The Wealth and Poverty of African States Book contents
- The Wealth and Poverty of African States
- New Approaches to Economic and Social History
- The Wealth and Poverty of African States
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 A New Economic History for Africa?
- 2 Seeing Like an African State in the Twentieth Century
- 3 New Data and New Perspectives on Economic Growth in Africa
- 4 State Capacity across the Twentieth Century: Evidence from Taxation
- 5 Wages and Poverty: From Roots of Poverty to Trajectories of Living Standards
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendix to Chapter 3
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Wages and Poverty: From Roots of Poverty to Trajectories of Living Standards
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2022
- The Wealth and Poverty of African States
- New Approaches to Economic and Social History
- The Wealth and Poverty of African States
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 A New Economic History for Africa?
- 2 Seeing Like an African State in the Twentieth Century
- 3 New Data and New Perspectives on Economic Growth in Africa
- 4 State Capacity across the Twentieth Century: Evidence from Taxation
- 5 Wages and Poverty: From Roots of Poverty to Trajectories of Living Standards
- 6 Conclusion
- Appendix to Chapter 3
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
There is a long history of poverty in Africa. However, the most influential narrative of African poverty tells a story that takes place over a very short period of time. The history of Africa by numbers as told by the World Bank starts in the 1980s with the first Living Standards Measurement Surveys. The story is also a very narrow one. In general, there is a disconnect between the theoretical and historical underpinnings of how we understand and define poverty in Africa and how it has been quantified in practice. This chapter reviews how particular types of poverty knowledge have gained prominence and thus shaped the historical narrative of poverty in Africa. It summarizes recent work on living standards. New sources on real wages and evidence from anthropometric research allow perspectives on trends and relative levels in living standards back to the 1890s and until today. This raises the possibility that the narrative of African poverty that was born in the 1980s is a historical anomaly. Such a perspective may also offer a better perspective from which to reach a historical comparative verdict on the more recent “Africa rising” narrative.
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- The Wealth and Poverty of African StatesEconomic Growth, Living Standards and Taxation since the Late Nineteenth Century, pp. 132 - 143Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022