Households as Sites of Inequality

The household is the unit we live in. It may include our family or may not. Over time, as industrialization has occurred, the definition of family has shifted to the nuclear household. Poverty exists in the household as a unit shared equally by all members, but one member makes decisions for the households–for example, a male head in a patriarchal system. The “cooperative conflict model” says that we cooperate to a point, but that there is conflict also over the use of resources. This is because each person in the household has different levels of bargaining power, often a result of income earned, social norms, and assets owned. Joint decision-making occurs on a spectrum.