Income Units

The Ethnographic Alternative to Standardization

Bibliographic Data

ID4121479
AuthorsGreenhalgh (0000-0002-2259-0123, corresponding author), Susan Greenhalgh (0000-0002-8812-2314)
Year1982
Volume8
Pages70
Publication date1982-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation and Development Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2808107
OpenAlexW2038039041
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited13

What are the appropriate units for measuring personal income? What difference does use of different units make in the level of income inequality? In response to the first question, the United Nations recommends an international standard recipient unit. This standard recipient unit is the coresidential household, the group of related or unrelated persons who live together and jointly supply basic living needs (UN, 1977: 26-27). While standardization of units is necessary to ensure comparability of income statistics, the validity of the procedure needs to be examined. The standardization approach rests on two assumptions: a behavioral assumption that the household is the effective unit of income acquisition in each society, and a theoretical assumption that there is a fundamental uniformity in kinship systems that justifies a universal definition of household or family. The behavioral assumption-that the household is the effective unit of income acquisition-is challenged by an abundance of ethnographic studies. Anthropological studies show great diversity in the ways that people provide living essentials, only some of which fit the criterion of living together embodied in the UN definition. More analytically, S. Kuznets has questioned the utility of the household unit for studying income behavior in the United States. One problem stems from the inclusion of unrelated individuals. Since the ideal income unit is the decision unit with respect to long-term income plans and goals of [the family's] (Kuznets, 1976: 16), Kuznets believes that the unit should be limited to family households, that is, households whose members are all related by blood, marriage, or adoption. A second problem involves the coresidence criterion. Noting the tendency of families to morsellize, or split into separate coresidential households, Kuznets argues that the household may not be an adequate unit because there are suprahousehold fa

Economics · Ethnography · Political science · Sociology · Standardization · Anthropology · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Income, Poverty, and Inequality · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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