Poverty, Social Exclusion and Welfare

Week 11 – January 2014

With your partner – write it down

• Define poverty• What or who is responsible for the poor?• Is there a difference between poverty and

deprivation?– If so, what is that difference?

• What solutions to poverty and deprivation can you suggest?

Today

• Defining poverty:– absolute– relative

• Measuring poverty:– Deprivation indices

• Why are the poor poor?– structural forces and exclusion

• Civil responsibilities:– The Welfare State

Denis Goulet (1971:23)

• “ The prevalent emotion of underdevelopment is a sense of personal and societal impotence in the face of disease and death, of confusion and ignorance as one gropes to understand change, of servility towards men whose decisions govern the course of events, of hopelessness before hunger and natural catastrophe. Chronic poverty is a cruel kind of hell, and one cannot understand how cruel that hell is by merely gazing upon poverty as an object”

Two key terms

Absolute Poverty

• Absence of subsistence level of income - the basic conditions that must be met in order to sustain a physically healthy existence

• Advantage:– Universal – Allows comparisons across countries

• Many developing countries have large proportions of the population living in absolute poverty

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943)

Peter Townsend 1979:31• How to compare standards of living within a country:

– Rwanda – 5.3% of national revenue – poorest 1/5– USA – 5.4% of national revenue – poorest 1/5 (World Bank,

2007)• “Individuals, families and groups in the population can

be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely accepted and approved, in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities.”

• Argues like Townsend that poverty measurements based on the Poverty Line (i.e. the price of the basic goods needed in that society for survival) is inaccurate

• There are regional differences, an office worker has different nutritional needs to a manual worker

• The idea of relative poverty looks to culturally defined measurements: – the invention of permanent poverty?– difficulties of measuring -

Relative Poverty

Early attempts at measuring poverty

BASKET OF GOODS 1 Milk (2-4 pints)2 Bread (5-6 lbs) 3 Coffee/cocoa

4 Porridge (10 pints)5 Margarine (2-4 oz)

6 Pease pudding (1-2 lbs)7 Tea

8 Cheese (12 oz - 1 lb)9 Bacon (6-8 oz)

10 Vegetable broth (4-5 pints)

Rowntree (1901)

Official measurements of poverty

• Many countries use an official poverty line• The UK does not have an official poverty line, but use

a variety of data, for example welfare data.• E.g. Abel-Smith & Townsend (1965) those in poverty

have income at/below ‘supplementary benefit level’ (later income support -1998)

• 1980s European Community standard:– on or below 60% of median income (relative poverty)– ‘Households Below Average Income’ – http://data.jrf.org.uk/data/relative-absolute-time/

Poverty Mapping Charles Booth 19thC

1900 Joseph Rowntree and Seebohm Rowntree

1950s Boom Time

1980s Income gap widens

1910 Pensions introduced

1942 Beveridge Report – 1945 Atlee Election – 1946 NHS

1965 Townsend & Abel-Smith The Poor and The Poorest

1979 Townsend’s deprivation

Index

1979 Townsend’s Deprivation Index

12 items relevant across sample • Subjective experience – in depth questionnaires• 22% of population are in poverty and means-tested

benefits 50% less than needed for full social participation

• Criticisms: arbitrary items (Piachaud 1987); separation of socio-cultural decisions from poverty and deprivation

• Deprivation factors highly influential– Contemporary debates on citizenship and participation

Who are the poor?

More likely to be poor

The North of BritainWomen

Children

Ethnic Minorities

Pensioners

Figure 10.4 Poverty rate1 and relative income2 of people aged 65 and over: EU comparison, 19981 Percentage with income below 60 per cent of the median equivalised income of the national population2 Median equivalised income of those aged 65 and over as a percentage of the population aged 0 to 64Source: Social Trends (2004)

Why are the poor poor? Two approaches

Individual Responsibility

Renewal in individualistic values coinciding with ambitions of 1980s

• (interview 31st October 1987 with Douglas Keay)

There is no such thing as

society

Individual Responsibility• Charles Murray (1984) ‘Culture of Poverty’ Thesis

– underclass– illegitimate children and fall in stigmatization– lack of role models– unemployment and economic inactivity– rise in crime and fall in punishments– culture of the underclass and laziness

• ‘Dependency culture’.– Created by the Welfare State– Poor people rely on the government for ‘handouts’. – Undermines personal ambition and capacity for self-help. – Don’t look to the future/ strive for better life

However: widows, orphans or disabled people are exempt.

• On which political scale would this thesis sit- to the left, or to the right?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3091717/The-Sun-declares-war-on-Britains-benefits-culture.html

Figure 10.5 Assessing the causes of povertySurvey question: ‘Why are there people in this country who live in need?’ Percentages reflect respondents’ identification of either ‘personal laziness’ or ‘societal injustice’ as the primary cause of poverty. Percentages for each country do not add up to 100 because less frequently identified causes of poverty were omitted from this figureSource: Adapted from World Values Survey. R Inglehart & W Baker (2000) ‘Modernization, cultural change and the persistance of traditional values’, American Sociological Review, 65(1), pp 19–51

Structural ForcesHutton (1995)UK 1980s economic restructuring creates more divisions• Decline of manufacturing industries, rise of low wage service sector, higher

unemployment, less attractive marriageable men marriage less attractive to poor women number of children born outside of marriage increase more children born into poverty

• 30%= disadvantaged (out of work but looking, in irregular or short term jobs)• 30% = marginalised insecure (have jobs but economic restructuring meant

weakening of unions, more fixed term contracts, meaning low income levels and relative insecurity) this group often includes women in PT work.

