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© TPS 2009
INTRODUCTION
DEFINING POVERTY
EXPLANATIONS OF POVERTY
WHO ARE THE POOR?
THE WELFARE STATE
SUMMARY
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INTRODUCTION
This unit concerning poverty reflects the inequality
that exists in our society.
This is an important issue for sociologists.
Poverty was once considered a social problem and
sociologists carried out research to understand the
issue and to attempt to provide solutions to solve the
problem of poverty.
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INTRODUCTION
State welfare and
benefits have
considerably changed in
the last one hundred
years in developed
countries, such as
Ireland, in an effort to
reduce the number of
people who fall into the
category of being ‘poor’.
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INTRODUCTION
Poverty and wealth exist in developed countries.
Some people are rich; others are poor.
Civilised societies provide help for those that are
sick, unemployed or retired, through taxation of
their citizens.
This ensures that those groups have a minimum
income to live on.
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INTRODUCTION
If families have an income,
they can normally manage
to live reasonably
comfortably, even if they
cannot afford to buy
everything that they want.
So how do we define poverty
and who falls into the
category of being ‘poor’?
Poverty is deprivation due
to lack of resources, both
material and non-material
e.g. income, housing, health,
education, knowledge and
culture. It requires a
threshold to measure it.
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INTRODUCTION
Ireland has experienced rapid
economic growth in the 1990’s
and into the twenty first
century. However, poverty still
exists.
A number of indicators, are
used to measure progress in
eradicating poverty, such as
income, levels of deprivation,
early school leaving age,
jobless households, long-term
unemployment and life
expectancy.
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INTRODUCTION
The Government - approved
‘poverty measure’ identifies
the proportion of people
from those with an income
below a certain threshold
(less than 60% of median
income) who are deprived of
two or more items from the
following index:
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INTRODUCTION
Two pairs of strong shoes
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INTRODUCTION
A warm waterproof overcoat
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INTRODUCTION
Have the ability to buy new clothes
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INTRODUCTION
Eat meals with meat, chicken, fish (or vegetarian equivalent)
every second day
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INTRODUCTION
Have a roast joint or its equivalent once a week
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INTRODUCTION
Have had to go without heating during the last year through
lack of money
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INTRODUCTION
Have family or friends for a
drink or a meal once a month
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INTRODUCTION
Have a morning, afternoon or evening out in the last fortnight
for entertainment
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INTRODUCTION
One individual who was
extremely influential in
defining poverty was
Seebohm Rowntree who
devised research at the
beginning of the twentieth
century to define whether
people were in poverty or
not.
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INTRODUCTION
He defined people as belonging to a
category:
above the poverty line (out of poverty)
or below the poverty line (in poverty)
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INTRODUCTION
He argued that people needed:
• Food
• Clothes
• Shelter
These were the minimum for existence.
The poverty line was drawn at the point where a minimum was
needed to ‘maintain health’.
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INTRODUCTION
Since Rowntree’s research, there have been many attempts to
redefine poverty as society changes and people’s
expectations of their lives change too.
So poverty has to be defined in the time that it occurs.
The Irish Government defines people living in poverty, ‘if their
income and resources (material, cultural and social) are so
inadequate as to preclude them from having a standard of
living which is regarded as acceptable by Irish society
generally. As a result of inadequate income and resources
people may be excluded and marginalised from
participating in activities which are considered the norm for
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other people in society.’
INTRODUCTION
There are two types of poverty: absolute
poverty and relative poverty.
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INTRODUCTION
Absolute poverty means
that a person does not
have what they need to
survive physically, for
example, they do not have
food, drink, clothing or
shelter.
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INTRODUCTION
Relative poverty means that the individual is
measured against the standard of living of the
rest of the society in which he/she lives.
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Defining poverty
The difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty is
the difference between:
Absolute poverty:
An individual’s biological needs:
•Food
•Water
•Clothing
•Shelter
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Defining poverty
The difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty is
the difference between:
Relative poverty:
An individual’s needs
according to a generally
accepted standard of the
society in which the
individual is living at that
specific time.
