Understanding Poverty With The Help Of Sociology
The concept of being poor is a worldwide phenomenon with more than 700 million people still live in extreme poverty and struggling to fulfil the most basic needs like health, education, and access to water. The World Bank Organisation (WBO 2020), describes poverty as hunger, the lack of shelter, access to medical care and employment. Poverty can be measure in two ways as ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ using Poverty Lines and Basic Needs methodologies. Sociology is the study of human behaviour and patterns of social behaviour, concentrating on the social structure and organisations of society and how this is related to individual lives and social problems. This essay will discuss how sociology can provide as a powerful tool for understanding families living in poverty.
Absolute poverty is when people’s resources fall below their minimum needs required for survival and no person should be without these resources. The Copenhagen Declaration defines absolute poverty as 'a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information' (Gordon et al 2003, p.5). The WBO set the international poverty line to $1.90 per person in 2015 and a person is considered to be in extreme poverty if they live on less than this. According to WBO (2019), nearly 1.1 billion fewer people are living in extreme poverty than in 1990. In 2015, 736 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day, down from 1.85 billion in 1990. However, while poverty rates have declined in all regions, progress has been uneven. To illustrate this in two regions, East Asia and Pacific there are 47 million extreme poor and in Europe and Central Asia there is 7 million people living in poverty.
Relative poverty is based on comparing what poor people have with others in society. Townsend (1979) defines relative poverty as 'the absence or the inadequacy of those diets, amenities, standards, services and activities which are common or customary in society.' No one in the UK needs to exist on 'less than a dollar a day' that is a global measure of extreme poverty but that does not mean no one is poor. In the UK, poverty can be measured annually when the Government’s survey called Households Below Average Income (HBAI) is published. According to CPAG (2020), this survey sets the poverty line at 60% of the median UK household income. This means if a household’s income is less than 60% of this average, HBAI considers them to be living in relative poverty. The JRF (2019/20) report shows around 14 million people are in poverty in the UK (more than one in five of the population) made up of 8 million working-age adults, 4 million children and 2 million pensioners.
Sociologists play an important part in understanding poverty. Seebhom Rowntree studies in 1901, coined the term ‘poverty line’, identifying the basis of minimum needs included three essential elements of food, clothing and housing. These are known as Rowntree’s measurements on a ‘basket of goods’.
In 1942, William Beverage’s report identified ‘five giant evils in society’ being: disease, squalor, ignorance, idleness and want which prevented people from bettering themselves and had a vision to reform the system of social welfare. This report provided the blueprint for social policy in post-war Britain and influenced the Government to take responsibility and create the welfare state in the UK. In 1944, the government published the ‘white papers’ on education, strategies for achieving full employment, and in 1948 the creation of a national health service to ensure everyone had access to medical care.
However, Abel-Smith and Townsend argued Beveridge’s had not eliminated poverty. Their 1965 study showed the poor and the poorest where people on welfare and finding a re-emergence of poverty in the late 1950s with a proportion of households below poverty line increased from 10.1% in 1954 to 17.9% in 1960. Townsend believed poverty was disproportionately, only focusing on one-person households (mostly retired) and large households (six plus) and other groups were being socially excluded. Townsend’s Poverty and Social Exclusion surveys used subjective perceptions such as hot food and a television of deprivation in order to explore the experience of poverty which introduced the 60% poverty line. This led to the introduction of the 60% national poverty line. Piachaud (1987) agreed with Townsend, but criticised his deprivation index as personal choice rather than indicators of poverty. An example of this is people who choice not to eat cooked breakfast may be vegan.
Mack and Lansley conducted a ‘Breadline Britain’ (1985) study to determine a list of essentials for living. The list consisted of 22 items, the top five necessities were heating, indoor toilet, damp-free home, personal bath and beds. If three or more items were lacking, this would define a person to be living in poverty. However, this method was criticised due to choosing items in an opinion poll. If Mack and Lansley had decided on four items to be missing this would change the outcome of who lives in poverty. This makes defining poverty difficult as who chooses where the ‘poverty line’ lies. Piachaud (1987), believed Mack and Lansley’s approach required expert involvement in defining questions and determining answers.
Giddens (2000) suggests poverty is culturally defined and should not be measured according to some universal standard of deprivation. Giddens considered it is wrong to assume human needs are identical globally. An example of this is in the UK a person may classed themselves as living in poverty whilst someone in a developing country would class that person as having an adequate lifestyle with shelter, food and water. According to the UN (2020), most people living below the poverty line belong to two region, Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a 2015 survey highlighted 45% of Africans went without enough clean water for home. Whereas, the UK is home to a highly successful water industry. This shows defining poverty greatly differs between countries and social inequality. Ridge and Wright (2008), define inequality as disparities between individuals, groups and nations in access to resources, opportunities, assets and income.
