Inequalities beyond the Gini: Subsistence, social structure, gender, and markets in southwestern Madagascar

Abstract

Abstract Development economists typically apply the same measures of inequality to the Global South as capitalist economies, such as Gini coefficients calculated over cash earnings (income) or asset value (wealth). Yet many rural peoples straddle the market economy of cash and wages and the nonmarket economy of gifts and obligations. We examine inequality in the context of Masikoro farmers, Mikea forager‐farmers, and Vezo marine fishers of rural southwestern Madagascar, using quantitative analyses (Gini scores) and qualitative ethnography (village case studies). Gini coefficients indicate greater inequality for cash income rather than total production, for cash income Gini scores confound income inequality with market dependency, and Gini coefficients indicate greater inequality over individuals rather than households, for the latter scale masks gendered inequality. Among farmers and fishers, inequality may occur due to monopolization of the means of production, but only if private property norms replace traditional redistributive and democratizing institutions. Inequality among Mikea foragers results from friction with nonforaging neighbors. Women may experience greater equality relative to men when the foraging ecology favors their subsistence contributions. Inequality varies in degree, form, and experience; economic inequality cannot be divorced from social and political inequality .