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The Status of Women: Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Demographic Studies
The Status of Women:
Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Demographic Studies
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3cab/af6c874f8c28548bc86b493fd922a2a2b909.pdf
The Status
of Women: Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Demographic Studies
Karen
Oppenheim Mason University of Michigan
This paper
explores several conceptual problems in social demo- graphic studies of the
status of women, including failure to rec- ognize the multidimensionality of
women's status and its variation across social "locations," the
confounding of gender and class stratification systems, and the confounding of
access to resources with their control. Also discussed are some generic
problems in the measurement of female status, such as the sensitivity of par-
ticular indicators to social context, and the need to select consis- tent
comparisons when judging the extent of gender inequality."
INTRODUCTION
This article
aims to clarify the much-used but ill-defined term, "status of
women," and to discuss some problems inherent in its measure- ment in
demographic and other quantitative, macrosociological studies. As has been true
in many academic disciplines, in demography the sub- ject of women's status
was, until recently, viewed as a "special" topic rather than one
central to mainstream theories of demographic change. Although demographic
researchers sometimes mentioned women's roles and status (e.g., Ridley, 1968),
many statements about the determinants of fertility and mortality ignored these
variables. This peripheral intel- lectual status no doubt in part reflected the
functionalist and famitistic cast of traditional demographic transition theory.
As outlined by Coale (1973) and others, traditional demographic transition
theol T tended to focus on the interests and constraints of family units rather
than those of the individuals within them. Although demographic transition
theory recognized that women's labor force participation might motivate cou-
• This work
was supported by the Population Sciences Division of the Rockefeller Foun-
dation, who published an earlier version in a working paper entitled "The
Status of Women: A Review of Its Relationships to Fertility and
Mortality." I thank the reviewers for their excellent advice, Mary Claire
Toomey for word processing, and Kathleen Duke for pre- paring the figure.
© 1986 by
The Eastern Sociological Society. All rights reserved. 0884-8971/86/0102-0284
$1.50
284 SF
Volume 1 Number 2
Status of
Women
pies to
limit fertility, this effect was based on the implications of wom- en's work
for the family's budget, rather than on its implications for women's freedom
from the control of male family members. Even some recent theories of fertility
behavior (e.g., the New Home Economics approach) share the assumption that
husbands and wives reach deci- sions without conflict and that the wife's
gainful employment is a com- ponent of the family's budget rather than a
determinant of her domestic power. Of course, not all past demographers ignored
the topic of women's status. Beginning in the 1960s, a small group (e.g.,
Blake, 1965; Ridley, 1968; Dixon, 1975; Germain, 1975) argued that the status
of women has important demographic implications. Only in the last five years,
however, has this idea entered the mainstream of demographic thought.
Currently, the status of women--or some related aspect of gender in-
equality--plays an important role in Caldwell's (1982) theory of wealth flows,
in Cain's (1982) ideas about risk insurance and the fertility tran- sition, and
in the work of Dyson and Moore (1983), Safilios-Rothschild (1980, 1982) and
others. Although the status of women has not become the central variable in
most theories of the fertility transition, it has at least entered the
mainstream of social demography.
DEFINITIONS
OF THE STATUS OF WOMEN
Despite
increased attention to the concept of female status, the meaning of this
concept has remained unclear, and alternative defini- tions and terms have
proliferated. Among the terms used in the social demographic literature are not
only "status of women" (e.g., Dixon, 1978), but also "female
autonomy" (Dyson and Moore, 1983), "patriarchy" (Cain et al.,
1979), "rigidity of the sex stratification system" (Safilios-Roth-
schild, 1980), "women's rights" (Dixon, 1975) and "men's
situational advantage" (Caldwell, 1981). All these terms refer, in part,
to some as- pect of gender inequality. Beyond this common focus on gender in-
equality, however, there are great variations in definitions of "female
status" and related terms. Some authors (e.g., Epstein, 1982) focus on
women's prestige, that is, on the respect or esteem (or lack thereof) that is
accorded to women by virtue of their gender (rather than for some other reason,
such as the social standing of their family). Other authors (e.g., Dyson and
Moore, 1983) focus on women's power or free- dom from control by others,
especially within the family or household. For example, Cain et al. (1979:406)
define "patriarchy" as "a set of so- cial relations with a
material base that enables men to dominate women • . . patriarchy describes a
distribution of power and resources within families such that men maintain
power and control of resources, and women are powerless and dependent on
men."
