Feminisation of Poverty: the phenomena of women in poverty
Brazilianisation of Class: classes separated by ethnicity with the emphasis on racial
disadvantage
McDonaldisation of Employment (McJobs): casualised, low-paid, part-time work, with net
wages often below the level of benefit incomes.
Work-Poor: little or reduced access to employment
Work-Rich: enhanced access to employment
Precariat Class: defined by insecure employment; reliance on money from wages that are
flexible. The precariat experience “chronic income insecurity on top of their employment
insecurity.” This makes it harder to access rights as citizens, including welfare assistance.
The Underclass: those whom society has passed over and who faced massive deprivation and
social inequality with working conditions below even those of the working class those who
had little self-sufficiency but rely on social security benefits to survive those deemed “other”
by hegemonic groups.
Tutorial Work (rewrite onto sheet later tonight)
- How do Ethnicity, Class and Gender intersect to create the work rich/work poor
statuses? How does this impact on a Socio-Economic status and life chances for these
people?
- Benefit, if there is an underclass person in a job, you can only work a certain number
of hours in a day/week. This does not allow people in the underclass to get out of the
work-poor environment.
- Who is the person? Female, Pasifika/Maori, who is in the underclass. She is trying to
provide for her family. The benefit only allows her to work a certain number of hours
which makes it hard for her to gain all the necessities to provide. If she is offered
more hours at her job (which the benefit grants) then she is unable to spend time with
her family, and this begins to affect her social status within her family as a distant
parent. Because of her work-poor status, it is very difficult for her to be able to get out
of this situation as she is only making (just, or maybe not even) enough money to get
by in life. Without having a chance to expand her hours, or get a secondary job, she
will be stuck in this state of poverty for a long time (classed as “persistent poor”).
o If she is unable to get full-time employment (or even employment in general),
even with the benefit, it means that her children have less life chances (making
this underclass status intergenerational) with education, and health.
o Intergenerational: if she was brought up in the underclass as a youth, this
would have affected her life as well. Without the proper qualifications she
would be unable to gain extra skills to get her a more stable job or be able to
go back to school.
o This woman may be classed as being in the precariat class, as well as the
underclass.
o If she was a sole parent, how would this then affect her family? As a sole
mother, she would need to find a job that would fit within the timetable of her
children (9-3, or 9-5 job) without this, she would have to make extra payments
towards a babysitter (allowing a decrease in income)
-
o If as a youth, getting a criminal record such as shoplifting, or battery/assault
can influence if she gets a good job placement.
o Brazilianisation of Class
(name) is a Maori/Pasifika sole mother of one child, she had the child when she was
seventeen, meaning that she had to drop out of high school before she completed
NCEA Level Two to take care of the child. Now at thirty-years of age, (name)
struggles to get full-time employment that works around the time table of having a
child, due to having little to no qualifications and being too old to go back to school.
She cannot afford a babysitter for the evenings as all the rates are too high. The
Family Benefit she has to try to help provide towards her family makes it difficult to
go back to school. It is hard for her to provide for her child as she cannot send him to
a good school that will allow him a good education for his life, she finds that because
of this, he is beginning to act out and is worried that he will find himself with a
criminal record soon. (Name) has also found that employers tend to be very
discriminating towards her ethnicity when she is applying for full-time work. (name)
is currently classed as being in the precariat class as her income and employment is
not secure, and she finds it difficult to access her rights in the societal setting.
Tutorial #8
Essay plans are giving handed out next week at tutorials!
ESSAY FEEDBACK (before they are given back)
Define intergenerational social inequality (if I haven’t already. I am unsure).
Macro- and Micro- perspectives (did I add this?)
Work-Rich and Work-Poor