DEPENDENCY THEORYpolitical economic variants have been widely adopt-
ed in examinations of many types of social prob-
lems. Blauner’s (1970) analysis of American racial
problems is illustrative of one such application. So
too is Marshall’s (1985) investigation of patterns of
industrialization, investment debt, and export de-
pendency on the status of women in sixty less-
developed countries. While she was unable to
draw firm conclusions relative to dependency per
se, Marshall did assert that with thoughtful specifi-
cation, gender patterns in employment and educa-
tion may be found to be associated with dependen-
cy-based economic change. In a manner similar to
Blauner, Townsend (1981) spoke of ‘‘the struc-
tured dependency of the elderly’’ as a consequence
of economic utility in advanced industrial socie-
ties. Many analysts have advocated the use of
dependency-driven approaches to examine vari-
ous consequences of dependency and develop-
ment such as fertility, mortality, differential life
expectancy, health patterns, and education (Hen-
dricks 1982, 1995; Neysmith and Edwardth 1984;
London 1988; Ward 1990; Lena and London 1993;
Shen and Williamson 1997). Such a perspective
casts the situation of the elderly as a consequence
of shifts in economic relationships and state poli-
cies designed to provide for their needs. For exam-
ple, Neysmith (1991) maintained that as debts are
refinanced to retain foreign capital, domestic poli-
cies are rewritten in such a way as to disenfranchise
vulnerable populations within those countries in
favor of debt service. To support her point,
Neysmith cites a United Nations finding that hu-
man development programs tend to benefit males,
households in urban areas, and middle- or higher-
income people, while relatively fewer are targeted
at women, rural residents, or low-income persons
(United Nations Department of International Eco-
nomic and Social Affairs 1988). Interestingly, ac-
cording to a United Nations report issued two
decades ago, women account for approximately
half the world’s adult population, one-third of the
formal labor force, and two-thirds of all the record-
ed work hours, yet receive one-tenth of the earned
income (cited in Tiano 1988; Ward 1990). In an
examination of capital penetration in eighty-six
countries, Shen and Williamson (1997) suggest
that as penetration increases and sectorial ine-
qualities are exacerbated between tertiary and
informal labor markets vis-à-vis other sectors, there
is a degradation of women’s status in all economic
activities. At the same time, fertility rates remain
high partly because child labor provides an inte-
gral component of household income.Variation in the life experiences of
subpopulations is one of the enduring themes of
sociology. Despite wide disparities, a central focus
has been the interconnections of societal arrange-
ments and political, economic, and individual cir-
cumstances. It is through them that norms of
reciprocity and distributive justice are fostered
and shared. As contexts change, so too will norms
of what is appropriate. The linkage between politi-
cal and moral economies is nowhere more appar-
ent than in dependency theory as it facilitates our
understanding of the dynamic relationship be-
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