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Finally, as
the quotation from Cain et al. suggests, many students of female status also
focus on women's control of resources, either ma- terial or nonmaterial. Thus,
Dixon (1978:6), after noting that the status of women is "an elusive
concept," defines it as "the degree of women's access to (and control
over) material resources (including food, in- come, land, and other forms of
wealth) and to social resources (includ- ing knowledge, power, and prestige)
within the family, in the com- munity, and in the society at large."
Safilios-Rothschild (1980) also emphasizes the control of resources. Despite
the bewildering variety of specific terms and definitions, certain common
threads can be seen. Most terms and definitions refer at least in part to
gender inequality; most also focus on one of three basic dimensions of gender
inequality, (1) prestige, (2) power, or (3) access to or control over
resources. Unfortunately, recognizing this does not clar@ all confusion about
the meaning of female status or gender inequality. As Dixon notes, the concept
remains elusive.
SOURCES OF
CONFUSION ABOUT THE MEANING OF THE STATUS OF WOMEN
There are
good reasons for the confusion that surrounds the con- cept of female status.
Two general sources are: (1) the inherent com- plexity of gender inequality, in
particular, the fact that the sexes typi- cally are unequal on more than one
dimension and in more than one social situation; and (2) a weak grasp of
stratification theory by some writers that has led to a confounding of class
and gender stratification and to confusion between access to resources and
control of them) I discuss each of these problems in turn.
Multidimensionality
There is
more than one dimension on which it is theoretically possible for the sexes to
be unequal. Several discussions of female status imply, however, that although
the status of women may be conceptually divisible into separate dimensions, it
is empirically a single dimension (e.g., Safilios-Rothschild, 1980). In other
words, the correlations be- tween different dimensions of gender inequality may
be so strong that it makes sense to talk about "the" status of women.
Similarly, there are many different kinds of resources that either men or women
can con-
i Also to
blame for the confusion surrounding the status of women is a third factor that
will be ignored here. This is the disagreement about stratification systems
endemic in the field of sociology, especially the disagreement between the
Marxist and functionalist tra- ditions.
286
Status of
Women
trol, hence
many possible sources of male-female power differences. In particular historical
situations, however, the control of certain resources (e.g., productive
resources such as land and draft animals) may give those who control them so
much power that they are able to gain con- trol of all other resources.
Fortunately, the question of whether there is any such thing as "the"
status of women has already been studied systematically. Probably the most
exhaustive study was conducted by Whyte (1978), who ex- amined a sample of
ninety-three preindustrial cultures found in the Hu- man Relations Area File.
Whyte returned to the original ethnographic sources and coded each culture on
several dozen possible indicators of female status. He then took the fifty-two
most promising indicators and correlated them across the ninety-three cultures,
performing a cluster analysis in order to ascertain whether more than one
cluster existed. The result was nine significant and distinct clusters. In
other words, societies in which women were powerless or of low status in one
area did not necessarily show women to be powerless or of low status in other
areas. Whyte thus concluded that there is no such thing as "the"
status of women. Gender inequality is empirically as well as concep- tually a
multidimensional phenomenon. Whyte's results also fit with impressionistic
evidence about the position of women in different societies. For example, the
historical lit- erature on the rise of the cult of domesticity in early
nineteenth century America (e.g,, Smith, 1973; Degler, 1980) suggests that the
creation of an ideology of separate spheres may have increased women's economic
dependency on their husbands at the same time that it increased their prestige
and domestic authority by giving them an area of competency and
expertise--namely, childrearing and the moral upkeep of the fam- ily-that they
formerly lacked. A similar picture of gender inequality varying across
dimensions emerges in descriptions of West African women, who are sometimes
cited as being unusual for their economic indepen- dence, but who do not appear
to have prestige or legal rights markedly superior to those of African women
not engaged in independent eco- nomic activities (Ware, 1977;
Safflios-Rothschild, 1980). 2 Failure to recognize that women's power, prestige
and wealth do not necessarily rise and fall together may explain several
controversies
2 Also
consistent with the view that the status of women is multidimensional is
Oppong's (1983) framework for analyzing women's roles and fertility. Oppong
suggests that women in developing countries typically enact seven basic roles
(maternal, conjugal, domestic, kin, occupational, community and individual),
the relative satisfactions and resources ac- cluing to them via each of these
roles potentially affecting their fertility. Although Oppong focuses on roles,
rather than on dimensions of gender inequality, her assertion that women enact
multiple roles with varying satisfactions and resources available from each
role-- reinforces the point that gender inequality is multidimensional.
