Mead Cain

Class, Patriarchy, and Women's Work in Bangladesh

1976-1978 data from a rural district in Bangladesh are used to analyze the status of women in that country. The functioning social system of the country is a patriarchy which allows men to dominate women in all aspects of life. In the rural areas patriarchy combines with the economic class system to produce a rigid division of labor along sex lines a segregated labor market and a stratified system which places women at risk of abrupt declines in status. Kinship political and religious factors combine to subordinate women. The economic status of women is totally dependent on their husbands; when they lose their husbands they also lose their status. The patriarchal system seems to be in disequilibrium today in that normative male obligations towards women are being ignored while the system still imposes the female obligations within the system. An analysis of time spent at labor shows that men generally work outside the home while women work near the home. The nature of womens work is detailed. This sexual classification holds true across class lines. Different work patterns hours worked and authority relations are characteristic of each state in a womans life. Hierarachy between women is based on age young women being subservient to older women. Child care is only time intensive for women in the 1st years of the childs life. High fertility is a means for women to guarantee some sort of economic security for themselves.

Risk and insurance: perspectives on fertility and agrarian change in India and Bangladesh.

Relative to other approaches and emphases -- the value of childrens labor for example -- the potential importance of environmentally and socially determined risk as a source of derived demand for children in poor agrarian settings has been largely overlooked. Using frequency of distress sale of land as an indicator of the adequacy of insurance mechanisms this article compares sources of risk and means of insurance in rural Bangladesh (represented by the village of Char Gopalpur) and a semi arid area of south central India (represented by 2 villages in Maharashtra and 1 in Andhra Pradesh). While both regions are characterized by harsh environment of risk in the Indian setting efficient adjustment mechanisms have evolved -- particularly capital markets and public relief employment -- that have partially neutralized risk prefvented the distress sale of land and greatly reudced the need for the insurance that children could otherwise provide. No comparable mechanisms exist in the Bangladesh setting and thus the value of children remains high. It is suggested that regional differences in environments of risk and sources of insurance within South Asia may go far to explain regional differences in recent fertility trends. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

Perspectives on family and fertility in developing countries

Abstract Two aspects of the family in relation to fertility in developing countries are discussed: set stratification within the family and extended family networks. As both these are central to J. C. Caldwells theory of fertility transition, the paper is structured as a critique of his position. Drawing on examples and data from Asia, it is argued that the causal significance of sex stratification for fertility lies in the economic risks it imposes on women, deriving from their dependence on men, rather than, as Caldwell suggests, in the disproportionate gain that men derive from their dominant position within families. While Caldwell and others associate strong extended family networks of mutual obligation and support with persistent high fertility, it is argued here that such systems should, instead, facilitate fertility decline. Close-knit and strong kin networks can be viewed as alternatives to children as sources of insurance, and may facilitate fertility decline by preventing children from becoming the focal point of parental concerns for security.

On the Relationship Between Landholding and Fertility

One of the more consistent empirical findings of household survey-based fertility research in developing countries is the positive relationship between landholding and fertility. Despite some differences in interpretation, most analysts regard differentials in fertility by landholding status as reflecting purposive, optimizing reproductive behaviour based on differential demand for children and the psychic, social, and/or economic services they provide to parents. This paper presents a critique of the literature on landholding and fertility, and questions the logic of the standard interpretations. Rather than reflecting differences in demand and deliberate fertility control, the landholding-fertility relationship is, in many settings, more likely an unintentional by-product of behaviour such as temporary labour migration, whose incidence varies by landholding status, and which, through separation of spouses, may produce non-trivial differences in fertility. A case is made for more institutionally sensitiv...

The Consequences of Reproductive Failure: Dependence, Mobility, and Mortality among the Elderly of Rural South Asia

This paper examines the proposition that the economic mobility of persons in rural South Asia is affected by their reproductive outcomes: specifically, that reproductive failure (defined as the failure to rear a surviving son) entails material loss. Underlying this proposition is the notion that sons in this setting constitute an important source of insurance against the risk of income insufficiency in old age and in a variety of other contingencies. Analysis of data on living arrangements of the elderly in several rural South Asian communities and histories of asset gain and loss suggest that the consequences of reproductive failure include higher mortality risks and a high probability of property loss, that these consequences are more severe for women than for men, and are considerably more severe in rural Bangladesh than in the sampled areas of rural India.

The activities of the elderly in rural Bangladesh.

Despite a mounting interest in the elderly, and a rapidly expanding literature on the subject, there is a dearth of empirical research that can shed light on their condition. For Bangladesh and the rest of South Asia, the record is very thin. With the aid of observed and retrospective data on time-use from a sample of rural Bangladeshis, this paper seeks to help redress this situation by describing the role of the elderly in the household division of labour, management, and authority. The objective is to elaborate how labour-use and activity patterns change with advancing age, for men and women and rich and poor, and to explore the broader implications of such change. Concepts of work, retirement, and dependency are critically examined. The results of several labour surveys are used to estimate the limits that the physical effects of ageing place on the labour-force participation of the elderly.

Risk and fertility: a reply to Robinson.

This paper is a reply to a critique of a previous article by Mead Cain on the effects on fertility of economic risk such as is experienced in poor countries. The critique appears in the same issue as this reply. Fertility does not vary systematically because of the security motive in an area as poor as rural Bangladesh where even relatively prosperous households are in danger of material loss. The author finds Robinsons interpretation of the risk/fertility theory to be misrepresentative. Robinsons position: that high fertility persists in rural Bangladesh because children are costless is argued against by virtue of the fact that childrens costs are not in womens opportunity costs but rather the costs for food which are considerable in Bangladesh. It is not assumed that children protect families against the dangers of natural disasters or civil unrest but they are an investment of food resources in exchange for protection in the event of parents disability or widowhood and an opportunity to diversify income sources to diminish the likelihood of loss resulting from failure of 1 source. Landlessness and unemployment are not as high as Robinson has supposed and children do in fact contribute to family income from a young age by working. Furthermore there are few alternative insurance mechanisms (i.e. village alliances) that replace familial ties. The idea that the short time horizons of rural Bangladeshis would tend to make them very indisposed to make the large investment in children is argued since it is based on an incorrect calculation the effect of risk on discount rates. Finally Robinsons use of empirical exercises to test the Mead theory is questioned for some of its methods. It is affirmed in conclusion that children are an important source of security to parents but that the implications for fertility need to be made more clear.

The Rice Economies: Technology and Development in Asian Societies.

The rice-plant paths of technical development water control rice and the wider economy peasant, landlord and state - changes in relations of production. Appendices: the Western model the historical experience of China the Japanese experience.