Chapter 10

Question 1

culture of poverty

Answer 1

the argument that poor people adopt certain practices that differ from those of middle-class, “mainstream” society in order to adapt and survive in difficult economic circumstances

Question 2

underclass

Answer 2

the notion, building on the culture of poverty argument, that the poor not only are different from mainstream society in their inability to take advantage of what society has to offer, but also are increasingly deviant and even dangerous to the rest of us

Question 3

perverse incentives

Answer 3

reward structures that lead to suboptimal outcomes by stimulating counterproductive behavior; for example, welfare—to the extent that it discourages work efforts—is argued to have perverse incentives

Question 4

absolute poverty

Answer 4

the point at which a household’s income falls below the necessary level to purchase food to physically sustain its members

Question 5

relative poverty

Answer 5

a measurement of poverty based on a percentage of the median income in a given location

Question 6

parenting stress hypothesis

Answer 6

a paradigm in which low income, unstable employment, a lack of cultural resources, and a feeling of inferiority from social class comparisons exacerbate household stress levels; this stress, in turn, leads to detrimental parenting practices such as yelling and hitting, which are not conducive to healthy child development