Paper 2 - Work + Welfare + Poverty Flashcards
Absolute poverty
Can’t afford basic necessities - Food, warmth, and shelter
Rowntree (1899) List of essentials
He made a list of essentials needed for life and recorded how many families could afford them. The ones who couldn’t afford them were classed as being in poverty.
Criticisms of Rowntree (1899) List of essentials
Assumed that the cheapest options were always available.
The lists were done by experts and didn’t match the lifestyle the people he was researching had.
Bradshaw (1990) Budget standard measure of poverty
He studied spending patterns of the least wealthy and used those patterns to calculate an adequate budget. This was different from Rowntree because he studied what these people spent their money on and didn’t assume.
Relative poverty
Considers whether the individual is rich or poor in relation to other people in their society rather than absolute being where people can’t even buy essentials.
Townsend (1979) Relative Deprivation
Made an index of ‘60 things which are central to life in the UK’ these things were like social activities, having a fridge etc.
12 of these things were essential to living.
22.9% of the population of the UK is living in relative poverty.
Criticisms of Townsend (1979) Relative Deprivation
Piachaud argued that these were too subjective and culturally biased.
Wedderburn said that Townsend should’ve conducted research into the behaviour of people in society.
Mack and Lansley (1985) Measuring poverty
They used a survey to determine which items to include on their list of ‘perceived necessities’. They ended up with 12 items.
They then surveyed households to find out what they lacked, seeing if they had the item, wanted the item or couldn’t afford the item.
If the household lacked 3 or more items involuntarily they were classed as poor.
1983 - 14% were poor
2012 - 33% were poor
This can be due to things like cell phones being deemed as necessities now in modern day living.
Subjective poverty
How poor people feel. Their own evaluation of how much money they need to live a decent life, this is all based on their expectations.
Social exclusion
Based on more than not being able to afford things, can include not being able to participate fully in society, politically or not being able to access services.
Factors like age and disability can further contribute to this.
People can get trapped in a ‘spiral of disadvantage’ and limit their opportunities.
Wealth meaning
Value of possessions (houses, assets, land etc)
Income meaning
Personal funds people receive on a monthly or yearly basis, often from a job or benefits.
Recent changes in society have increased the gap between the rich + poor
Disposable income has grown steadily since the 1980’s. This shows a growth in economy and could be said to show that everyone is getting richer to an extent.
However, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer.
Some social groups are more likely to be poor than others
This is obvious, people in low-skilled, low paid jobs are more likely to have lower wages and less job security.
Unlike those in higher paid income jobs due to being a higher social class which led to them getting better qualifications.
Middle class people are generally more healthy than working class people so they can worker longer and get more money.
Income also seems to be related to ethnicity
Census data - White British and Indian people are much more likely to be in paid work than Bangladeshi, Pakistani + Black African people.
Racism + Discrimination are also thought to limit the opportunities of people from some ethnic groups. Also if English isn’t a first language then getting a high paying job in the UK might be hard.
Lone parent families are more likely to be poor
Raising a child is expensive, so families with children are more likely to be in poverty. So raising a child on one income will put even more strain and deeper into poverty.
41% of lone parent families live in relative poverty.
Women are slightly more likely to be poorer than men
This is because women are more likely to be a lone parent than men. Part-time working mums due to childcare.
Single female pensioners are more likely to get less than men.
Age can make people more likely to be poor
Children are more likely to live in low income families.
Disabled people are more likely to have low incomes too
Disabled adults are twice as likely as non-disabled adults to be in low income family due to them not working or being out of work.
They often face discrimination in the work force, making it harder to get a job in the first place.
Herbert Spencer - Early theories for poverty
Blamed the individual, he said the poor are poor because they had failed to do the best for themselves. He suggested they were lazy and immoral.
Oscar Lewis said culture was the cause of poverty
He thought that the values and norms and behaviours of the poor were different to the rest of society and these values get passed on to the next generation.
Individuals learn to be poor through the subculture of poverty they’re socialised into.
Criticisms of Oscar Lewis and culture being the cause of poverty
- Highly controversial and criticised from the start.
- Was proven that the poor wasn’t culturally different from the well-off.
Functionalists say unequal distribution of wealth is good for society
Functionalism says that some people are richer or poorer than others because society functions that way. There needs to be a way to allocate people into suitable roles and jobs.
Poverty makes sure that there are always people willing to do the dirty and manual jobs for the higher classes.
Marxists blame capitalists for inequalities in wealth and income
Capitalism thrives on inequality of income. If everything was split evenly then there wouldn’t be any profits for the capitalists. They need profit to keep their power in society. Exploitation is a key part of capitalism. The low paid high working jobs keep profits high.
