Key Terms
Global stratification
The unequal distribution of resources between nations. Two dimensions: gaps between nations AND gaps within nations.
Functionalist
Focuses on why inequality exists and what purpose it serves. Example: core nations locating factories in peripheral nati
Conflict Theory
Focuses on how inequality is created and reproduced.
Example
Core nations exploit peripheral nations' workers who lack constitutional protections or minimum wage guarantees.
Symbolic Interactionism
Focuses on day-to-day lived experience of inequality. Key example: relative poverty (can't live at your country's averag
Capital Flight
Movement of jobs and resources from one nation to another; hollows out core nation middle class.
Deindustrialization
Loss of industrial production in a core nation as factories move to lower-cost countries.
Relative Poverty
Can afford necessities but cannot match society's average standard of living.
World Bank added two more thresholds
$3.20/day and $5.50/day, recognizing people above $1.90 are still severely vulnerable.
Subjective Poverty
Poverty as self-defined; based on gap between actual income and personal expectations.
MICROFINANCE NOTE
Microcredit programs have mixed results. They don't consistently alleviate poverty and can trap women in debt cycles or
Chattel Slavery
Ownership of one person by another as property.
Debt Bondage (Bonded Labor)
Workers pledge themselves as servants to pay off debts (travel, housing, food) but are paid too little to ever clear the
Human Trafficking
People moved from communities and forced to work against their will.
Other forms
Child domestic labor, child labor, servile marriage.