ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the hidden components of third-world economies and suggests their policy implications if permanent dualistic structures of poverty are to be avoided. It explores the more-accessible and routinely enumerated economic activities of women in the framework offered by I. Adelman and C. T. Morris, grouping countries according to the progression delineated by them: from traditional to dualistic to successfully modernizing societies. The political consciousness that must be developed before more equitable social policies can take shape depends on recognition of the resources, productivity, and needs of a hidden sector of society. The declining productivity of women in the subsistence sector has to do with disproportionately fewer and fewer resources being available to them. The partial, private, and voluntary nature of the within-family income transfers and the lack of alternative economic opportunities for women contributed to the crystallization of a lower social and political status for women in relation to men, both within families and in society generally.
