Poverty

Question 1

Describe the social and multiple dimensions of poverty

(theory of social welfare)

Answer 1

• Chronic physical health condition ↔ Low earnings
  
  • Physical health condition prevents manual labourers from working
  • But manual labour jobs also cause poor physical health
• Poor mental health ↔ Low earnings
  
  • Poor mental health necessitates flexible working conditions which are difficult to come by
  • And the stress of being poor worsens mental health
• Children problems ↔ Low earnings
  
  • Eg: Single mothers unable to settle childcare arrangements cannot be free to job-hunt
  • Eg: But without having an income, they do not qualify for the universal working mother childcare subsidies + Being qualified only for inflexible shift-work creates new childcare gaps

Thus poverty is often chronic and cyclical

Question 2

What is the Gini Coefficient and how is it calculated?

What is Singapore’s Gini Coefficient and what are some limitations?

Answer 2

• Measures spread of household incomes across all households (income inequality: gap b/w top & bottom)
• Calculation:
  
  1. Organize households according to household income in ascending order
  2. Calculate how far Lorenz curve departs from perfect equality reference line – Area A / (Area A + B)
• In Singapore:
  
  • 2018: 0.412 before govt transfers, 0.354 after govt transfers
  • On the high end among OECD countries, but has decreased over last 10 years
  • But does not count wealth – may overestimate inequality since SG is asset rich, cash poor

Question 3

What are the advantages and disadvantages of monetary measures of poverty over capability and participatory measures of poverty?

Answer 3

• Advantages
  
  • More concrete and direct
  • Enable easier comparing across countries
• Disadvantages
  
  • May focus too narrowly on income maintenance while neglecting other aspects of living in poverty

Question 4

According to Feagin (1974), what are the causes of poverty?

Answer 4

1. Individualistic
   
   • Personal traits & deficits, skills, intelligence, inheritance
2. Situational
   
   • Catastrophic events, illness
3. Institutional (Unfavourable conditions → Lack of opps)
   
   • Discriminated as member of marginialized grp
   • Economic development + labour market structure
     
     • Do you possess the skills in demand for that particular era?
   • Globalization
     
     • Bid up wages of skilled workers
     • Depress wages of unskilled workers
   • Social stratification
     
     • The rich and powerful entrench their systemic advantages to shut out the bottom

Policy intervention depends on which views or set of factors dominate

Question 5

What does social work with poor families entail?

What are some important considerations for the social worker?

Answer 5

• Tasks:
  
  • Financial assistance and disbursement
  • Counselling and casework at FSCs for social assistance recipients referred from SSOs
  • Other assistance programmes (eg: @ homeless shelters)
• Important considerations:
  
  • Must address the interacting sources of stress within the family
  • Be careful not to unfairly individualize bad attitudes because you are interacting with clients at their most vulnerable
  • Help the family
    
    • Want to help themselves
    • See hope in their efforts
    • Address any individual or institutional barriers

Question 6

What are the principles of Singapore’s Social Safety Net, and what are the various schemes that fall under each principle?

Answer 6

1. Self-Reliance
   
   • Healthcare: Medisave, Medishield, Medifund
   • Housing: Highly subsidized public housing (appreciating asset)
   • Education: FAS for needy students, subsidised good education
2. Encouraging Individuals to Work / 3. Family as First Line of Support
   
   • Workfare Income Supplement : Redistributing income while preserving work ethic (always higher than PA to incentivize employment)
   • CPF: Savings plan for retirement, healthcare, home ownership, family protection, asset enhancement​​

​​4. Many Helping Hands

• Funding Support for VWOs (SG govt doesn’t like to give money directly to beneficiaries)
• ComCare: Final safety net for the low-income and needy

Question 7

What is Absolute Income Poverty?
Give some examples of this measure.

Answer 7

• A threshold cash income (predetermined by an authoritative body), below which one is deemed unable to afford a min SOL – deprived well-being
• Examples:
  
  • World Bank International Poverty Line / UN Extreme Poverty Line – $1.90 a day at 2011 PPP
  • USA “3X the cost of a minimum food diet in 1963, updated annually for inflation using the Consumer Price Index (CPI)”

Question 8

What are Participatory Measures of poverty?
What are its advantages and disadvantages?

