Poverty
Lisa
◦ 24 years old
◦ Lone mother of two (divorced w/ spurious
support from her ex-husband)
◦ Works at a call center and takes on extra
work as a cleaner
◦ Her mother takes care of her children
◦ She has plans to get a better job, move
to a better neighborhood, to lead a
healthier life
◦ Not dependent on welfare!
Lisa lives in UK, a welfare state
which ensures that everyone(??)
has enough money to pay for
their basic needs and no one is
forced to live in conditions of
absolute poverty.
Welfare states differ in
◦ the types of benefits they provide for
their citizens
◦ Underlying philosophies
Underlying philosophies
◦ Providing a ‘basic safety net’
◦ Wide range of services available ‘from cradle
to grave’
◦ Minimal welfarestate where benefits are
linked to commitment to work
Welfare provision differs from one country to
another, being more comprehensive in some
than in others.
Why do people living in some of the
richest countries in the world still
live in poverty?
Back to Lisa
Why is Lisa poor?
(individual/social)
◦ Her poverty and low position in
society are results of her natural
abilities or a consequence of her
personal upbringing
◦ She is not working hard enough to
overcome her difficult situation
◦ It’s all structural
How does sociology evaluate which
Carol Walker, 1994
◦ How do people living on income-support
(means-tested benefit for certain groups of
people who cannot work full time and do
not have enough money to live on)
organize their lives?
◦ Is living on welfare an easy option?
Deterioration in living standards (unemployed
living on welfare)
Life is a struggle; just getting by
Food can be cut back when money is short
Result of a traumatic event in life (loss of
job/partner/health)
Living on social assistance is not an option
most people would choose if they were
offered a genuine alternative.
OECD 2000 Report
◦ Along with Italy, Spain, Portugal and
the USA, the UK had one of the worst
child poverty records in the
developed world.
◦ Child poverty rate > 15%
◦ Turkey, 21%
What is poverty?
Absolute poverty
◦ Idea of subsistence, the basic conditions that
must be met in order to sustain a physically
healthy existence
◦ People who lack these fundamental
requirements such as
Sufficient food
Shelter
Clothing
are said to live in poverty.
◦ Universally applicable concept
◦ Any individual anywhere in the world can be
said to live in poverty if they fall below the
universal standard.
Universal measure of absolute
poverty
Commonly used measure of absolute or
extreme poverty is the number of
people who live on less then $1 per day.
◦ 1.5 billion in 1981
◦ 1 billion in 2004
◦ More than 40% of population in sub-Saharan
Africa in 2004
Inequalitiesbetween vs inequalities
within countries
◦ Stark contrasts between developed and
developing countries.
◦ What if we compare the share of national
revenue that goes to the bottom fifth?
Relative poverty
It is not possible to identify a universal
standard of absolute poverty
◦ Many people in the developed world that are
in relative poverty will suffer more illness
and die earlier than wealthier social groups
◦ Needs differ between time and place,
‘culturally defined’
◦ Human needs are not identical, they differ
within and across societies (for example ??)
◦ As societies grow, standards for poverty are
continually revised upwards
◦ Relative poverty relates poverty to overall
standard of living that prevails in that
particular society
Even the definiton of absolute poverty is
relative (changed over time according to
available knowledge)
‘Poverty line’ to measure absolute poverty
◦ The price of basic goods needed for human
survival in a particular society
◦ Individuals or households whose income falls
below the poverty line are said to live in
poverty.
Single criterion of poverty is problematic
◦ Variation in human needs within and between
societies
◦ Some assessed as above poverty line when
their income does not meet their basic
subsistence needs
As societies develop, the
understanding of and standards
for relative poverty change and
are gradually adjusted upwards
as societies become more
affluent.
‘Theinvention of permanent
poverty’
Permanent Poverty
A condition of permanent material deprivation.
Poverty that is permanent has a stable pattern of
insufficient resources available for satisfying the needs
and wants of all the people of an area.
Different from the transitory and impermanent cyclical
poverty caused by nature or by human calamity. (Van
after the earthquake)
Permanent poverty is concentrated over a large area
among a large number of people who may have little else
except for their poverty in common.
Permanent poverty shared in groups may also be
transmitted from generation to generation.
This occurs as the result of patterns of behavior that are
nonproductive and often destructive in character. Even if
resources become available, they will be squandered
because of destructive cultural patterns.
Measuring Poverty
Useof deprivation index, not income statistics
Townsend’s twelve items – 22.9% of
population in poverty
◦ Related to social exclusion – denying full citizenship
to people in poverty
Mack and Lansley’s Breadline Britain used 22-
item index based on respondents’ own
definitions
Gordon’s Poverty and Social Exclusion was
partial replication of BB and showed that
number of households without key items had
grown
Income and living conditions
survey 2013, TUIK
http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/
PreHaberBultenleri.do?id=16083
Assesing poverty and related
factors in Turkey, 2007
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/
articles/PMC2205969/
Population living under poverty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List
_of_countries_by_percentage_of_
population_living_in_poverty
Who is poor?
Regional dimension – North-
South divide
Child poverty – more than
doubled in twenty years from
1979 from 14 to 34%
Female poverty – women account
for 58% of all adults in poverty
Ethnic minorities
(Pakistani/Bangladeshi) due to
high unemployment, low
employment rates, labour market
People in some social groups are
more likely to be poor than others
◦ Children
◦ Women (feminization of poverty)
◦ Ethnic minorities
◦ Older people
People who are disadvantaged or
discriminated against in other
aspects of life are more likely to be
in poverty.
Why are the poor poor?
Theories that see poor individuals as
responsible for their own poverty
Theories that view poverty as
(re)produced by structural forces in
society
Murray’s work on the dependency
culture – welfare state undermines
self-help and personal ambition
WJ Wilson – economic restructuring
hypothesis, jobs flee to the suburbs,
fall in numbers of marriageable men,
vicious cycle of disadvantage
Blame the victim
Blame the system
Poverty as an aspect of social
inequality.
Reduce structural inequality to
tackle poverty.
Social policy!
