with joblessness, widening income gaps and growing
impoverishment. In recent years, the world has been witnessing a
famine of jobs. The report contains an employment analysis of 69
countries over the last decade. Of the 46 countries with positive
economic growth, only 27 saw employment also grow; 19 experienced
jobless growth, including the large countries of South Asia.
Poverty and income gaps have also grown amidst economic growth.
World poverty is increasing about as fast as world population,
which itself is growing in unprecedented number. The World Bank
recently estimated that 1.3 billion people live -- or don't live --
on less than a dollar a day. Equally depressing, the number of
people with incomes of less that $750 per year, hardly more than $2
per day, is about 3.3 billion people, or 60 per cent of humanity.We
must face the fact that we live in a world where between 1960 and
1993 total global income increased by 6-fold to $23 trillion, and
where average world per capita income tripled, but where
three-fifths of humanity still lives in a prison of poverty.
Another pattern is revealed by Thailand, many Latin American
countries, and others. During the last two decades, the ratio of
share of income of the richest 10 per cent to the poorest 10 per
cent of the Thai population has more than doubled -- from 17 times
to 38 times. And today, in the United States, the share of total
assets owned by the richest one per cent of the people has almost
doubled from 20 per cent to 36 per cent since 1975.
In countries like Brazil and Guatemala the richest 20 per cent earn
more than 30 times the poorest, and even in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Switzerland and Australia, the difference is about
10-fold. These trends cumulate into startling patterns of inequity
and injustice. Consider these indicators.
During the last three decades, the ratio of the income share of the
richest 20 per cent to that of the poorest 20 per cent has more
than doubled from 30:1 to 61:1. The poorest 20 per cent saw their
share of global income decline from 2.3 per cent to 1.4 per cent
over the last 30 years.
Today, the net worth of the 358 richest people is equal to the
combined income of the poorest 45 per cent of the world's
population -- 2.3 billion people.
Developing countries, with 80 per cent of the world's population,
account for only about 20 per cent of world output. Despite the
growth in the developing world, the share of world output from the
OECD countries actually increased from 68 per cent in 1960 to 72
per cent in 1990.
The gap in per capita income between the industrial and developing
worlds, far from narrowing, tripled between 1960 and 1993, from
$5,700 to $15,400.
The world, on many fronts, is divided -- between rich and poor,
between haves and have-nots, between wealthy and the dispossessed.
It has become more polarized, both between countries and within
countries. If present trends continue, the global economy will be
gargantuan in its excesses and grotesque in its inequalities. Vast
inequality would be the norm and instability and violence its
accompaniment.
________________________________________________________________________
BOX 2___________________________________________________________________
REPORT OF THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
United Nations (Copenhagen, 6-12 March 1995)
15. There has been progress in some areas of social and economic
development:
(a) The global wealth of nations has multiplied sevenfold in the
past 50 years and international trade has grown even more dramatically;
(b) Life expectancy, literacy and primary education, and access to
basic health care, including family planning, have increased in the
majority of countries and average infant mortality has been reduced,
including in developing countries;
(c) Democratic pluralism, democratic institutions and fundamental
civil liberties have expanded. Decolonization efforts have achieved much
progress, while the elimination of apartheid is a historic achievement.
16. Yet we recognize that far too many people, particularly women and
children, are vulnerable to stress and deprivation. Poverty,
unemployment and social disintegration too often result in isolation,
marginalization and violence. The insecurity that many people, in
particular vulnerable people, face about the future - their own and
their children's - is intensifying:
(a) Within many societies, both in developed and developing
countries, the gap between rich and poor has increased. Furthermore,
despite the fact that some developing countries are growing rapidly the
gap between developed and many developing countries, particularly the
least developed countries, has widened;
(b) More than one billion people in the world live in abject poverty,
most of whom go hungry every day. A large proportion, the majority of
whom are women, have very limited access to income, resources, education,
health care or nutrition, particularly in Africa and the least developed
countries;
(c) There are also serious social problems of a different nature
and magnitude in countries with economies in transition and countries
experiencing fundamental political, economic and social transformations;
(d) The major cause of the continued deterioration of the global
environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production,
particularly in industrialized countries, which is a matter of grave
concern, aggravating poverty and imbalances;
(e) Continued growth in the world's population, its structure and
distribution, and its relationship with poverty and social and gender
inequality challenge the adaptive capacities of Governments, individuals,
social institutions and the natural environment;
(f) Over 120 million people world wide are officially unemployed and
many more are underemployed. Too many young people, including those with
formal education, have little hope of finding productive work;
(g) More women than men live in absolute poverty and the imbalance
continues to grow, with serious consequences for women and their children.
Women carry a disproportionate share of the problems of coping with
poverty, social disintegration, unemployment, environmental degradation
and the effects of war;
(h) One of the world's largest minorities, more than 1 in 10, are
people with disabilities, who are too often forced into poverty,
unemployment and social isolation. In addition, in all countries older
persons may be particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, poverty and
marginalization;
(i) Millions of people world wide are refugees or internally
displaced persons. The tragic social consequences have a critical effect
on the social stability and development of their home countries, their
host countries and their respective regions.
17. While these problems are global in character and affect all
countries, we clearly acknowledge that the situation of most developing
countries, and particularly of Africa and the least developed countries,
is critical and requires special attention and action. We also
acknowledge that these countries, which are undergoing fundamental
political, economic and social transformation, including countries in
the process of consolidating peace and democracy, require the support of
the international community.
18. Countries with economies in transition, which are also undergoing
fundamental political, economic and social transformation, require the
support of the international community as well.
19. Other countries that are undergoing fundamental political, economic
and social transformation require the support of the international
community as well.
20. The goals and objectives of social development require continuous
efforts to reduce and eliminate major sources of social distress and
instability for the family and for society. We pledge to place particular
focus on and give priority attention to the fight against the world-wide
conditions that pose severe threats to the health, safety, peace, security
and well-being of our people. Among these conditions are
chronic hunger;
malnutrition;
illicit drug problems;
organized crime;
corruption;
foreign occupation;
armed conflicts;
illicit arms trafficking,
terrorism,
intolerance and incitement to racial, ethnic, religious
and other hatreds;
xenophobia;
and endemic, communicable and chronic diseases.
To this end, coordination and cooperation at the national level and
especially at the regional and international levels should be further
strengthened.
21. In this context, the negative impact on development of excessive
military expenditures, the arms trade, and investment for arms production
and acquisition must be addressed.
22. Communicable diseases constitute a serious health problem in all
countries and are a major cause of death globally; in many cases, their
incidence is increasing. These diseases are a hindrance to social
development and are often the cause of poverty and social exclusion. The
prevention, treatment and control of these diseases, covering a spectrum
from tuberculosis and malaria to the human immunodeficiency
virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), must be given the
highest priority.
________________end BOX 2_______________________________________________
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