This paper applies a feminist analysis to the measurement of living standards during the 1970s. It suggests that widely made assumptions of homogeneous pooling and redistribution of income, labor, and expenditures within families mask inequalities and uneven changes in the living standards of wage-working husbands and wives. Two waves of the Panel Study of Income dynamics are used to create two rough indicators, that is, reproduction pay and surplus, to test for inequalities and uneven changes in 1968 and again in 1979. In general, the findings show differential living standards between husbands and wives when assumptions of homogeneous pooling and redistribution are not made. The paper concludes that the suggested rough indicators are useful for the measurement of living standards.

The central problem of the thesis is the retardation of regional growth. The economy of New Brunswick has provided a case in point for over a hundred years. That is to say, real per capita income within the province has tended to lag behind that achieved in competing regions. This competition has been viewed primarily as a scramble for factors of production. The winners were those areas which attracted factors from lagging sectors whenever income differentials became significant. The losers, in turn, could find in such an exodus a major reason why retardation developed cumulative tendencies.