- absolute poverty
- the state where one is barely able, or unable, to afford basic necessities
- capital flight
- the movement (flight) of capital from one nation to another, via jobs and resources
- chattel slavery
- a form of slavery in which one person owns another
- core nations
- dominant capitalist countries
- debt accumulation
- the buildup of external debt, wherein countries borrow money from other nations to fund their expansion or growth goals
- debt bondage
- the act of people pledging themselves as servants in exchange for money for passage, and are subsequently paid too little to regain their freedom
- deindustrialization
- the loss of industrial production, usually to peripheral and semi-peripheral nations where the costs are lower
- dependency theory
- a theory which states that global inequity is due to the exploitation of peripheral and semi-peripheral nations by core nations
- first world
- a term from the Cold War era that is used to describe industrialized capitalist democracies
- fourth world
- a term that describes stigmatized minority groups who have no voice or representation on the world stage
- GINI coefficient
- a measure of income inequality between countries using a 100-point scale, in which 1 represents complete equality and 100 represents the highest possible inequality
- global feminization of poverty
- a pattern that occurs when women bear a disproportionate percentage of the burden of poverty
- global inequality
- the concentration of resources in core nations and in the hands of a wealthy minority
- global stratification
- the unequal distribution of resources between countries
- gross national income (GNI)
- the income of a nation calculated based on goods and services produced, plus income earned by citizens and corporations headquartered in that country
- modernization theory
- a theory that low-income countries can improve their global economic standing by industrialization of infrastructure and a shift in cultural attitudes towards work
- peripheral nations
- nations on the fringes of the global economy, dominated by core nations, with very little industrialization
- relative poverty
- the state of poverty where one is unable to live the lifestyle of the average person in the country
- second world
- a term from the Cold War era that describes nations with moderate economies and standards of living
- semi-peripheral nations
- in-between nations, not powerful enough to dictate policy but acting as a major source of raw materials and an expanding middle class marketplace
- subjective poverty
- a state of poverty composed of many dimensions, subjectively present when one’s actual income does not meet one’s expectations
- third world
- a term from the Cold War era that refers to poor, unindustrialized countries
- underground economy
- an unregulated economy of labor and goods that operates outside of governance, regulatory systems, or human protections