POVERTY, WELFARE AND
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
Income Poverty
Poverty is defined as the inability of a
person or a household to satisfy their
basic economic needs, calculated based
on the value of goods consumed as
measured by expenditures.
Absolute/Relative Poverty
Poverty is divided into two as absolute and relative poverty.
• Absolute poverty refers to people who have no basic
requirements that is necessary for human existence.
These requirements are more or less universally defined
for all people.
• Relative Poverty relates poverty to the overall standards
of living in a particular society. It is culturally defined
differently from one society to another according to some
criteria, (running water, health care, can be defined as
luxuries in some societies but some other things could
be necessary).
Relative Poverty
Basic criterion is ‘poverty line’ that defines
price of basic goods needed for human
survival in particular society. Relative
poverty causes deprivation and
understanding of relative poverty changes
in time as society develops. As societies
become more affluent, standards that
define ‘relative poverty’ rise. The gap
between richest and poorest groups in
society is becoming more considerable.
Measuring Poverty
• To measure poverty the most common technique is to
determine a ‘poverty line’ calculating prices of basic
goods for human survival. People have income below
average (the level of supplementary benefit) as living in
poverty.
• Townsend (1987)’s study stresses that people have
subjective understanding of poverty. According to this
study, people think that their necessary incomes are on
average 61% lower than the government minimum
required income in Britain.
• Subjective perception of poverty sees differences
between the household-perceived needs and their ability
to meet those needs. Governments’ rates are lower than
people’s perceptions and expectations.
Poverty is a global issue
• According to UN half of world population
live less than 2 $ in a day. Growing
inequalities between the ‘haves’ and the
‘have not’ in the world makes poverty as a
global issue.
• Growth of professional/managerial job
increased.
• Working class job opportunities in the
labour market decreased.
Explaining Poverty
Poor people show some commonalities like
unemployment, part-time working, insecure job
opportunities, being older or younger, coming
from large families, being single parent, being
woman, coming from ethnic or racial minorities,
immigrants or asylum seekers and refugees.
As a common trend poverty is measured by
reference to the number of household living
under below the average income that is
“minimum power of purchase”. Poor people
have less chance to escape from poverty.
Is poverty result of people’s natural
capacities or consequence of their own
personal upbringing?
(Blame the victim)
• Poverty was a result of an inequality of pathology of individuals. The
poor are people who have no skills and motivation.
• Individuals are responsible for their own poverty.
• There must be winners and losers in each society.
• It appeared as culture of poverty in 1970s which was seen in 19th
century first.
• O. Lewis defines culture of poverty as transmitted pattern as a
result of social and cultural atmosphere into which poor children are
socialized.
• C. Murray says growth of the welfare state created a group of
people who have no capacity of self help (dependency culture).
Critic: This approach is individualizing poverty.
Is poverty a result of social
structure?
(Blame the system)
• Poverty is result of social structure/process.
• Explaining poverty emphasizes larger social processes
that produce conditions of poverty that are difficult for
individuals to overcome.
• Lack of ambition among the poor is not consequence but
cause of forming dependency culture.
• Reducing poverty needs policy changes in the whole
society.
Critic: Surprising number of people are escaping from
poverty.
Social Exclusion
This term is wider than underclass but could be used
interchangeably with underclass referring to ways in
which individuals may become cut off from full
involvement in society.
Social exclusion refers to people who have less
opportunities to reach self-betterment than majority of
the population have.
Full involvement to social life requires food, housing
clothing etc but also public transportation, phone line etc.
Considering social exclusion we have to pay attention to
interaction between human agencies and also role of
social forces in shaping people conditions.
Social Exclusion
• limited participation in community facilities.
• lower level of civil participation.
• having limited or weak social network, limited
contact with others.
• it is a self-reproducing spiral meaning.Socially
excluded people are re-excluded outside their
own control.
• Social exclusion could be as a result of
individual self-exclusion from society by refusing
to go to school or to work etc.
Political Exclusion
• not having chance to make lobbying,
participating rallies and contacting political
representatives.
Economic Exclusion
• exclusion from the economy in terms of
both production and consumption.
• deprived people have less chance to get
full-time jobs and occupational
opportunities.
Underclass in USA
(by Wilson and Murray)
• Underclass debate in US mainly focuses on ethnic
dynamics in class relations.
• Wilson says that the old racist barriers are getting lost
against African-American middle class whom are
discriminated by economic factors rather than racial
problems.
• Wilson believes economic instability created a new
multiple deprived groups which are ghetto poor with low
education and high rate of crime.
• Murray stresses that government aids make AfricanAmerican people dependent and accelerated their
disadvantaged position.
Underclass in the EU
Like USA in European countries underclass is closely linked to
questions of race, ethnicity and migration.
People from ethnic and racial minorities and migrant people are more
likely to become underclass or loose their class structures.
Underclass people are mostly native and second generation of
migrants.
They have less career development opportunities and less secure
posts in labour market.
There is a rapidly developing underclass in UK according to criteria
developed by Murray.
There is an opposition against Murray’s assumption raised by D.Gallie
saying that there are little differences between working class and
underclass groups in terms of political outlooks and work history.