• 40% = privileged (full time employment, not rich, but more secure, higher income)

• Much harder to hold marriages together, parenting gets more stressful perception ‘nothing can be done’

• Policy measures required which distributed income and resources more equally throughout society

Social Exclusion

• “the process through which individuals or people are wholly or partially excluded from full participation in the society in which they live” (European Foundation 1995:4)

• How do people become cut off from wider society through situations beyond their control or through self-exclusion ?

Types of Social Exclusion

Service Exclusion

Exclusion from Social

Relationships

Labour Market

Exclusion

Social Exclusion at the top?

Empowerment & Choice = Freedom!

• Under-development is not necessarily poor material living standards (e.g. low income) but conceptualised as a lack of choice or capabilities.

• Poverty is a failure to take full part in human society;– gender discrimination might limit choice.

• empowerment – giving people more power, stopping institutions from disempowing people -and participation necessary in society.

The Citizen and the Welfare State

• Most industrialized and developed countries have some form of welfare state

• Why is this?• Thomas Jefferson (1809) government should be judged by

how well it meets its legitimate objectives. “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the only legitimate object of good government."

• Marx – welfare to support the machine of capitalism, maintain the proletariat as workers

• Functionalists – Comte, Durkheim, Merton etc- help to integrate in orderly manner

Marshall (1973) The evolution of citizenship in Britain Civil rights 18th C Political rights 19th C Social rights 20th C

Turner (1990):evolutionary approach not applicable to other nationsNo explanation given of how or why progression achievedCrisis of ‘welfarism’ in 1970s and attempts to reduce welfare (the coalition government!) counter the theoryPopularity continues: environmental or ecological citizenship

The Welfare State• Esping-Andersen (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism• Decommodification – the degree to which welfare systems are free

from the market• Three types:1. Social Democratic:

1. High democracy level2. Universal benefits3. Scandinavian states (Sweden etc)

2. Conservative-Corporatist:1. Not universal 2. Benefits depends on position in society3. Not aimed at eliminating equalities. Keeping strong family

3. Liberal:1. Welfare is commoditised (ie sold through the market)2. USA3. Means- tested benefits only available to very needy --- stigmatised

Britain ...

• Does not quite fit into any category!

• Used to be Social-Democratic, then influence of 1970s onwards welfare reforms:– Welfare to Work– Care in the Community

• have moved Britain towards a Liberal welfare state...

Britain and the Welfare StatePoor Laws 1601

Poor Law Amendment

Act 1834

Pre-WW1 Liberal

Government

Beveridge Report 1942

Education Act 1944National Health Act 1946

National Insurance Act 1946National Assistance Act 1948

1970s breakdown

1980s attempts to

reduce welfare

New Labour – Welfare to

Work

The Coalition Government...

Q&A: the Turner Report Guardian 2006

What are the problems with the system?• Rising life expectancy • by 2050 the average 65-year-old male can expect to live until he is 83• the average 65-year-old female should live until she is 90.• Women who take career breaks to look after children miss out on the national

insurance contributions – As a result, 30% are entitled to a full state pension when they retire.

• Voluntary pension provision has been in decline. • The cost to employers of offering final salary pension schemes has increased• Nerves about investing money in pension schemes; poor stock market

performance and mis-selling scandals.

What did the commission suggest?...the main recommendations contained in its 460-page report were:

• ·The introduction of a more generous, flat-rate universal pension paid to those who qualify on the grounds of residency in the UK, not on the grounds of national insurance contributions

• · The pension would rise in line with earnings, not prices• · An increase in state spending on pensions, from 6.2% of GDP to nearer 8%• · An increase in the state retirement age from 65 to 68. This would be introduced

gradually over three decades, starting in 2020 when the pensionable age for women is aligned with that of men

• · The introduction of a national pensions saving scheme (NPSS), which would be offered through employers, and would automatically enrol workers unless they

requested to opt out[...]

Further critical thinking

• Do you think a comprehensive welfare state system leads to a dependency culture?

• Which countries would you expect to have the highest rates of welfare dependency?

• Is everyone able to work?• How can we help the long-term unemployed?

George Orwell –Down and Out in Paris and London

[A] plongeur is one of the slaves of the modern world. Not that there is any need to whine over him, for he is better off than many manual workers, but still, he is no freer than if he were bought and sold. His work is servile and without art; he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack... trapped by a routine which makes thought impossible. If plongeurs thought at all, they would long ago have formed a union and gone on strike for better treatment. But they do not think, because they have no leisure for it; their life has made slaves of them.

Literature and Film

• The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck 1939)

• Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt 1996)

• Down and Out in Paris and London (George Orwell 1933)

• Keep the Aspidistra Flying (George Orwell 1936)

Independent study

• Cornell notes• Homework forums