All You Need is Cable TV?

Iversen, Vegard; Palmer-Jones, Richard

doi:10.1080/00220388.2018.1506581

“…To take an example from another setting, Jensen and Oster (2009) find that exposure to cable TV results in a decrease in reported acceptability of domestic violence and in son preference and fertility, as well as an increase in women's autonomy. TV-based role models therefore seem an effective way to change norms and beliefs, particularly from prolonged exposure, but open questions remain about their adequacy for more marginalized communities, such as uneducated women (Iversen and Palmer-Jones 2018). The promise of using virtual role models to induce behaviour change has led to the development of specific video-based media with this goal in mind.…”

Section: Migration Technology Adoption and Experimentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Networks as Levers of Mobility

Mani¹,

Riley²

2021

Social Mobility in Developing Countries

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This chapter reviews the literature on pathways through which social networks may influence social mobility in developing countries. We find that social networks support members in tangible ways—via access to opportunities for migration, credit, trading relationships, information on jobs, and new technologies—as well as in intangible ways, such as shaping their beliefs, hopes, and aspirations, through role models and peers. Nevertheless, networks can disadvantage non-members, typically the poor and marginalized. Recent evidence suggests a range of policy tools that could help mitigate disadvantages faced by excluded groups: temporary incentives to encourage experimentation into new regions, occupations, or technologies, and role models—real and virtual—to mitigate psychosocial challenges faced by marginalized groups. Targeting large fractions of marginalized groups simultaneously could increase the effectiveness of such policies by leveraging the influence of existing social networks.

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“…To take an example from another setting, Jensen and Oster (2009) find that exposure to cable TV results in a decrease in reported acceptability of domestic violence and in son preference and fertility, as well as an increase in women's autonomy. TV-based role models therefore seem an effective way to change norms and beliefs, particularly from prolonged exposure, but open questions remain about their adequacy for more marginalized communities, such as uneducated women (Iversen and Palmer-Jones 2018). The promise of using virtual role models to induce behaviour change has led to the development of specific video-based media with this goal in mind.…”

Section: Migration Technology Adoption and Experimentationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Mobility in Developing Countries

2021

12

0

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Social mobility is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society. There are disagreements about what constitutes social mobility, but there is broad agreement that people should have roughly equal chances of success regardless of their economic status at birth. Concerns about rising inequality have engendered a renewed interest in social mobility—especially in the developing world. However, efforts to construct the databases and meet the standards required for conventional analyses of social mobility are at a preliminary stage and need to be complemented by innovative, conceptual, and methodological advances. If forms of mobility have slowed in the West, then we might be entering an age of rigid stratification with defined boundaries between the always-haves and the never-haves—which does not augur well for social stability. Social mobility research is ongoing, with substantive findings in different disciplines—typically with researchers in isolation from each other. A key contribution of this book is the pulling together of the emerging streams of knowledge. Generating policy-relevant knowledge is a principal concern. Three basic questions frame the study of diverse aspects of social mobility in the book. How to assess the extent of social mobility in a given development context when the datasets by conventional measurement techniques are unavailable? How to identify drivers and inhibitors of social mobility in particular developing country contexts? How to acquire the knowledge required to design interventions to raise social mobility, either by increasing upward mobility or by lowering downward mobility?

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