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in the
literature. For example, whether the institution of purdah (female seclusion)
enhances or detracts from women's status has been much debated. Many scholars
have argued that seclusion lowers women's sta- tus by depriving them of
opportunities to engage in income-generating activities (e.g., Youssef, 1982;
Cain et al., 1979). Others, however, (Dixon, 1978; Epstein, 1982;
Safilios-Rothschild, 1980) argue that
the
often-discussed, so-called "greater freedom" of poor Muslim women in
being able to avoid seclusion and to work represents nothing more than the
husband's (and the entire family's) decision that her contributions are needed
so that the social status attached to "purdah" has to be sacrificed
(Safilios-Rothschild, 1980:193).
There are
several possible explanations for these diametrically opposed views, some of
which are discussed below. Relevant here, however, is the difference between
purdah's effects on prestige (which are said by some authors to be positive)
and its effects on power or resources (ar- gued by Youssef and others to be
negative). 3 Although gender inequality is a multidimensional phenomenon, in
models of fertility or mortality determination only one aspect of gen- der
inequality may turn out to be important. This is in fact the view implicit in
several approaches to the demographic transition, including Caldwell's (1979,
1981, 1983), Cain's (1982; Cain et al. 1979), Les- thaeghe's (1980), and Dyson
and Moore's (1983). In this view (illus- trated in Figure 1 ), three central
assumptions are made. First, the extent of men's control over women within the
household is assumed to be the immediate determinant of demographic phenomena.
The household is the primary locus where decisions affecting fertility and
mortality are made, and in most agrarian societies, the household is where
resources are generated and redistributed, hence, where individual "life
chances" are determined. Second, the control of women by male household
members is it- self assumed to reflect the sexes' relative control of material
and social resources. The sexes' relative control of resources is in turn
assumed to reflect extra-familial economic and kinship institutions, especially
norms determining the sexual division of labor and the patterns of exchange
associated with marriage and death. Third, this view treats prestige as
epiphenomenal (e.g., Dyson and
3 Whether
the prestige that accompanies the seclusion of women devolves primarily upon
the woman herself or instead upon her family is not entirely clear. If it is
families who benefit from women's seclusion rather than women per se, then
Youssef and others may be correct in emphasizing that greater gender inequality
accompanies purdah. This is one of several examples of possible confusion
between class or caste status and gender status to be found in the literature.
This problem is discussed below.
288
tx0 Q0
The Prestige
of Males vs. Females
Economic and
~aStDe~ PMe~de;M" Ye ~ of Kin-Relat¢i n Kinship Institutions in the
Community and Society ~Females/Women's Autonomy from MaleFcT~y 1 Member's
Women's vs.
Men's Control Over Critical Resources (Material and Social) FIGURE 1. A Causal
Model of Women's Dependency on Kin-Related Men Implicit in the Writings of Cain
(1982), Caldwell (1982), Dy- son and Moore (1983) and Others.
Fertility
and Mortality Determinants
Sociological
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Moore,
1983). Prestige may be influenced by the material inequality of the sexes and
may in turn reinforce this inequality, but it is not regarded as an important
cause of either material or domestic inequality. 4 This view thus provides a
coherent model of how the different dimensions of gender inequality are related
to each other and in turn influence fertility and mortality. While it does not
deny the existence of different dimensions of gender inequality, it argues for
a rank-order- ing among them as determinants of fertility and mortality.
Although dais approach has considerable appeal, whether it is supported
empirically- remains to be determined. Contrary to w-hat this model argues,
kinship institutions may be only weakly linked to gender inequality in the con-
trol of material resources; control of these resources may be only weakly
linked to the extent of women's autonomy within the household; and women's
household autonomy may be only weakly linked with fertility or mortality.
Studies that estimate the strength of the links shown in Figure i would be
useful.
