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Name : Kiestiko Sri Saptasari

SN : 81325742 / M.2
Question 2 :
Entitlements access to, or availability f, resources such as Basic Human Needs, or land,
wages, or others differ widely even in poverty and among vulnerable people. Discuss how
the application of the entitlement concept could help us to understand and reduce poverty in
developing countries.

Midterm Assignment

Indonesia is an archipelagic nation having 77% maritime territory of the entire region.
With this geographic condition, government should give high consideration to the existence
of fishermen in this nation. Unfortunately, fishermens problem related to the low levels of
welfare is remaining to be an unsolved issue until now. Susilowati in Edy Yusuf (2011)
argues that fishermen are generally recognized to live under the poverty line because of the
relatively low productivity and income.
Poor was not always the opposite of rich, mentioned by Rahnema (1992, p.158), other
consideration such as lack of protection, exclusion from ones community, or infirmity
defined the poor. Furthermore, he also proposes four dimensions of poverty (1992, p.159-160)
which one of them is the materialities. The deprivation of materiality either of non-material
and existential kind or of a material nature could be noticed as poverty. Moreover, another
dimension of how the others view the poor is commonly happen in the society recently. One
person of groups is considered live in poverty compared to others condition. General
understanding that the fishermen living in poverty is probably be seen from their lack of
material assets such as boat, house, unstable income, or reserved capital compared to workers
from other sectors.
Recently, in the world of globalization, the market involve people to performing
casual and unregulated labor, working in cooperative arrangement, or pursuing what are
deemed illegal economic activities (McMichael, 210). This is what called as informal
economic activities without any legal regulations from the government. Fishermen are
grouped in informal economy because of their informal economic activities. Fishermen
without self-capital are highly dependent on informal banking system or moneylender such as
middleman, loan sharks, or pawnshop with higher interest rate than formal loan. This case is
also correlated with the opportunities of someone to achieve well-being precisely because of
the lack of economic means (Sen, 3). Fishermen are unable to achieve their well-being
because they do not have enough freedom to maximize their function. The cause of this
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condition is their low level of education, knowledge, and access that make them live in
poverty.
As mentioned above, fishermen are dependent on informal capital provider such as
middleman to support their fishing activities. Based on the agreement between them,
fishermen should sell their catches to middleman not directly to the market. It means
fishermen do not have any bargaining position, so called as exchange entitlement (Sen, 145),
to increase the price of fish to the middleman. In the end, fishermen with high risk and
dangerous job only get the smallest portion of profit from their catches. This small income is
also not a regular one since when the fish production is low; they might not get any income.
Fishermen are not able to have another income-generated activities because most of them do
not have skill and knowledge in other areas except fishery. This lack of entitlement to wage
and job opportunity makes them vulnerable to poverty. Besides, their lack of access to formal
economic activities such as banking loan or have fish auction instead of middleman is also
one aspect for their poverty condition.
To sum up, the poor condition of fishermen is actually not because they do not have
enough material or goods, but since they are lack of entitlements and could not do anything to
get better option for their livelihood. Government have tried to implement the poverty
alleviation program for fishery community by giving training of making boat or net; however,
this program is not directly benefitted them. Learning from Sens entitlement theory,
government should give access to fishermen on how to reduce their dependency to informal
economic activities such as providing microcredit for fishermen to displace the informal loan
system.

References
Ranema, Majid. 1994. Poverty.From The Development Dictionary.Princeton University Press
McMichael, Philip. 2004. Develoment and Social Change. Pine Forge Press
Sen, Amartya. 1999. Coomodities and Capabilities, Chs. 1,2,3. Oxford University Press
Sen, Amartya. 1981. Poverty and Famines Ocford University Press. World Bank, 1999
Agunggunanto, Edy Yusuf. 2011. Analisis Kemiskinan dan Pendapatan Keluarga Nelayan
Kasus di Kecamatan Wedung Kabupaten Demak, Jawa Tengah. Indonesia. Jurnal
Dinamika Ekonomi Pembangunan, Vol. 1