ABSTRACT
Summary of chapter This chapter reviews a broad literature across disciplines on the relationship between culture and poverty, and makes a specific argument for why and how culture matters for poverty. In my reading, the argument is that cultural processes convey unequal ‘advantages’ to individuals that are persistent over time, and have large effects on economic opportunity available to individuals. Some of the theoretical and empirical examples offered in support of this argument are as follows. One, individuals can hold beliefs that some groups have better networks than others, which leads them to discriminate against members of marginalized groups when entering into productive contracts. Two, social customs can relegate individuals from specific groups to low productivity jobs, with costs for both employers and workers if they attempt to assign these individuals to other occupations not customized for their group. Third, internalizing the discriminatory features of the markets for economic opportunity, individuals belonging to the marginalized groups can under-invest in their own capacity because they expect low returns. The chapter also offers thoughts on how the distribution of advantages might become more equal over time, or how the advantage of the most marginalized group might increase sufficiently so that they can access the economic opportunities needed to move out of poverty. One form of change is endogenous – cultural identities can themselves shift, on their own through social mobilization or in response to changing economic and political conditions. In terms of the analytical tools of the examples above, it may be that the elite or the marginalized find it in their interest to undertake the collective action needed to move a group to higher productivity jobs. In another example, the marginalized may respond to new economic opportunities available and invest in their own capacity. Public policy, of course, is an important determinant of both absolute and relative levels of advantage, and the chapter devotes some time to discussing how policy design may be informed by cultural features of poverty. The range of policies that are argued to be consistent with the positive and normative cultural approach to poverty are provided in Table 10.4, with the matrix of rows and columns providing the broad characterization of types of policies, and the cells providing specific examples of each.