Multiple
Locations
The concept
of female status is complex not only because gender inequality is
multidimensional, but also because it occurs in more than one social
"location." Gender inequality can vary across the units of social
organization in which the sexes interact, such as the household, the
neighborhood, the community, or the voluntary association. Just as women's
power, prestige or wealth may be weakly intercorrelated, so, too, their power
or prestige in the household may be weakly related to their power or prestige
in the community. Indeed, the ethnographic literature suggests that women who
have little say in community or national organizations often have more say in
the neighborhood or kin network, and even more say within the household (although
there are societies where women's power and prestige are low in all spheres).
This suggests that it may make sense to talk about "the" status of
women only if a particular type of social unit is specified. Another type of
social location across which the degree of gender inequality may vary is the
life cycle. As has been frequently noted, es- pecially with regard to Asian
cultures, the position of the new bride in family politics tends to be quite
different from the position of her mother- in-law, the new bride typically
being powerless, while her mother-in- law exercises considerable domestic
control over other women and children. To be sure, whether the mother-in-law's
power is "real" is
4 As will be
obvious to many readers, this model follows Marxian rather than functionalist
assumptions. It thus deviates fundamentally from the traditional model of the
demographic transition, which is basically functionalist in character (see
Lesthacghe, 1980).
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Status of
Women
controversial
(e.g., Safilios-Rothschild, 1982 vs. Caldwell, 1981). 5 Re- gardless of the
extent to which older women's domestic power derives from delegation, however,
it appears to be greater than the new bride's. It may thus be necessary to
distinguish women's power according to life cycle stage--or to distinguish
social systems in which women have equally little power throughout the life
span from those in which they gain power as they age.
The
Confounding of Gender and Class
Most
sociologists recognize that complex societies are typically structured by at
least two independent systems of stratification (i.e., in- stitutionalized
systems of inequality). 6 These are (1) a gender stratifi- cation system, that
is, a system in which women and men are assigned distinct roles in the social
division of labor and in consequence control different kinds or amounts of
resources; and (2) a class or caste system, one in which households occupy
distinct positions in the social division of labor and in consequence enjoy
differential control over resources. 7 The coexistence of more than one
stratification system in a given so- ciety means that the socioeconomic
position of any individual reflects his or her position in each system. Thus, a
woman who is poor may be poor because she is a woman or because she is a member
of a lower- class household--or both. In much of the demographic literature
focused on the status of women, the distinction between gender and class
stratification has un- fortunately been ignored. Fertility or mortality has
been linked not to the extent of gender inequality and, separately, to class
position, but rather to women's net level of resources, regardless of whether
that level reflects their position in the gender stratification system or in
the class system. This confounding of gender and class stratification tends to
obfus- cate the forces that influence fertility or mortality. For example, con-
sider one important proximate determinant of mortality levels in Third World
countries, nutritional level. In most peasant cultures, the extent of the
family's land holdings--a basic mark of their class position has
That this
power is rarely exercised over men is taken by some authors to indicate that it
exists only so long as the men who delegate it continue to support the
mother-in-law's authority. 6 Most, perhaps all, societies also have a third
stratification system, namely, one based on age (see Riley et al., 1972). 7
Whether it is households or individuals who occupy- positions in the class
stratification system is in fact problematic, especially in industrial
societies where, by definition, most production is carried out by units other
than households. In most Third World countries, however, this is less
problematic: economic production in these countries remains cen- tered around
households.
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a strong
influence on the average nutritional level of household mem- bers. More land
typically means more food and hence better average nutrition. In cultures where
the gender system gives feeding priority to adult men, however, the nutritional
status of women and children in relatively well-off peasant families may remain
marginal because they are forced to consume what adult male family members
leave behind once they have eaten their fill (e.g., Katona-Apte, 1975; Chen et
al., 1981). In other words, in these cases, class interacts with gender in
determin- ing nutritional and mortality levels. The confounding of gender and
class stratification is also unfor- tunate because it tends to obscure the
appropriate level of analysis for studying the impact of gender inequality on
fertility or mortality. Rec- ognizing that women's net socioeconomic position
reflects their po- sition in two systems of stratification emphasizes the need
to study gen- der inequality at the group rather than individual level. While
systems of gender stratification may not be uniform within particular political
units such as nation-states, they can only be called systems insofar as they
are uniform for some aggregate. Understanding the impact of gen- der inequality
on fertility or mortality therefore requires an analysis that compares groups
differing in their gender stratification systems. When women's net
socioeconomic position becomes the focus, it is all too easy to think in terms
of comparing individual women rather than social aggregates. Yet analysis at
this level fails to make clear the impact of variation in gender inequality on
fertility and mortality. For this reason, it is preferable to maintain the
analytic distinction between gender and class position when studying the
determinants of fertility or mortality. In the remainder of this discussion, I
will use the term "status of women" to refer only to the position of
women in the gender strat- ification system; in other words, to refer to their
position relative to men's.
