DISTRIBUTION OF POVERTY - KEY PEOPLE Flashcards
Kenway and Palmer
Found that poverty in minority ethnic groups is around double that of the White British population.
They also found significant differences between ethnic groups:
- Over half of Bangladeshis live in poverty
- Around 1 in 4 (¼) of Indians live in poverty.
Explanations for this are:
Low pay, Unemployment, Family type, Racism, Underachievement in education
Bertrand and Mullainathan
Applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names.
Hirsch 2006
Impact of child poverty on society:
- Educational underachievement more acute in children in poverty
- Health and psychological development of children is impacted by poverty
- Crime and deviance is more likely to be perpetrated by adults who were children in poverty
Hirsch’s explanations of child poverty
Lone parenthood, Lack of employment opportunities and lack of quality work available, Disability: around 1 in 4 children in poverty has at least one disabled parent, Inadequate benefit systems, Inadequate social policy to support working parents
Palmer 2006
Palmer showed that the poverty rate for disabled people is around double that of non-disabled adults.
Around 33% of disabled adults are living in poverty.
Around two-fifths are single adults without dependent children. Palmer notes that poverty levels and disability are linked with severity of condition.
Explanations for disability and poverty:
Inability to undertake paid employment, Unemployment, Employer discrimination: in recruitment and the workplace, Low pay, Inadequate welfare system
Dennis and Erdos
Argue that clear gender roles are really important to keep society functioning.
Shulamith Firestone
She believed that biology, specifically the requirement that women give birth to children, makes women physically weaker. Therefore, she felt that women must refuse to have children, having their wombs surgically removed if possible.
Friedrich Engels
Believed that the development of capitalism led to ‘the historical defeat of the female sex’, as inheritance was kept in the male line and women were required to stay at home, losing economic freedom.
Elias Zaretsky
Women are triply exploited:
As mothers, they reproduce a labour force who will be exploited
As wives, they are used as a source of unpaid labour, doing housework. This allows their husbands to be exploited at paid work.
As a reserve army of labour. This means that if the proletariat protest about their exploitation, they can easily be replaced by women.
Middleton et al 1997
In many low-income households it is mothers, rather than fathers, who bear the burden of trying to make ends meet.
- The sacrifices made by these women are:
- Going without food
- Going without new clothing
- Not doing activities or going on holidays
