'Poverty in the UK Essay\r'

'In 1886, Charles cell investigated the extent of meagreness in capital of the United Kingdom. His was the first authoritative sociological study of mendicancy in the UK. The results, presented in 1902-3, documented the living and constructing condition of the capital of the United Kingdom slimy. Adopting a relative get on to want †which was specify as the in big businessman to meet the usual trite of life †kiosk estimated that the train at which want set in for a family of deuce adults and collar children was 21 shillings per week (? 1. 05 today). Booth estimated that 30.\r\n7 per centime of London’s total population were in pauperisation. Around the same time, adopting an absolute perspective on meagreness, Seebohm Rowntree investigated the state of the scant(p) in the city of York in 1899. He elevatedlighted the token(prenominal) meter of living which finish the great unwashed’s biological needs for food, water, fit break and shelt er. This is also referred to as the subsistence level. Rowntree subsequently drew up a list of those stripped-down soulfulnessal and habitation necessities required for endurance and established two categories of mendicancy.\r\n primitive poverty is when the mortal is unable to acquire the minimum necessitates, secondary poverty is when a particle of the person’s total earnings is absorbed by other intentful or wasteful stinting consumption such that it is not possible to main(prenominal)tain the minimum standard. Poverty gutter be define in several ways, Booth took a relative start out and Rowntree took an absolute approach. In the post-war era, there has been a to a greater extent than(prenominal) pronounced shift from viewing poverty as predominantly a monetary and economic phenomenon to regarding and acknowledging its more qualitative and subjective aspects.\r\nBy the end of the 1950s, the head of rationing and shortages was over and, with almost full emp loyment, the UK seemed ‘never to have had it so good’. Yet, by the 1960s, a publication of well-disposed policy academics close to the force Party (such as Tawney and Townsend) raised the issue of the chronic existence of poverty in a percentage point of greater prosperity. Townsend questioned absolute definitions of poverty (such as those of Rowntree) which were noncurrent and failed to take account of the problems some passel had in fully participating in society.\r\nTownsend’s folkical work on poverty in the UK in 1979 (Townsend 1992) went beyond an absolute definition based on physical needs, to view poverty in resemblance to a ordinaryly accepted standard of living, in a specific society, at a particular(prenominal) time. Individuals can be said to be in poverty when they deficiency the resources to obtain the types of diet, enter in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which argon customary, or at least widely encouraged and approved, in the societies which they belong.\r\n(p. 31) Townsend suggested a definition that was closer in stemma to the concept of citizenship †poverty constituted a lack of resources that would enable a person to able to participate in the normal expectations and tradition of a society. This word form of definition also would imply that the exponents of poverty can change over time in allege to embrace changes in society. In the 1960’s, Townsend used the suit of not creation able to afford a proper Sunday lunch as an indicator of poverty.\r\nThe idea of a Sunday roast repast might not be so relevant today because of changes in family life and the way people gather together, and therefore is not so much an integral aspect of what people can be expected to do normally. On the other hand, Townsend’s indicator of giving presents to near members of the family for birthdays or Christmas alleviate holds. In his 1979 work, Townsend identified twelve items h e believed were be relevant to the whole population, and gave each household surveyed a score on a loss index. The high the score, the more deprived was the household. Townsend calculated that 22.\r\n9 per cent of the population fell down the stairs the brink of deprivation (Giddens 2006). When talking rough poverty, researchers usually base their work on measures of deprivation rather than the identification of poverty by itself. The existence of deprivation is taken as a surrogate for the existence of poverty. People argon said to be deprived materially and socially if they lack the material standards (diet, housing ad clothing) and the run and amenities (recreational, educational, environmental, social) which would allow them to participate in usually accepted roles and relationship within society.\r\nThe compass of poverty is complex, embracing the unemployed, those on low pay or in insecure work, the sick, the elderly, and the unskilled. Some minority cultural root wor ds also come into the picture, for ex vitamin Ale, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in the UK have, in general, high rates of poverty comp bed to other groups (Giddens 2006). Absolute poverty assumes that it is possible to define a minimum standard of living based on a person’s biological needs for food, water, clothing and shelter. The speech pattern is on underlying physical needs and not on broader social and cultural needs.\r\nRowntree’s studies of poverty in York in 1901, 1936, and 1951 used such an approach to poverty. But another way of viewing poverty is of relative poverty, which goes beyond biological needs, and is not only when about a lack of money entirely also about elimination form the customs of society. Relative poverty is about social exclusion imposed by an inadequate income. cordial exclusion is a broader concept than poverty encompassing not only low material means nevertheless the inability to participate effectively in economic, social, polic y-making and cultural life, implying alienation and distance from the mainstream society (Giddens 2006).\r\nSocial exclusion may both be a precursor to poverty and an important consequence of it. In 1984, Mack and Lansley study established that the poverty threshold covered not only the basic essentials for survival (such as food and shelter) but also the ability to participate in society and play a social role: for the first time ever, a majority of people see the necessities of life in Britain in the 1980s as covering a wide range of goods and activities, and… people judge a minimum standard of living on socially established criteria and not just the criteria of survival or subsistence.\r\n(Mack & Lansley 1985 : 55) In the 1980s, the discussion of poverty dark increasingly to the capriciousness of polarisation and to the shrinking portion of the UK cake held by the poorest. Poverty and wealth ar not simply the ‘bottom’ and ‘top’ of the income distribution, they atomic bite 18 polarised social conditions (Scott 1994). Income polarisation was also compounded by a number of policy measure introduced in the 1980s, such as a reduction in the level of income tax for high earners and increasing use of indirect taxes.