Access to
vs. Control of Resources
Another
problem in analysis of female status, fertility, and mortal- ity involves the
distinction between access to resources and the control of them. Merely having
access to resources, i.e., the right to use or con- sume them if those who
control them give their permission, is insuffi- cient to generate control over
one's environment. Control implies the ability to dispose of the resource while
access implies only the right to use or consume it with the permission of those
holding the right to dispose of it. This distinction is especially important
when studying gender sys- tems because the typical arrangement between the
sexes, especially in agrarian and early industrial societies, is for women to
trade control of
292
Status of
Women
resources
for access to them. In many Mediterranean, Asian, and Latin American countries
today the enforced economic dependency of women on male kin arises from a
system in which men control the household's resources but give women access to
them (though not necessarily as much as the men themselves have). To say that
women have "high sta- tus" because they have access to a high level
of resources can therefore be misleading. If the social system deprives them of
resource control, then their "status" is in fact likely to be low. In
the long run, men are likely to be better off and have more power than women
have. Unfortunately, many discussions of female status and fertility or
mortality have failed to heed the distinction between access and control and
have thereby contributed to the confusion surrounding the status of women.
Certain Third World social institutions, such as purdah (fe- male seclusion) or
the levitate (remarriage of widows to the husband's brother), are typically
viewed by feminist scholars as lowering women's status, but other scholars view
them as enhancing the position of women or at least not damaging it. For
example, Burch (1983:951) argues that in "male-dominated" West
African societies, the levirate "provides eco- nomic support and social
standing for a woman who otherwise might have no acceptable social role,"
even though her ability to determine whom she marries--or whether she remarries
at all--is clearly limited by this institution. What Burch seems to be saying
is that the levirate helps women by giving them access to needed resources
(including the status of wife). This obviously is not the same as arguing that
it gives them control of resources, i.e., helps to equalize their power with men's.
Arguments that purdah provides physical protection or prestige are sim- ilar.
They usually do not claim that women gain control of critical re- sources by
entering into seclusion, but rather that they gain access to resources via male
family members. Because control of resources ultimately- means the ability to
de- termine access, the relative resource control of women and men should be,
in the long run, more critical than is their relative access at any given point
in time. Studies concerned with the impact of women's status on demographic or
social phenomena would be wise to focus on resource control.
MEASURING
FEMALE STATUS EMPIRICALLY
Numerous
empirical indicators of female status have been used or suggested for use in
the demographic literature. Table 1 lists a sampling of the most commonly
mentioned of these. In the absence of a specific hypothesis or research
question about female status and fertility or mor- tality, specifying the
weaknesses or strengths of particular empirical
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measures is
difficult, although two recent United Nations documents have attempted to do
just that (United Nations, 1984a and 1984b). 8 Consequently, we focus here on
four general problems that are among the most common that the measurement of
female status entails.
The Problem
of Measuring a Poorly Defined Concept
The first of
these problems reflects the conceptual ambiguity that surrounds female status
and the failure of many authors to adopt a clear definition of the concept. For
example, Javillonar and her colleagues (1979:7-11) assert that four measurable
quantities indicate the status of women in developing countries: (1) the extent
to which there is early and universal female marriage, (2) the extent to which
husbands have the arbitrary right to divorce a wife, (3) the extent to which
mar- riages are arranged by the older generation, and, most important, they
say, (4) the extent to which women participate in the labor force. Be- cause
Javillonar et al. offer no definition of female status, however, the adequacy
of these four indicators is unclear.
