Nature And Extent Of Poverty Pt.1

Question 1

Social metrics commission

Answer 1

in the UK, The social metrics commission 2017/2018 estimated 14.8 million people are living in absolute poverty

Question 2

Joseph rowntree foundation statistics

Answer 2

• Over the last five years, poverty rates have risen for children and pensioners.

• Poverty rates are highest in London, the North of England, Midlands and Wales, and lowest in the South (excluding London), Scotland and Northern Ireland.

• Although growing employment and earnings have protected many working-age adults from rising poverty, in-work poverty has risen, because often people’s pay, hours, or both, are not enough. Around 56% of people in poverty are in a working family, compared with 39% 20 years ago.

• Nearly half of all individuals in poverty live in a household where someone is disabled.

Question 3

Townsend

Answer 3

Relative deprivation:
Townsend (1979) argued that individuals can be considered to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the activities and have the living conditions which are encouraged and approved in the society that they live.
This may lead to them being excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs or activities.

Question 4

Factors that link together

Answer 4

Homelessness and poor health

Poverty at school and family breakdown

Inadequate housing and poor personal health

Low income and poverty and work

Question 5

Evaluating relative poverty as a concept

Answer 5

Strengths:Evaluating the concept of relative poverty:

Recognises that poverty is a social construct - it is defined by what the normal standard of living is in that society

It recognises that the definition of poverty changes over time in the same society

It links poverty to wider issues of social exclusion

Weaknesses:

It is not an indicator of poverty more social inequality - relative poverty exists at every class level

It is based on the values of experts not members of the public

Question 6

Minimum standard of living

Answer 6

Minimum standard of living standard - The centre of research Social policy and the JRF have developed the minimum income standard for defining relative poverty in the UK.

Question 7

Persistence of poverty

Answer 7

Explaining the persistence of poverty: Sociologists want to understand why is it that despite being one of the richest countries in the world and having an extensive welfare state provision poverty still remains a problem. A good way to remember the theories surrounding poverty is to think of hem as blaming theories- where is the blame for poverty?

The 3 main theories are as follows:

1) Cultural explanations

2) Material explanations

3) Structural explanations

Question 8

Oscar Lewis

Answer 8

The culture of poverty:

Oscar Lewis (1961) was the first person to study the cultural attitudes of the poor in his research in Mexico and Puerto Rico in the 1950s. He suggests the poor have their own culture of poverty, with distinct norms and values; this makes them different from the rest of society. He found the following features:

• They are resigned to their situation and don’t take opportunities to change it when they arise

• They have a sense of fatalism - what will be will be

• They are reluctant to work

• They don’t plan for the future - present time orientated

Poor remain poor due to these values

Question 9

Marsland

Answer 9

Marsland (1989) argues that
›verty persists because of the generosity of the welfare state. He claims:

The handouts from a Nanny state have created a dependency culture - people are happy to live on benefits rather than work

Universal welfare benefits regardless of income for example child benefit bein available to all stops money being invested into the economy.

• Universal benefits should be stopped and only given to those who are disabled or long-term sick any that can work should do. (deserving Poor)

Question 10

Charles Murray

Answer 10

Murray believed that there was an emerging underclass in 1980s Britain, a group who were responsible for rising rates of crime and unemployment.

These people were happy to claim WELFARE BENEFITS and live in
‘deviant’ family structures such as single parenting. Policy =
PERVERSE INCENTIVES

He believed this lead to a dependency culture in the UK

Also, he believed that children brought up in SPFs were more likely to become criminal due to a lack of primary socialisation

Question 11

Myths of the welfare state

Answer 11

Myths of the welfare state:

Myth 1 - there are generations of work shy families - there are only 0.3% of households with 2 or more generations were neither generation have worked.

Myth 2 - benefits are too generous

Myth 3 - the benefit bill is too high because of benefit cheats

Myth 4 - most claimants are sitting at home on benefits for years

Myth 5 - most welfare spending goes on the unemployed

Myth 6 - we are spending vast amounts on large families with too many children

Question 12

Criticicisms of cultural explanations

Answer 12

1. There is no clear evidence that children inherit their parents’ behaviours - Rutter and Madge (1976) found at least half of children born into poverty do not repeat that behaviour. Also Shildrick also argued there is not a culture of worklessness as only 0.5% of houses are in worklessness
2. Blaming victims rather than causes -
   These theories blame the poor for their situation and fail to consider structural factors.
   Marxists argue it is easier to blame the poor than the government.
3. They are based on myths around the welfare state - this is based on the last task Baumberg, Bell and Gaffney (2013) suggest that the New right view of the underclass is based on a constant polluting flow of misinformation from the government and the media.