Work poverty and welfare

• Deskilling: Marxist argument that capitalism is based on reducing the level of skill of the vast majority of the workforce. the purpose of this is to wrest control from the workforce but also to reduce costs and thereby increase profits.
• Determination: Idea that peoples lives are largely determined by circumstances surrounding them and they have little free choice. A variety of things can be seen to determine people's lives including biology, Economics ad Technology for example
• Disposable income: Total person income minus tax
• Division of Labour: Division of work into a whole number of sub-parts or specialised tasks which are carried out by different groups of workers
• Earned income: income received from paid employment (wages and salaries)
• Economically active: Includes those in employment but also those actively seeking employment i.e. the unemployed
• Environmental poverty: Living in an area of deprivation in terms of bad housing, bad schooling
• Fatalistic: Acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable
• Final Income: Total income minus taxes plus the value of benefits provided by the state
• Flexible specialisation: Production method focused on using technology to enable production to be quickly adapted by changing consumer demand
• Free market: No economic intervention and regulation by the state, except to enforce private contracts and the ownership of property
• Glass ceiling: when the advancement of a qualified person within the hierarchy of an organisation is stopped at a lower level because of some form of discrimination, most commonly sexism and racism
• Globalisation: The sense that the world is becoming much more inter-connected either by work production processes or by information and communications technologists
• Hawthorne effect: When the presence of a researcher is seen as the key thing which affects peoples behaviour.
• HBAI: how the government measure poverty in the UK -less than 60% of average British income are income are in poverty
• Hierarchy: a system which ranks people according to status
• Ideology: A set of ideas, values and beliefs that represent the outlook, and justify the interests of the social group
• immediate gratification: Setting short term aims and wanting the rewards straight aware rather than waiting to receiving them in the future, this is common in the working class
• Income: A flow of money which people obtain from work, investments or the state.
• Labour power: Peoples capacity to work and what is sold an employment contract
• Labour process: circumstances in which people apply their labour power including conditions, pay and speed and nature of work
• life chances: chances of obtaining those things which are desirable or needed and avoiding those things that are seen as desirable
• Marginalisation: The process whereby some people are pushed to the margins or edges of society to poverty, lack of education, desirability, racism e.t.c
• Marketable wealth: Any type of asset that can be sold and its value realised, Land, shares, savings, homes, cars e.t.c
• Market situation: The rewards that people are able to obtain when they sell their skills in the labour market depending on the scarcity of the skills they have and the power they have to obtain high rewards.
• McDonalisation: Process whereby the principles of the fast food restaurant become applied to wider and wider sections of society
• Means of production: The key resources necessary for producing society's goods, such as factories and land
• Means testing: involves people having to pass a test of their income and savings before receiving any benefits, only if these are low enough will they receive benefits
• median income: Derived by diving the population into two halves, those who have incomes above this amount and those who have incomes below it the median income is therefore the income in the exact middle of the income distribution.
• meritocracy: A system where social positions are achieved by individual merit, such as educational qualifications, talent and skill. the best rise to the top .
• Mixed Economy: economy that includes a variety of private and government control- another term for welfare pluralism
• Multiple Deprevation: Relates to the occurrence of several forms of deprivation concurrently, such as low income, poor housing and unemployment.
• Nationalisation: Process of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership f national government or state
• Neo-Liberal economics: Seeks to transfer control of the economy from public to private sector under the belief that it will produce a more efficient government and improve the economic health of the nation
• Patriarchy: a society where males are dominant