Poverty is commonly defined as either absolute or relative in relation to income. However, social exclusion can happen involving a combination of other social, cultural and economic factors identified as characteristics of ‘poor’. These can include: age, gender, status, low income level, occupation, household composition, education, housing and area of living. According to CPAG (2020) children have the highest percentage of living in poverty with 4.1 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2017-18. This could be because living in lone parent families. Women appear to be at higher risk of poverty. According to SIRC (2008) the majority of lone parent households are headed by women with 87% of children living with their biological mothers. Sweeney et al (2003), reported single parent are disadvantaged in many ‘poor’ characteristics. An example is a measurement of income from the One Parent Family report (2001) showed in 1999, 70% of single parent household had a net income of less than £10,000 in comparison to 25% of two parent families. The report showed single families are more likely to live in rented housing in council estates compared to two parent families. Furthermore, single parents are disadvantaged with unemployment and no vocational training. Poverty is not just economics and material disadvantages it can create a division between “the poor” and the “non-poor” leading to different forms of discrimination, prejudice and stigma which serve to justify and maintain socioeconomic inequalities. Goffman (1963), characterised stigma as a ‘mark’ of social disgrace, arising within social relations and disqualifying those who bear it from full social acceptance. Walker (2014), suggests shame and stigma experienced by people in poverty leads to social exclusion, limited social capital, low self-worth, and a lack of agency that could all serve to prolong poverty.
Behaviours patterns differences effect poverty. Divorce rates appear higher in low-income families and children in divorced families have a higher crime rate. This could be stealing or selling drugs to make more money. Charles Murray (2013) ‘Underclass’ theory believes behaviour is a lifestyle choice, commonly share many of the characteristics including female headed, lone parents, out-of-wedlock-births, school drop-outs, violence/crime).These groups lack skills, income, employment and wealth, stand outside society norms are known as the underclass. According to Murray, the underclasses are defined by their behaviour where people’s homes are unkempt, men are unable to hold down a job and drunkenness is common. The children grew up ill-schooled and ill-behaved and contribute to juvenile delinquents in society.
Conflict theory believes poverty and social exclusion are a consequence of a divided society where the rich become richer and the poorer become poorer because of an unequal distribution in wealth. Those in power and wealth are responsible for the exploitation and oppression of the poor through low wages and subsistence benefits. Conflict theory is structural where society influences the individual known as ‘macro-sociology’. Marx believed poverty and social exclusion are inherited and inevitable consequences of capitalism and class conflict. Max Weber highlighted rationalisation and bureaucracy, influencing other theorist to share concerns with primacy of the individual creating society, with patterns of behaviour and how society operates to piece it as a whole. Mead (1943) was critical of structural perspectives, suggesting people are passive recipients of the hand that that society deal them.
Another theory is Symbolic Interactionism, suggesting poverty exists because of labels attached to a person’s social class and groups are constructed to become inferior. For example, a child being refused entry from an elite school because they live in a disadvantaged area or people who are in lower social statuses are not able to afford a premier education. This theory is an action were the individual influences society known as ‘micro-sociology and is concerned with small scale behaviours to understand people’s thoughts/feelings and how they make sense of the lives. Dominelli (2004) idea of ‘othering’ to explain the process which happens when comparisons are made that evaluate a group from another superior group. Society began to change in the 1990s, entering a post-modern phase now where lifestyles and life choices are accorded greater individual reflection and determined by individual choices, behaviours and actions. This is referred to as the ‘cultural turn’. Giddens (2000), suggested that consumption has become an increasingly important aspect of people’s identity and lifestyles are reflective of individuals’ own choices and decision-making practices. According to Bauman (2013), it is consumption rather than production which produces the most significant social cleavages in contemporary society. Highlighting ‘defective consumers’ where ‘non-shopping’ is the jarring and festering stigma of a life unfulfilled, a mark of nonentity and good-for-nothingness’.
The Cycle of Deprivation theory coined by Keith Joseph believed in was not the lack of income or social status, but from ‘family problems’ including health and development, cognitive skills, personality and social skills. An example of this is children in poverty from the same deprived area will tend to form relationships and marry into families with similar circumstances and reproduce a cycle of deprivation. This theory does not explain the cause of poverty and children in poverty often break out of the cycle.
The effects of living in poverty can have a great impact on a person life. According to JFR (2015), the life expectancy is lower for people in more deprived areas, than the respective to people in middle quintiles. Having poor education, little or no academic qualification can limit career and job prospects which can lead to low-paid employment or no employment. This may lead to less motivation to work and depend more on the welfare state’s benefit system and can become the way of life for a person and the outcome will be to remain in the poverty trap. According to Mooney et al (2006) a poverty trap is where people working would lose benefits for every extra pound of income earned. This produced a strong distinctive to take low paid work and Kynoch suggested in 1970s more people were claiming benefits and fewer were contributing to taxes. The poverty trap encouraged the government to recognise low paid work increase relative poverty and the minimum wage was introduced in April 1999 to meet the basic needs. In April 2016, the government the introduction introduced the living wage giving Britain's lower paid workers a 'pay rise' from the current minimum wage to a higher 'living' wage for everyone over 25 as another step to reduce relative poverty which is £8.72 in April 2020.
In conclusion, this essay demonstrates that sociology does provide a powerful tool for understanding families living in poverty as it can enable a better comprehend social issues and problems. It highlights the groups at risk of poverty are low wage earners, women, single-parent families, the elderly due to uneven distribution of resources and the government needs to take responsibility of this. The government has made progress on reducing pensioner poverty. However, there is still a long way to go to tackle child poverty.