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Defining poverty
Poverty can be
measured by considering
how much support the
Government has to give
to low income families.
The average income can
be calculated and
poverty can be defined
as being a percentage of
the average income.
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Defining poverty
The ‘at risk of poverty’ indicator identifies all
households or people who fall below a certain income
threshold, which in the EU has currently been set at
60 % of the median income.
Median income is the amount that divides the income
distribution into two equal parts, half of the people
having incomes above the median and half below the
median.
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Defining poverty
The average income can
be calculated and
poverty can be defined
from this.
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Defining poverty
Poverty has been a feature
in the development of all
countries and it is an issue
that all governments have
to face.
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Defining poverty
In Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, social
reforms (changes) took place, such as The Poor Relief
(Dublin) Act. Welfare benefits and pensions followed in
the years to come so that people could rely on the State
if they were in need.
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Defining poverty
State pensions were introduced as so many major
sociological surveys had shown that the elderly were a
category very much at risk of poverty.
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Defining poverty
In the early 20th century in
Ireland when poverty was
rife and the following
‘Depression’ of the 1930’s
when unemployment
levels were so high, led on
to reviews of the state
provision for the
unemployed and sick.
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Defining poverty
Serious reviews needed to be undertaken in the
second half of the twentieth century in the areas
of:
Unemployment
Housing
Poverty
Health and
Education
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It was assumed that
most women would
not work but instead
stay at home bringing
up their children.
Defining
poverty
Women therefore
often only received
benefits through their
husbands for some
time.
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Defining poverty
Changes took place after the
1940s when many women
began careers.
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Defining poverty
The early part of the twentieth
century did bring about many
reforms and altered the dire
poverty that had existed in
Ireland.
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The debate about ‘what is poverty?’ has
continued right up to the present day
though.
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Defining poverty
So are there other ways of attempting
to measure poverty?
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Defining poverty
Another way of measuring poverty is to
consider how income and wealth in society have
changed.
This can help us decide how much poverty
exists in our society.
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Defining poverty
Many people argue that it cannot be denied that general living
standards have been raised in the last century.
Nearly everyone in this country lives at a better standard of
living due to the market economy.
This is not always taken into consideration in some of the
studies undertaken on poverty.
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Defining poverty
A ‘consensual’ definition of poverty can also be used.
People can be asked to list what the necessities of life are and
these can be ranked in order of importance.
So, antique furniture and perfume may not be considered
absolute necessities but clothes, food and basic furniture might
be.
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Defining poverty
Depending on which approach to estimating poverty is used the
response to the question, ‘How many people live in poverty?’
can be very different.
Different definitions will give different answers and sociologists
need to be aware of this.
Government policy can be formed on statistics about poverty so
sociologists have a very important responsibility.
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Explanations of
poverty
Explaining why
poverty still
exists, even in
relatively rich
countries such as
Ireland, is a
problem that the
Government has
to consider.
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Explanations of
poverty
Cultural explanations exist
as to why there is poverty
in our society.
The culture of poverty is seen as a set of values that the poor
have which others do not have.
So, poverty is not defined just as not having money but is also
combined with morals and behaviour.
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Explanations of
poverty
The emergence of a supportive welfare state is also held to
be a reason for remaining poor. There is no incentive to try
to rise out of the situation that people find themselves in.
A word of warning here though – these are generalisations
and have to be considered very carefully, as they obviously
do not apply to all people.
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Explanations of
poverty
Some people may decline into a state of poverty
temporarily and then climb out of it.
The poor may be a group of changing people.
Some elderly people may enter the group when they are
retired and their savings run out, for example, but they
may not have been part of this group previously.
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Explanations of
poverty
Studies have shown that
people who are classed as
‘poor’ have the same
hopes for themselves and
their families as people
who are wealthy and are
not, as some people want
us to believe, ‘different’
from those who have
wealth.
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Explanations of poverty
Poverty can also remain in families just because they are poor.
They begin poor; they continue to be poor.
A poor couple have children and bring them up fighting
against poverty but those children cannot, or do not, have
the skills to take themselves out of the poverty environment
so they remain poor and have poor children themselves.
