scholarly journals Informalities, Volatility, and Precarious Social Mobility in Urban Slums

2021 ◽  
pp. 351-373
Author(s):  
Emily Rains ◽  
Anirudh Krishna
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Urban Slums ◽  
Formal Property ◽  
Global North ◽  
Basic Services

As developing countries rapidly urbanize, the number of people living in ‘slums’—neighbourhoods lacking formal property rights and basic services—continues to increase. Whether slum residents will ultimately share in the benefits of the cities they help build or will remain trapped in poverty is not well understood. We review empirical evidence on the potential for social mobility in today’s urban slums in order to assess prospects for upward mobility in cities of the Global South, finding evidence for limited levels of upward mobility and high levels of volatility. We then discuss the substantial public sector interventions that accompanied urbanization in the Global North. We argue that urbanization will not automatically improve prospects for mobility for the urban poor. Instead, it will be critical to implement appropriately nuanced interventions to improve opportunities for the billions residing in today’s and tomorrow’s slums.

Deprivation in slums and child poverty: study on Kolkata

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (7) ◽  
pp. 739-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Indranil De ◽  
Tirthankar Nag
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Developing Countries ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Urban Poverty ◽  
Systematic Sampling ◽  
Income Poverty ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Basic Services

Purpose – The study attempts to look into the poverty and deprivation in slums across various social and religious groups and its bearing on the children. It not only analyses income poverty but also looks at derivation of access to basic services including water, sanitation and drainage. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the income and non-income deprivation of childbearing and non-childbearing households. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a survey of 541 sample households selected from 23 slums of Kolkata, India. The authors have adopted a mixture of cluster sampling and systematic sampling technique. The slums of Kolkata have been segregated into three regions and further segregated by overlaying the population and average monthly income of slums. Slums have been selected randomly from these stratums. Households have been selected from the slums by systematic sampling method. Findings – The Muslim and backward caste households are more deprived with respect to income and access to basic services as compared to Hindu general (upper) caste. Deprivations with respect to income and basic services are more pronounced for households having child than for households not having child. Childbearing households are less likely to receive better water supply, sanitation and drainage services as compared to others due to their religious and residential identities. Slum children get affected by the complex political economy of basic service delivery. The study also finds that electoral competition has positive and political clientelism has negative impact on access to basic services. Research limitations/implications – The study is based on results obtained from survey in one city of India. Hence, these results cannot be generalized for India or for the developing countries taken together. Further studies across cities of developing countries are required to arrive at any generalized conclusion. Practical implications – The study suggests that public policies should attempt to disentangle minorities and children from the local political economy. Otherwise, deprivation and disparity even across low income households living in slums would persist. Deprivation of child bearing households would lead to a deteriorating future for the slum children. Social implications – This paper have pave the path for new generation public policy for the urban poor and minorities. Originality/value – This paper highlights the incidence of deprivation of minorities and childbearing households vis-à-vis other households in the slums. It contributes to the overall understanding on urban poverty.

Moving Up without Losing Your Way

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Morton
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
College Experience ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Community Finding

Upward mobility through the path of higher education has been an article of faith for generations of working-class, low-income, and immigrant college students. While we know this path usually entails financial sacrifices and hard work, very little attention has been paid to the deep personal compromises such students have to make as they enter worlds vastly different from their own. Measuring the true cost of higher education for those from disadvantaged backgrounds, this book looks at the ethical dilemmas of upward mobility—the broken ties with family and friends, the severed connections with former communities, and the loss of identity—faced by students as they strive to earn a successful place in society. The book reframes the college experience, factoring in not just educational and career opportunities but also essential relationships with family, friends, and community. Finding that student strivers tend to give up the latter for the former, negating their sense of self, the book seeks to reverse this course. It urges educators to empower students with a new narrative of upward mobility—one that honestly situates ethical costs in historical, social, and economic contexts and that allows students to make informed decisions for themselves. The book paves a hopeful road so that students might achieve social mobility while retaining their best selves.

Free Trade versus Protection : Static and Dynamic Aspects

1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
Gunnar Flфystad
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Foreign Trade ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Foreign Trade Policy ◽  
Taxation Policy

This paper analyses whether the developing countries are pursuing an optimal foreign trade policy, given the theoretical and empirical evidence we have. The paper concludes that constraints in imposing other taxes than tariffs in many developing countries may justify having tariffs as part of an optimal taxation policy.

Getting it Right: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications from Research on Public-Sector Unionism and Collective Bargaining

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lewin ◽  
Thomas A. Kochan ◽  
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld ◽  
Teresa Ghilarducci ◽  
Harry C. C. Katz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Public Sector Unionism

Electricity Liberalisation in Developing Countries

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hall ◽  
Tue Anh Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Electricity Sector ◽  
Power Markets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Sector Investment ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Generating Capacity ◽  
Global North ◽  
Extensive Growth

Liberalisation of the electricity sector by unbundling the networks from generation and creating power markets has been promoted to developing countries by the World Bank and others for nearly two decades, in order to stimulate private sector investment. The paper presents cross-country comparisons of progress with liberalisation in the largest developing economies along with investment indicators of generating capacity and access to electricity networks, showing extensive growth in investment regardless of the extent of liberalisation, predominantly by the public sector. The liberalisation model is now losing credibility even in the global north.

scholarly journals Guilds, Social Mobility and Status in Sixteenth-Century Ghent

1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Dambruyne
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Social Promotion ◽  
Social Position ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
Democratic Character ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

This article investigates the relationship between social mobility and status in guilds and the political situation in sixteenth-century Ghent. First, it argues that Ghent guilds showed neither a static picture of upward mobility nor a rectilinear and one-way evolution. It demonstrates that the opportunities for social promotion within the guild system were, to a great extent, determined by the successive political regimes of the city. Second, the article proves that the guild boards in the sixteenth century had neither a typically oligarchic nor a typically democratic character. Third, the investigation of the houses in which master craftsmen lived shows that guild masters should not be depicted as a monolithic social bloc, but that significant differences in status and wealth existed. The article concludes that there was no linear positive connection between the duration of a master craftsman's career and his wealth and social position.

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