Behaviour and Attitudes of the Poor as the Major Reasons for the Continuation of Poverty - Literature review Example

Some have argued that the major reasons for the continuation of poverty are the behaviour and attitudes of the poor An Exploration The existence and persistence of poverty has long confounded social scientists, ranging from economists and political scientists to sociologists. While there remain several explanations of the causes of poverty and its reasons, a major sociological perspective is rooted in the attitudinal dimensions of the poor, which is thought to generate a culture of poverty that reinforces a vicious cycle of inequality and depravity. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether such a culture of poverty does indeed exist, and if so, explicate the reasons for its continuation. In the process, the paper shall also look at the various definitions and ideologies of poverty, along with other contending explanations of the phenomenon which take a different view from the attitudinal account. There are three definitions of poverty which are most commonly used: absolute poverty, relative poverty, and consensual poverty. The concept of absolute poverty refers to minimum requirements of any person for subsistence. This minimum includes one’s biological need for food, water, clothing, and shelter to “maintain life, health, and physical efficiency” (Browne, 2005, p. 52). For someone in absolute poverty, s/he lacks the wherewithal to survive; it must be remembered that the absolute minimum may vary according to specific contexts – these could be, say, geographical or physiological – but it is roughly equivalent across societies. The condition of absolute poverty, however, does not vary across time: those living in such abject depravity today would have been under the same conditions at any other point in human history. This concept of poverty is more central to countries of the Third World, rather than developed nations where standards of living are generally higher. Relative poverty, on the other hand, is defined “in relation to a generally accepted standard of living in a specific society at a particular time” (Browne, p. 52). Therefore, this concept is as much social and cultural, as it is biological. When individuals lack the resources to obtain such diets, participate in such activities, and do not live under such conditions that are customarily held as the norm in their social environment, they are understood to be poor. This sort of poverty involves the denial of opportunities and respect to certain sections of the societal population, and the idea remains closely attached to another concept: social exclusion. Social exclusion occurs when individuals are marginalized, in effect being unable to participate fully in society; they may be denied services or access to education, employment and community life. Proponents of the idea of consensual poverty maintain that the concept of poor should be derived from the body politic of the society. Therefore, citizens should first be asked what they consider as “poor” and then the state should strive to provide such goods which are identified as basic to a minimum standard of living. By generating such a consensus, a poverty line can be objectively constructed, but the problem here is the aggregation of individual views on poverty into a general agreement. Considering these three definitions as a broad framework within which sociological research on poverty has progressed, we find that there have been numerous attempts to understand the meaning of poverty in developed industrial nations – especially, the United Kingdom (UK) – and to locate the “poor” within the population. Scholars agree that it is difficult to arrive at absolute measures of poverty, and they are instead concerned with what the requirements are for a dignified existence (Conley, 2005, p. 329). Even so, there have been several seminal contributions to the measurement of poverty in Britain, most importantly studies on relative deprivation and poverty and social exclusion. Peter Townsend’s seminal work argued that official figures based on income statistics and poverty lines were an inaccurate measure of the level of poverty in the UK. Instead, he proposed that certain indicators of one’s lifestyle and habits, along with their incomes showed a clearer picture (Townsend, 1979). He looked at 12 such indicators, including vacations overseas, number of cooked meals per fortnight, entertainment and use of amenities such as running water and electric cookers. Townsend concluded that the true image of poverty was revealed in the deprivation of families living beyond a certain income threshold that could not fully make use of his chosen indicators: as incomes fell below that threshold, deprivation rose sharply, and he found that 22.9 percent of the UK’s population was living in poverty. Moreover, with falling incomes, households gradually tend to withdraw from social activities (Giddens, 2006, p. 346). Townsend’s work also provided the framework for further investigation into the concept of poverty as deprivation. Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley worked on the Breadline Britain studies which attempted to ascertain the necessary conditions for an acceptable standard of living. They identified 22 such “conditions” and concluded that the absence of three of more of the same amounted to the relative deprivation of that particular household, branding the family as poor (Giddens, p. 346). The Breadline Britain study revealed that around 14 percent of people living in Britain were poor and these numbers waxed from the 1980s to the 1990s. At the turn of the century, another major study on the effects of poverty on social exclusion was conducted by David Gordon. This study improved upon the previous two discussed above and identified 35 indicators of an acceptable standard of living. The enforced lack of two or more of these along with low income set the threshold for deprivation in this new study (Giddens, p. 347). Since the methodologies involved in these studies were by and large the same, Gordon could also compare the incidence of poverty in the UK in 2000 as against the 1980s and 1990s. What he found was that “in terms of enforced lack of necessities, there had been a dramatic rise in poverty for those at the bottom” (Giddens, p. 347), rising up to 24 percent of the population by 1999. It was important to survey the measurement of poverty in the UK because of two reasons: firstly, it gives us an idea of the magnitude of the problem and reaffirms that poverty has indeed both continued and grown; secondly, it leads into the possible explanations of this continuation, which are also two-fold. The first argument reflects the thesis under review and claims that the