Education and possessing the right skills that are needed in
the job market may be a passport to climbing out of the
poverty trap for young people.
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Explanations of poverty
Governments have tried to put forward various solutions to
combat a dependency on benefits and to encourage people out of
the ‘poverty trap’.
Governments want to ensure that people do not just rely on
benefits even in times of unemployment but still retain the
will to work.
Equal pay for women and the introduction of a minimum
wage, for example, have also improved the situation.
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Explanations of poverty
A cultural explanation of poverty may be too
simple though.
People become ill; people become unemployed through no
fault of their own. There are many reasons why people can
suddenly find that they have fallen below the poverty line.
We cannot just adopt the idea that the poor must be
‘problem people’. The poor are also those who work but
cannot earn enough in unskilled jobs to raise themselves
and their families out of poverty.
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Explanations of poverty
Feminists believe that women fall into the
poverty trap more easily than men.
Due to their responsibilities for looking after children, women
are dependent on their male partners. If that partner should
leave, the woman is then left to cope with childcare and
employment.
Women often fill the gaps in the labour market with poorly paid
jobs, casual jobs where they have few rights and low paid or
part-time work.
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Who are the poor?
The following categories of people can feature greatly
amongst the poor:
Lone parent families
Unemployed people
Sick and disabled
Low paid workers
The elderly
Refugees
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Who are the poor?
Some facts to consider:
There are fewer elderly amongst the poor than there were
previously
There are more unemployed amongst the poor
Unemployment is a powerful reason for poverty
The numbers of single-parent families have increased
Homelessness has increased since the 1970s
Debt has also increased
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Who are the poor?
Women are more likely to become victims of poverty
Working class people are more likely to be poor
Members of ethnic minority groups are more likely to be
poor
Children and the elderly are afflicted by poverty
Government statistics show these trends.
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Who are the poor?
The unemployed, who are
out of work, are often the
least skilled among the
workforce.
Ethnic minorities can be
prone to unemployment in
greater numbers than
white people.
Lone parent families are
often poor because of the
limited opportunity for
employment and the high
cost of having children.
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The Welfare State
In this section, we are going to consider the welfare state .
What is welfare?
A simple explanation is that through the welfare state the
government ensures that families receive a minimum
income on which to live.
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The Welfare State
At the same time, the government tries to overcome
problems associated with unemployment and retirement.
They provide social services, such as housing benefits.
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The Welfare State
The social welfare system in Ireland helps people through
different payments:
Social insurance payments
Means tested payments
and
Universal payments
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The Welfare State
However, an undeniable fact is that people are living longer
and need support for longer from the welfare system.
More pupils remain in school longer and a greater number
of students go on to higher education.
The financial costs are high for the Government.
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The Welfare State
There is a general view in
most political parties that
the welfare state has to be
affordable and be highly
effective.
During tight economic
recessions, spiralling costs of
welfare need to be constantly
reviewed.
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The Welfare State
Care in hospitals has become expensive so the elderly and
mentally ill are encouraged to accept ‘care in the community’
which is cheaper than having them stay in hospital.
There have been reforms designed to assist women. Child
benefit is paid to mothers and there are tax allowances for
childcare.
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The Welfare State
If we consider what life was like for the working classes
before the introduction of the Welfare State, most people
would argue that it has benefited the population.
Only some people would say that the Welfare State has
made people too reliant on state benefits helping them if
things go wrong in their lives.
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SUMMARY
Although poverty is an issue that has
been in our society since it began, we
have not been able to eliminate it.
Inequality still exists between the
wealthy and the not so wealthy. The
welfare system, for all its imperfections,
has attempted to cushion the gap
between poverty and a reasonable
standard of living.
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SUMMARY
Education, housing and health care
have all improved for the masses.
The voluntary services also have helped
in cases of dire need. Charities who
assist homeless people and many other
charity organisations supply resources
and assistance to those who need
support.
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SUMMARY
Most people would agree that the system is
far from perfect.
We have to continue to attempt to
understand poverty and to contribute to
the means of finding a solution to it.
Social inequality and poverty will remain
burning issues for the Government.
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