\r\nAcademics showed that polarisation and social disparities were growing a middlest those who had benefited from the measures of the successive Thatcher administrations and those who had lost out, while the Thatcher government as the time tried to deny the excesses of Thatcherism. According to an depth psychology of the Child Poverty Action Group, in the administration of Margaret Thatcher, more than 63 billion has been transferred in subsidies from the poor to the rich (Oppenheim and Harker 1996)\r\nResearch in the 1990’s on the distribution of wealth and poverty in the UK has been produced chthonic a Joseph Rowntree Foundation research initiative. This research highlighted that the number of people living in households with under fractional(a) the national average income fell between the untimely 1960s and 1970s from five million to trio million, but then rose to el flat million in 1991, to a point where one in five households were living on under half the national average income. The number of individuals under 60 living in households without paid work has more than doubled †from 4.1. million, or 8 per cent, in 1979, to 9. 4 million, or 19 per cent by the mid 1990s.\r\nThis has been accompanied by a widening hurly burly in the incomes of households in paid work and those out of paid work. In 1997, 12 million people in the UK (almost 25% of the population) lived below the poverty line, defined as under half the average wage, and two out of five children were born poor. Today, according to OECD (Organisation for stinting cooperation and Development), Britain has one of the worst poverty records in the veritable world (Giddens 2006).\r\nAccording to the latest availa ble statistics, roughly 1 in 4 people in the UK †amounting to 13 million people †live in poverty. This includes nearly 4 million children †signifying a imposing 1 in 3 ratio (Oxfam GB 2003). The explanations that have been offered as causes of poverty fall under two categories, individualistic theories and structural theories. Here we pass on focus on the former. Individualistic theories identify the main causes of poverty within individuals themselves. Social and cultural factors are not entirely discounted, but more ferocity is place on inappropirated individual behaviours.\r\nThere are three main types of individualistic theories. Orthodox economic speculation: This conjecture proposes that poverty can be explained by the economic deficiency of the individual . Harold Lydall argues that the general abilities of men in the labour force pick up the distribution of incomes. These abilities are assumed to be created by genetic, environmental and educational fact ors. To reduce poverty, policies need to grade individuals’ own value systems, to develop their own ad hominem qualities in a manner that makes them more open and efficient.\r\nThe individual is poor because he has not maximised his unbent potential in the labour market. Minority group theory: Minority group theory germinate from the earliest studies of poverty based on the findings of Booth and Rowntree. These pioneering social scientists did not attempt to discover the causes of poverty, exclusively the characteristics of certain groups of poor people. Minority group theory has largely constructed its explanation for poverty through examining the characteristics of the poor †for example, being old, being married with dependent children.\r\n issue beyond such demographic indicators, the theory implicates supposed ‘faulty’ characteristics. The classification of ‘ar-risk’ groups has prompted policy makers to implement a benefit system to e nsure that the most basic of needs are met, without encouraging idleness or apathy. The poverty policies of successive governments have often intercommunicate by minority group theory. Subculture of poverty theory: Subculture of poverty theory is derived form a number of anthropological and sociological studies, particularly, the work of Oscar Lewis.\r\nIt was Lewis who in 1959 introduced the bourne ‘the culture of poverty’ in an effort to mold an analogy between the Mexican lower class families and those in other parts of the world. He essay to explain the phenomenon of the persistence of poverty in several(predicate) countries. The basic idea has its roots in the cabbage School of Sociology and the work of Robert E. Park. According to Park the patterns of the neighbourhood, and the pass in particular, once they come into being, take on a life of their own and are to a great extent self-generating and self-perpetuating.\r\nA sociological work out known as label ing also underpins this phenomenon. Labelling somebody negatively may also lead to increased oversight or segregation from the wider community which further increases (and even creates) the predicted behaviour (Fulcher and Scott 2001). These processes, whereby people tend to live up to the expectation of others are known to be self-fulfilling. Oscar Lewis implies a similar understanding in his formulation of the notion of the culture of poverty. Lewis claimed that poverty affected the very temperament of slum dwellers.\r\nThe poor tend to be at once apathetic thus far alienated, happy-go-lucky yet miserable. Other negative characteristics that mark the psychological orientation of poor people include laziness, being unambitious, being disorganised, and fatalistic. To fight poverty at its roots, such psychological tendencies need to be gradually eroded, with more cocksure attitudes taking their place. Much work also needs to be done on making the liberal people more attractive t o their potential employers, in terms of skills and educational qualifications.\r\nSubstantial and sustained reductions in poverty depend on raising the level of qualifications among older teenagers and young adults in the bottom quartern of educational achievement. Lack of do here is a major concern for longer term progress on reducing poverty. (Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2006)\r\nReferences:\r\nGiddens, A. (2006). Sociology. Cambridge : Polity campaign Fulcher, J. & Scott J. (2001). Sociology. Oxford : Oxford University Press Joseph Rowntree Foundation. (2006). Monitoring poverty and social exclusion in the UK 2006. Retrieved 20 March 2007 from http://www.poverty. org. uk/reports/mpse%202006%20findings. pdf Mack, J. & Lansley, S. (1985). Poor Britain. London : Unwin Hyman Oppenheim,C. & Harker, L. (1996). Poverty: the Facts, third ed. London : Child Poverty Action Oxfam GB. (2003). The facts about poverty in the UK. Retrieved 20 March 2007 from http://www. oxfamgb. org/ukpp/poverty/thefacts. htm Scott, J. (1994). Poverty and Wealth: Citizenship, Deprivation and Privilege (Longman Sociology Series). London : Longman Group United Kingdom Townsend, P. (1992). Poverty in the UK. Berkeley : University of California Press\r\n'