The economics of social subordination : gender relations and market failure in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

This thesis is concerned with the causes and consequences
of the market failure that is generated by the social
subordination of women in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
(PNG). It is argued that the development impasse in PNG,
noted by a number of observers, has its principle antecedents in the extreme economic and social discrimination facing women.

Gender based discrimination occurs within the context of
dualistic modes of social relations of production: (1) the
pre- incorporation social order, which was patriarchal; (2)
capitalist market exchange relations which followed the
widespread introduction of cash cropping. These two modes
combine to alter the price signals determined by the world
market, and domestic pricing policy, at an intrahousehold
level. That is individual incentives are not determined by
world markets but by household power structures, in
particular the pervasive nature of patriarchy; this
provides the basis for gendered market failure in the
Highlands of PNG.

Market failure in the Highlands takes the form of the
underallocation of labour and land to coffee production.
This is a direct result of the poor labour returns that
women receive; they receive around one-third of those of
men. Women's returns are so low that their labour returns
are higher in food production and they act as rational
economic beings and apply more of their labour to this
endeavour. Whilst behaving in a rational manner to the
incentives they face, this must necessarily reduce
household income levels because labour returns from food
production are much lower than those associated with cof fee
cultivation. Patriarchy creates an uneven pattern of
intrahousehold distribution of coffee income, which
generates perverse (non-efficient) individual incentives
which lead to market failure. Additionally, the
intrahousehold distribution of tasks is so uneven that many
households face a 'female' labour constraint, particularly
during the peak coffee harvesting period (flush). This
reduces the ability of the household to respond to changing
incentives, such as increased coffee prices. Poor economic
incentives for women and socially determined labour
constraints combine to create a vicious gendered circle of
underdevelopment in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.