Understand differences in wealth and power among countries.
Learn sociological theories for wealth disparities and their strengths/weaknesses.
Recognize the impact of economic standards on health, diet, and education.
Understand causes of inequality between and within countries.
Learn about the global poor and poverty trends.
Consider globalization's impact on global inequality.
Thought Exercise: 2011-12 Photographs
Reflect on photographs from 2011-2012 and what they indicate about contemporary times.
Pay attention to signs and messages related to inequality from places like Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, Times Square, Seattle and Los Angeles.
2011-12 Occupy Movements
Photographs are from the 2011-12 Occupy movements against growing income inequality worldwide.
Started in the Middle East and spread globally, including the US.
Rise in Awareness of Inequality
The increase in the use of the word 'inequality' in US newspapers from 409 in October 2010 to 1269 in October 2011 shows growing awareness.
This peak coincided with the Occupy Movements.
What is Global Inequality?
Systematic differences in wealth and power between countries.
Gross National Income (GNI) Per-Capita: Measures a country's yearly output of goods and services per person.
World Bank classification (2020):
High Income Countries (HIC): GNI of 12,695 and more.
Upper-Middle-Income Countries: GNI of 4,096−12,695.
Lower-Middle-Income Countries: GNI of 1046−4,095.
Low-Income Countries: GNI under 1,046.
Global Stratification
Countries are economically stratified.
Countries that industrialized earliest are generally the richest.
Countries that remain agricultural are generally the poorest.
Trends in GNI
The graph illustrates the income gap between rich and middle/poor-income countries.
Shows an upward trend from 1983 until 2008, coinciding with the Occupy movements.
Global Income Distribution
Top 5%: Receives one-third (33%) of world income.
Bottom 5%: Receives only 0.2% (a ratio of 165:1).
Top 10%: Get half of the world income; the remaining 90% get the remaining 50%.
International Inequality
High-Income Countries:
16% of world population (just over 1 billion).
Claim 63% of the world’s annual output of wealth.
First to industrialize, includes Japan and some SE Asian countries (Singapore, Taiwan).
Middle-Income Countries:
In 2018, 75% of the world population.
Accounted for only 36% of the world’s annual output of wealth.
Primarily East and SE Asia, Oil-rich Middle East and North Africa, The Americas (Mexico, Central America, Cuba and other countries in the Caribbean, and South America).
Began to industrialize in the late 20th century.
China reclassified from low to middle-income country.
Low-Income Countries:
In 2010, 9% of the world population (0.86 billion).
Produced 0.1% of the world’s yearly output of wealth.
Much of eastern, western, and sub-Saharan Africa; Vietnam, Cambodia and a few other East Asian Countries; South Asian countries, East and Central European (Georgia and Ukraine).
High fertility rates, therefore growing populations.
Global Economic Well-Being
The number of low-income countries is decreasing as countries move into middle and higher-income categories over time.
Economic success in China and India accounts for much of the upward movement.
Beyond Economic Measures
Ranking countries by average annual income ignores income inequality within each country.
The US is in the upper ranks of high-income countries, yet it has more than a half million homeless people on any given day.
GNI does not include the value of informal work, significant, especially in poorer countries.
Absolute vs. Relative Poverty
Classifying countries on the basis of income alone can be misleading.
Absolute poverty: Cannot acquire basic life needs (food, clothing, shelter).
Relative poverty: Poor relative to others in their society.
When measuring by human development, the UN estimates twice as many people in poverty as when measuring by income alone.
Capabilities Approach
Amartya Sen: Quality of life is important, i.e., the freedom to make fundamental life choices.
Capabilities Approach: Uses social indicators to emphasize the degree to which people can achieve a life they value, given the opportunities they face.
Theories Explaining Global Inequality
Market-Oriented Theories:
Best economic consequences result when individuals are free to make their own economic decisions, unregulated by governmental constraint.
Examples: Modernization Theory, Neoliberalism.
Rostow's Stages of Economic Growth Theory
Stages: Traditional Society, Pre Take Off Stage, Take Off Stage, Savings and investment in industry,Drive To Maturity, High Mass Consumption
Problems with Modernization Theory
Ethnocentric
Multiple “pre-modernities” in “underdeveloped” countries
Domination of core countries
Blames the victims: ignores the external constraints and power inequities between the rich and poor countries
Theories Explaining Global Inequality
Neoliberalism: Free-market forces, achieved by minimizing governmental restrictions on business, provide the only route to economic growth.
Structural Adjustment Policies since 1980s
Elimination of restrictions on global trade
World Bank (WB)
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
World Trade Organization (WTO)
Dependency Theories:
Marxist theories arguing that the poverty of low-income countries stems directly from their exploitation by wealthy countries and transnational corporations.