The Problem
of Context Dependency
The second
problem in measuring female status arises because a given social practice or
legal right may enhance women's prestige or autonomy in one context, but have
the opposite effect in another. That is, combinations of circumstances, rather
than a society's value on a single variable, are often what determine the
extent of men's control over women or women's prestige compared to men's. Or,
put differ- ently, interaction effects tend to dominate main effects in the
deter- mination of gender inequality. Instances in which particular social
institutions have alternative meanings for gender inequality are rife. Take,
for example, the institu- tion of polygyny (multiple wives). Epstein (1982)
describes Bangladeshi wives as "dreading" the possibility" of
their husband taking a second wife, but says Ivory Coast wives tolerate or even
look forward to this pros- pect. In the Bangladeshi context, polygyny often means
that a husband transfers his affection and economic support from the old wife
to the new. In the Ivory Coast, however, where women are largely self-sup-
porting, the arrival of a second wife often permits a division of labor among
wives that increases each woman's ability to fulfill her economic and domestic
goals. Thus, the meaning of this institution depends on
Although
neither report attempts to define the status or situation of women in the ab-
stract, both present useful criticisms of existing social indicators on the
situation of women and data collection efforts; both also provide valuable
suggestions as to how to best use existing data and collect new data on women's
situation.
294
Status of
Women
TABLE 1.
Indicators of Female Status Commonly Used or Mentioned in the Social
Demographic Literature
Relationship
to Indicator of Female Status Female Status
DEMOGRAPHIC
INDICATORS
Female Minus
Male Mortality Rates Female Age at Marriage + Average Husband-Wife Age
Difference Parents' Preferences for Male Children
KINSHIP-FAMILY
INDICATORS
Purdah
(Female Seclusion) - (?) Levirate (Enforced Marriage of Widows to Husband's
Brother) - (?) Polygyny (Multiple Wives) ? Conjugal Family Households + (?)
Emphasis on Lineage - (?) Female Property Inheritance + Village Exogamy of
Females (Out-Marrying) Patrilocal Post-Marital Residence Dowry Arranged
Marriages Cross-Cousin Marriages + Emphasis on Virginity of Brides Pre- or
Post-Marital Sexual Double Standard Emphasis on Women's Sexuality, Youthfulness
Male Right to Divorce Wife Without Her Consent Egalitarianness of the
Husband-Wife Relationship + Male Feeding Priority Extended-Kin Support for
Widows and Divorcees +
ECONOMIC
INDICATORS
Female
Employment "Opportunities" + Female Labor Force Participation +
Exclusion of Women from Extra-Domestic Activities Concentration of Women vs Men
in Informal Economic Sector Occupational Segregation of the Sexes Sex
Differences in Wages or Earnings Sex Differences in the Amount of Leisure Time
Female Education + Female Underemployment or Unemployment Rates Women's Work
"Commitment" (Measured Variously) + Women's Access to Credit +
Women's Access to Non-Familial Supports +
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the extent
to which wives are economically independent of their hus- bands as well as on
cultural traditions about how husbands are to divide their attention and
support among wives. Among the most commonly used indicators of female status,
es- pecially in studies of fertility, are measures of women's labor-force par-
ticipation or extra-domestic participation in economic production. Al- though
it is widely believed that such participation enhances women's domestic
autonomy by giving them an independent source of income (e.g., Cain et al.,
1979), the effects depend heavily on social context. For example, according to
Cain et al. (1979), Indian women who par- ticipate in income-earning work seem
to have more domestic autonomy than secluded Bangladeshi wives have. However,
according to Jain 1970:46-47), overseas Indian women who work as wage laborers
on Mai~ ~zi rubber estates have very little domestic power, despite their
employment. Indeed, among these estate workers, the tradition of male dominance
is so strong that wives more or less automatically turn over all their wages to
the husband, thereby giving him control of the family's most important material
resource. ~lae fact of women's employment does not appear to increase their
autonomy. Another example of context dependency involves the combina- tion of
village exogamy, patrilocal post-marital residence, and the main- tenance of
the joint household which is said by several scholars (e.g., Dyson and Moore,
1983) to result in a loss of autonomy for women during the prime childbearing
years in settings such as North India and China. In these settings, it is
claimed, a newly-married woman enters a household of strangers where she is
powerless and without allies. Among the Ijaw of Nigeria, however, a similar
combination of village exogamy, patrilocal residence, and the non-nuclear
household has resulted in the creation of women's mutual aid associations that
have in turn given women considerable domestic and community autonomy (Leis,
1974). Thus, even conditions that are widely--and seemingly logically--thought
to undermine women's domestic power can, in some situations, have just the
opposite effect.
The Problem
of an Appropriate Comparison
Whether
gender inequality is small or large obviously depends on the standard being
used, that is, to what a given sex stratification system is being compared.