Answer 8

• The community defines what its needs are; the poor are those who cannot meet these defined needs
• Advantage:
  
  • More likely to resonate with public as compared to expert-established measures
• Disadvantage:
  
  • Most subjective

Question 9

What are the principles of Singapore’s Social Safety Net, and how does the 2015 New Social Compact fit in with these principles?

Answer 9

1. Self-Reliance
   
   • Intervention in Education – LT investment to maximise potential of children from disadvantaged families
   • Support for Home Ownership – Esp for lower-income and young couples
2. Encouraging Individuals to Work
   
   • SkillsFuture For Everyone
3. Family as First Line of Support
4. Many Helping Hands
   
   • Redistribution fo Temper Life’s Inequalities – Workfare wage top-ups + Silver Support + Raising taxes for rich
   • Encouraging Community Support – Tax deductions for charitable donations
   • Providing Assurance in Old Age – Revising CPF scheme + PGP / MGP + Medishield Life

Question 10

What is Relative Income Poverty?
Give some examples of this measure.

Answer 10

• Poverty is a person’s economic and social position relative to others, which determines whether he is included or excluded from the activities / opps an average person enjoys
  
  • Considers both material lack and cultural & social lack
• Examples:
  
  • EU – 0.6 of median income
  • OECD – 0.5 of median income

Question 11

What is Singapore’s approach to measuring poverty, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?

Answer 11

• Approach:
  
  • Does not adopt an official poverty line
    
    • Prof Irene’s 2017 Estimates: 12% absolute poverty; 26% relative poverty
  • Apply diff thresholds for diff kinds of govt assistance, but still hesitant to recognize these families as poor
    
    • ComCare Short-to-Medium Term Assistance – $1900 / month
    • Public Rental Housing – $1500 / month
    • Low-Wage Worker – Gross monthly income below 20th percentile
• Advantages:
  
  • Prevents cliff effect for provision of welfare services
  • Avoid stigmatizing families with poverty label
• Disadvantages:
  
  • Cut off income levels are arbitrary + outdated quickly (eg: ComCare stated to target bottom 20%, but in 2016 $1900 was 5th percentile)
  • Less societal redistribution channelled to these families than is needed

Question 12

Why do Singaporeans tend to think that poverty does not exist, and what is a concerning about this?

Answer 12

• Visualize poverty as extreme deprivation (absolute measure), believing that relative or participatory measures of poverty are too high

But what kind of society are we if we assign 3rd-world living standards to the lower-income, thinking they should demand less and deserve less than what we expect for ourselves?

Question 13

What are Capability Measures of poverty?
Who created it and what did it inspire?

Answer 13

• Amartya Sen: Poverty does not have a fixed threshold; the poor are those who cannot generate sufficient income to function in their society
  
  • Resisted the identification of needs, insisting that needs are spatially and temporally specific
• Inspired other attempts to define “needs”
  
  • Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) reported by the UNDP
    
    • 10 indicators across 3 dimensions – health, education, living standard
    • Considered poor if deprived in more than 1/3 of these indicators

Question 14

What are some factors that may lead one to adopt individual rather than systemic attributions of poverty?

Answer 14

• Social circumstances
  
  • When the base of universalist services is very small, needs have to be mostly addressed through stigmatising selective services which scrutinise individual-deservedness
• Profile of participants
  
  • Ethnic majorities who may not have struggled as much
  • Successful ppl who may individualise their successes and unaware of systemic disadvantages
• Political situation
  
  • Whether govt of the day is more left or right leaning

Question 15

What are some intersecting complexities between individual and systemic causes of poverty?

Answer 15

• Being poor can be expensive – miss out on discounts or cashbacks
• Scarcity mindset – attention used up on what is intermediate so no resources to consider LT interests
• Tunnel vision – mind obsesses over what you cannot have

Thus poverty can be chronic and cyclical

Question 16

Describe Titmuss’ universalist-selective balance

(theory of social welfare)

Answer 16

• Both universalist (IR) and selective (residual) services are needed
  
  • Universalist: To provide a framework of shared values
  • Selective: Needs-based services to cater to those whose needs are the greatest (+ve discrimination)
• But need to consider the balance b/w both
  
  • Base of universalist services too large ➝ System expensive to maintain
  • Base of universalist services too small ➝ Heavy means-testing for individual deservedness ➝ Selective services become stigmatising to receive because it can imply conceding failure, esp in cultures that revere self-sufficiency & individual responsibility