The Ironies of Colonialism
The cartoon depicts an emaciated poor person representing poor nations feeding an obese person representing the rich nations with a spoon.
The picture demonstrates the unequal nature of this relationship and highlights the concepts of dependent development and underdevelopment
Colonialism: Western nations establishing rule in parts of the world away from their home territories.
Dependency Theories
Rejected the idea that countries’ economic underdevelopment was due to their own cultural or institutional faults.
A historical view of development that stresses economic, political, and military factors over the last 500 years.
The affluence of rich countries in the contemporary world results from the long-term economic exploitation of poor countries (Dependent development).
Poverty of low-income countries stems from their exploitation by wealthy countries and the multinational corporations based in wealthy countries (Underdevelopment).
World-Systems Theory:
The world as one economic system; world capitalism is not merely a collection of independent countries engaged in diplomatic and economic relations but understood as a single unit.
Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory
Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory explains the worldwide systemic nature of unequal, yet dependent relationship between countries representing the core, semi-periphery, and the periphery.
Global Commodity Chains Theory
Worldwide networks of labor and production processes yielding a finished product.
These networks form a tightly interlocked “chain” extending from the raw materials to the final consumer.
Globalized nature of manufacturing.
I-Phone’s Geography of Production
Chips and glass: US
Rare-earth metals for circuits: China and Inner Mongolia
LCD panels, chipset, batteries, flash memory: Korea and Taiwan
MEMS gyroscope (vertical to horizontal display): France or Italy
Final assembly: Taiwanese factory in China
Applying Sociology to Global Inequality
Neoliberal Theories: Developing countries can improve their economies and lower inequality by opening their economies and markets to foreign investment, reducing the role of their governments, and adopting "Western" institutions and cultural values
Dependency Theories: Inequality and poverty in developing countries results from exploitation by rich countries; economic development can only occur if they control their own economies and-in extreme cases― engage in revolution
World-Systems Theory: The world economic system is comprised of core countries that extract wealth from poorer countries; a periphery that yields wealth to richer countries; and a semiperiphery that extracts wealth from the periphery and yields wealth to the core. Economic development requires a strong state that is committed to development.
The Theory of Global Capitalism: Global economic domination by core countries has been replaced by the growing power of giant transnational corporations, who increasingly control the global economy and shape the policies of national governments.
Health
People in high-income countries are far healthier than their counterparts in low-income countries, where the health care facilities, sanitation, water, and food supplies are inadequate.
Low-income countries have higher child mortality and lower life expectancy, but these numbers are improving.
Communicable diseases can easily cross borders (Ebola epidemic and COVID-19 pandemic).
Hunger and Malnutrition
The number of chronically undernourished people had declined leading up to 2015 but has since increased.
Most hunger today is the result of a combination of natural and social forces, like severe weather (which will worsen as a result of global climate change) and conflict.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has contributed to food shortages by killing many working-age adults.
Hunger as a Global Problem
Disproportionately found in the poorest regions.
Estimated 822 million people worldwide were chronically undernourished in 2019, the vast majority of which were in developing countries.
In sub-Saharan Africa, which suffers from the highest rates of undernourishment, one in four people is hungry.
Education and Literacy
High-income countries can afford to spend more on education than low-income countries, resulting in more literate adults.
Education contributes to economic growth by creating a skilled workforce.
It can help people escape the cycle of harsh working conditions and poverty, depending on job availability.
It usually leads to people having fewer children, slowing population growth that contributes to global poverty.
Causes of Inequality
Sociologists argue that many countries are trapped in vicious cycles of persistently high levels of inequality, while others enjoy virtuous cycles of low levels of inequality.
Inequality between countries has increased due to institutions developed by high-income countries, like restricting immigration.
Global Poverty
The number of people living in extreme poverty is declining, but with large differences between regions and countries.
Despite positive trends in the percentage of people in poverty, the number of extremely poor people in sub-Saharan Africa actually increased as a result of overall population growth.
The global reduction in extreme poverty can be attributed in large part to economic growth in East Asia and the Pacific.
Inequality Within Countries
Emerging economies: Developing countries, such as India and Singapore, that have begun to develop a strong industrial base.
Inequality within countries, which had declined during the twentieth century, began to rise again when the globalization of manufacturing began to take off, particularly in countries with more neoliberal economic policies.
In the United States, inequality has returned to what it was a century ago.
Future of Global Inequality
Average income worldwide might level out, and polarization between haves and have-nots would likely cause conflict.
Modern technology could lead to greater opportunity and stimulate worldwide economic growth, though at a catastrophic environmental cost.
Technological advancement, not overseas workers, has claimed many of the jobs that once led to a middle-class lifestyle.