Variation in the comparison implicitly used by dif- ferent authors is yet
another reason for the controversy surrounding such social institutions as
purdah and the levirate. For example, when women in Moslem societies are
compared with women in Western Eu- ropean or North American societies, the
conclusion often is that purdah deprives women of autonomy. On the other hand,
when these same
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Status of
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women are
compared with women in highly patriarchal non-Moslem societies, the conclusion
often is the reverse: purdah does not deprive women of autonomy any more than a
number of other patriarchal in- stitutions do and may even provide women with
security or prestige. Depending on the point of comparison chosen, a given
measure of fe- male status can lead to different conclusions.
The Problem
of Measures with Multiple Meanings
The final
generic problem in measuring female status involves the multiple meanings of
certain widely available and frequently used in- dicators of female status,
such as educational attainment level. Because these indicators often tap
factors other than the status of women that are likely to influence fertility
or mortality, their use can produce results that are difficult to interpret.
For example, does a higher level of female education lead to lower fertility or
infant mortality because it gives women the resources to stand up to their
husbands or mothers-in-law? Or does it have this effect because it allows women
to learn about modern fer- tility control methods or effective health care?
Unfortunately, for many forms of research, variables that indicate more than
one underlying con- struct are often the only or the most reliably measured
indicators of female status available. This means that research on female
status and fertility or mortality often suffers from ambiguous measurement.
CONCLUSIONS
This brief
discussion of some of the complexities surrounding the definition and
measurement of the status of women should make clear that the phenomenon of
gender inequality is inherently complex. Men and women are typically unequal in
a number of important respects, and the nature or extent of their inequality
usually varies across these dimensions and according to social setting and life
cycle stage. For this reason, attempts to relate "the" status of
women to demographic or other social phenomena run the risk of seriously-
distorting reality. There is more than one aspect of female status, and each
aspect may" relate to fertility or mortality quite differently. Earlier comments
have already suggested strategies likely to im- prove the quality of work on
the status of women in relation to fertility or mortality. Some examples are:
maintaining the distinction between gender and class inequality; focusing on
women's vs. men's control of resources; being sensitive to the distinctive
interplay of variables in dif- ferent social contexts; and using a consistent
set of comparisons. Two additional strategies may help clarify the relationship
of gen- der inequality to demographic phenomena in future studies. The first is
297
Sociological
Forum
to avoid
using the term "status of women" and to speak instead in terms of
gender inequality, or better still, specific types of gender inequality (e.g.,
the extent of men's control over their wives). The term "status of
women," when used to refer to gender inequality (as it usually is) pre-
sents a regrettably distorted picture of social reality, since it treats men as
the reference point, and women as the "other" that deviates from this
reference. "Gender inequality" provides a more even-handed and accurate
description of the discrepancies in power, prestige and control of resources
between the sexes that exist in most human populations. Terms such as
"gender inequality" also are preferable because they avoid the
potential confusion between gender and class or caste stratification noted
earlier. "Status of women" can--indeed, probably should--refer to
differences among women in power, prestige or resources, rather than to
inequalit T between the sexes. The other strategy likely to improve our understanding
of gender inequality in relation to fertility or mortality is to relate such
inequality to specific demographic variables, and develop theories that make
clear why and how gender inequality causes or is caused by these variables.
Focusing on a specific question, such as how gender inequality influ- ences
female age at first marriage or infant and child mortality, is far more likely
to indicate which aspects of gender inequality, under which circumstances and
in which social settings, are likely to be important than is a general
discussion of the nature of gender inequality and its impact on demographic
behaviors. This is precisely what Blake (1972), Cain (1982), Caldwell (1982),
Dyson and Moore (1983) and others have attempted to do in recent years. Further
elaboration of their ideas is much needed, as are empirical tests. There can be
little question that gender inequality is potentially important for demographic
(and other social) phenomena. In a world where women bear children and shoulder
the major responsibility for rearing them, their autonomy from male control
during the prime child- bearing years, the respect they are accorded by virtue
of being women, and the types and amounts of resources they control, should be
critical for their motives and choices, hence, for reproductive patterns and
the determinants of mortality among infants, children and women. The de-
mographic transition has been described as a social revolution. It is high time
we gave full recognition to the role of women in this and other modern
revolutions.
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