Stable Inequalities in Transitional Societies

• In Event: 411 - Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 12. Politics and Inequality.

Abstract

In this paper, I critique the culture of poverty argument used by Ladany and Szelenyi (2006) to explain long-term poverty among Roma in the village of Csenyete. Borrowing from Oscar Lewis, they argue that this culture, in particular that a set of ideas and practices surrounding economic action, emerged as a rational response to the nearly impossible economic situation brought about by the loss of industrial jobs over the two decades following the 1989 transition. I argue that instead the loss of opportunity is a more useful way of explaining long-term unemployment in the region. Despite the perceived promise of the economic transition after 1989, economic opportunity did not increase in rural villages such as Csenyete, and long-term poverty is primarily a consequence of this rather than the attitudes or behaviors of those who remain.

Author

• Matthew R. McKeever, Haverford College