Intra-household gender inequality: hidden dimensions of poverty among Polish women

This paper challenges recent findings from quantitative studies of poverty in post-communist countries which deny the existence of gender differences in poverty in post 1989 Poland. The author uncovers hidden forms of the feminization of poverty by studying it from the micro-perspective of the family and the household. This perspective highlights gender differences in the division of labor, leisure time, as well as the fact that it is women’s primary responsibility to secure the basic needs of the family. This study presents strong evidence for a variety of ways in which men and women experience and endure poverty differently in an impoverished area in Poland, a fact which is associated with the role of culture, history and tradition in shaping gendered patterns of reaction towards poverty and hardship. The paper is based on the content analysis of in-depth interviews collected during a field research conducted within the project “Old and new forms of poverty in Poland” (1997–1998) and “Poverty, Ethnicity, and Gender inTransitional Societies (1999–2000).¹     

Marriage relationships among households in the mid 19th century Tama,Japan

This paper studies the formation of marriage relationships between households in 19th century, Tama, Japan. Previous studies on marriage market or partner selection in the Japanese past tended to rely either on information from a single village in case of statistical analysis, or on collection of oral histories. By using the information from a household register that covers 35 villages, and applying a method of social network analysis, this paper goes beyond the limitation of previous studies. Our empirical results show that there was a tendency for socioeconomic homogamy and endogamy (within kinship and within village) among peasants in the mid 19th century Tama, Japan.     

Comparing village characteristics derived from rapid appraisals and household surveys: A tale from northern Mali.

This paper investigates whether inferences drawn about a population are sensitive to the manner by which those data are obtained. It compares information obtained using participatory appraisal techniques with a survey of households randomly drawn from a locally administered census that had been carefully revised. The community map tends to include households that do not, in fact, reside in the enumerated locality. By contrast, the revised official census is slightly more likely to exclude households who actually lived in the surveyed area. Controlling for the survey technique, we find that the revised official census produces higher estimates of average household size and wealth but lower estimates of total village size or wealth, than the community map. Pairwise comparison of the survey techniques, holding the households constant, shows that the community map leads, on average, to higher estimates of household size and lower estimates of wealth.     

试论大学毕业生人户分离问题

高校扩招以来,每年的大学毕业生数量大规模增长,造成大学毕业生人户分离现象十分突出。解决大学毕业生人户分离问题的途径主要有:打破大学毕业生就业户籍限制;放宽大学毕业生就业户籍迁移条件;实现大学毕业生就业户籍联网办理等。     

我国户籍制度的宪法学批判——兼议社会主义新农村建设的制度环境

我国户籍制度初衷良好,但在演进过程中其功能却被人为的异化了,它侵害农民的宪法权益,违背平等、自由、公正的宪法理念,是“三农”问题的制度根源,是社会主义新农村建设的制度障碍。应当站在宪政的高度对其进行改革:逐步剥离户籍的身份含义、福利含义,还原户籍“人口统计、社会治安、制定国策依据”的原初功能,按照国际惯例,建立全国统一的、以身份证管理为主的一元户籍制度;必须有一系列相关的配套改革措施,来保证各种人为障碍的消除,并适当丰富和规范社会利益分配的标准。     

试论新生代农民工阶层的社会流动问题

农民工阶层的产生是其户籍身份与职业身份相糅合的产物,新生代农民工随着代际传递沿袭其父辈的身份出现。在中国城镇化浪潮的趋势下,从教育程度、职业与收入、户籍变动方面,表现出其在竞争的马太效应下呈现的阶层流动固化的倾向。职业结构、教育程度水平相对较低,农民工生产体制的存在是其中的主要因素。从加强职业教育增强后致性因素力量、完善基本社会保障、改革户籍制度等方面入手,可保证庞大的新生代农民工群体在城镇化过程中有序流动。     

Planting families: Intent and outcome in the development of colonial Georgia

This article examines the evolution of a plantation society in the British American colony of Georgia. It explores the original intentions of founders and settlers, and how those intentions were discarded or adapted in the face of a volatile demographic environment. It uses information from land grant applications to describe the make-up of late colonial families, and locates the experiences of the Georgia population within the broader context of Atlantic population history. In particular, it argues that familial instability initially catalysed the emergence of a plantation system. The “family” was later accorded real significance in plantation Georgia only when it became serviceable to provincial elites, though it remained important as an organising unit beyond the plantation world, and as a source of shared aspirations.     

Women in campaigns 1550–1850 household and homosociality in the Swedish army

The article presents the main results from my study of social conditions in the Swedish Army between 1550 and 1850. The focus is on women's involvement and importance in the military. The most strikingly result is that women for a long time played a more crucial role in the Army than many people are unaware of. As a consequence, the unisexual, masculine, compulsory, military service which existed during most of the 20th century can be treated as an historical parenthesis. Nowadays women are permitted to serve in the military as soldiers, in older times women fulfilled their military duties as soldiers' wives. In a long-time perspective, the military role of women has shifted from wife to professional: the article explores this process. Soldiers on campaigns in the 17th century built households and had families, regardless of wartime or peacetime, and their households were also a natural part of the military, simultaneous with a strong male bonding principle, homosociality. Although conflicts existed between the two principles of organization, household and homosociality, they operated together at any rate until the beginning of the 19th century. The article illustrates how this cooperation worked, but also how the rise and fall of the household system in the military may be explained. Military thought, growth of state authority, a professionalization process and changed cultural norms were crucial. However, I want to emphasize the social practice of gender relations as a promoter of change: how norms and measures connected with marriage affected the military.     

Household-level predictors of the presence of servants in Northern Orkney,Scotland, 1851–1901

Servants were an important part of the northwestern European household economy in the preindustrial past. This study examines household-level characteristics that are predictive of the presence of rural servants using data from Orkney, Scotland. The number of servants present in a household is related to household composition, landholding size, and the marital status of the household head. In addition, the sex of the particular servant hired reveals that the labor of male and female servants is not fungible. The sex of the servant hired is related to the ratio of male and female household members of working age, the occupation of the head, household composition, and the size of the household's landholding.