existence and continuation of poverty is largely to blame on the poor themselves, while the second line of thinking argues that poverty is reinforced by structural and societal forces. In the following paragraphs, we shall assess both of these arguments in order to arrive at out own conclusions. There remains a lengthy history of beliefs that poverty is endemic to the poor and remains rooted to the pathology of the underprivileged, creating own disadvantaged positions due to an inability to succeed in society. This inability could result from a variety of conditions, including a lack of skills, moral or physical weakness, or even a low motivation to succeed. Therefore, wealth was only a reflection of talent; those capable of performing their jobs well remained well off, while those unable to do so were deprived (Giddens, p. 352). Indeed, during the first half of the previous century and again during the 1970s and 1980s, emphasis on the causes and continuation of poverty rested greatly on the failures of individuals to make the most of their opportunities, and tended to blame depravity on personal attitudes: “explanations for poverty were ought in the lifestyles of poor people, along with the attitudes and outlooks they supposedly espoused” (Giddens, p. 352). Charles Murray, for one, speaks of the culture of dependency, where there is an increasing tendency for individuals to rely on government welfare and not look for productive means of livelihood and sustenance. Murray argues that the growth of the welfare state has effectively created a culture that weakens personal ambition and the predisposition towards self-help (Giddens, p. 352). Because of government handouts and doles, a section of society continues to be sustained without any effort to strive for a better life. Because unemployment benefits in welfare states allow such individuals to live a life of relative comfort without any effort on their part, welfare systems erode both the incentive and the capacity to work for many. Therefore, a culture of dependency abounds and reinforces poverty in society. The other explanation for the existence and continuation of poverty emphasize larger social and structural processes that generate conditions of depravity which are difficult for people to overcome (Giddens, p. 353). This view contends that resource distribution within society follows particular “structural forces” such as class, gender, ethnicity, occupation, level education, etc. The lack of ambition that scholars like Murray have stressed is taken to be the consequence of the constraining effects of such forces; the remedy, therefore, is a more just and equitable redistribution of incomes in society, leading to such policies such as child care, minimum hourly wages, and guaranteed levels of income (Giddens, p. 353). William Julius Wilson argues that urban poverty is mostly an effect of the economic restructuring of inner-city economies: “The decline of manufacturing industries, the ‘suburbanization’ of employment and the rise of a low-wage service sector have dramatically reduced the number of jobs available for those immediately leaving education that pay wages sufficient to support a family.” (Giddens, p. 353) The high incidence of joblessness among young males has meant a reduction in marriage rates, with children being born to female-headed families. As Wilson shows, a new generation of children is being born into poverty, deeply entrenching the phenomenon into society. In the case of African-American males in the United States (US), already the subjects of racial discrimination, this economic restructuring has been accompanied by a new geography of poverty, which has seen a spatial concentration of depravity in black neighbourhoods in the US (Giddens, pp. 353-354). In fact, many scholars even argue that there has been a gradual feminisation of poverty, and claim that women are far more likely to be affected by poverty than men. For instance, women are often employed in low-paid or part-time jobs, more likely than men to be single parents with constrained opportunities for employment, and dependent on meagre welfare benefits. Moreover, women generally live longer than men but retire earlier, and hence spend a greater proportion of their lives in retirement. But, given the nature of their jobs and incomes, women are far less likely to secure post-retirement benefits and pensions. Further, women oftentimes sacrifice their own well-being and standards of living to provide food, clothing and shelter to other members of their families, especially their children (Browne, p. 58). In addition, it should be noted that many who are already employed (like the case of the women discussed above) make too little money to clear the poverty threshold, while a majority of the remainder are children under the age of 14, the retired elderly above the age of 65, the disabled and the sick. Welfare cheating, too, is extremely rare. In the face of this evidence, it becomes difficult to agree with the given statement about the endemic attitudinal causes of poverty. Proponents of this view mostly end up individualising the notion of poverty and blaming the poor for circumstances largely beyond their control: they inaccurately see the poor as “freeloaders who are abusing the system” (Giddens, p. 354). However, in conclusion, it must be noted that even though the thesis under consideration may not hold much water in the opinion of this essay, it is crucial to remember that the structural explanations of poverty must also be critically examined. On the face of it, such forces may impede the betterment of the lives of the poor; but, relative deprivation or social exclusion leading to poverty is contextual, and opportunities that are missing today may arise tomorrow. Poverty affects social mobility and exclusion can restrict access to the labour market, services, social relations, and even housing and neighbourhoods (Giddens, pp. 357-362). However, the poor cannot remain mute spectators watching the social processes of exclusion unfold; instead, they should urgently aspire to change such circumstances by contributing their own efforts, ideas, and enterprise. In this respect, the statement under review provides a stirring reminder of a trend which should be guarded against. References Browne, K. 2005. An Introduction to Sociology [3rd Edition]. London: Polity. Conley, D. 2005. Poverty and Life Chances: The Conceptualization and Study of the Poor. In Calhoun, C. J., Rojek, C., & Turner, B. S. (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Sociology. London: SAGE. Giddens, A. 2006. Sociology [5th Edition]. London: Polity. Townsend, P. 1979. Poverty in the United Kingdom: A Survey of Household Resources and Standards of Living. Berkeley: University of California Press. Read More