A New Insight into Urban Poverty: The Culture of Capability Poverty amongst Korean Immigrant Women in Los Angeles

HaeRan Shin
Additional contact information
HaeRan Shin: Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, 22 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0QB, UK, h.shin@ucl.ac.uk

Urban Studies, 2008, vol. 45, issue 4, 871-896

Abstract: This study analyses 'the culture of capability poverty' of 42 Korean immigrant women who live in Los Angeles to uncover the systemic road to gendered urban poverty. Through in-depth interviews, this research observes the interaction between sub-culture and capability in the subject's career domain, reinterpreting Lewis' culture of poverty thesis within Sen's capability approach. The subjects have developed their culture of capability poverty within that domain—such as low aspiration and heavy reliance on their Christianity—as a response to career-decision constraints including a strong woman's image, their childhood education and job market inequality. This paper concludes that, while their sub-culture is a positive life-strategy mechanism for dealing with their gender situation, it ultimately becomes lack of capability, poverty itself.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098007088472 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:45:y:2008:i:4:p:871-896

DOI: 10.1177/0042098007088472

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().