Cultural Explanations

• Absolute poverty


  Charles Booth

  -Conducted street surveys 1889-1903

  -Focused on Inner London (East London today)

  -Found that 31% were living in poverty

  -Based off an income level he had set to determine whether they were in absolute poverty or not
• Seebohm Rowntree

  -Profoundly affected by Booth's work

  -Conducted poverty surveys in York - 1901, 1941, 1951

  -Sought to find whether citizens of York could purchase basic food items in order to survive

  -As a result, he created the basket of goods as a measurement of absolute poverty
• Measurements of absolute poverty

  -Basket of Goods Rowntree

  -Budget Standards Approach Bradshaw-->The minimum income required to buy the items needed to be healthy

  -Poverty Line EU -->Those above the poverty line meet the Budget Standards Measurement. Those below= absolute poverty (60%)
• Evaluation

  -covers a wide span of diff countries but based on subjective judgement

  -doesn't take into account of everyone's individual needs,

  -poverty isn't comprehensively considered.
• Relative poverty

  Peter Townsend (1979)

  -Identified issues with the use of the absolute definition

  -Therefore found that poverty goes beyond the 'basic necessities'

  -This is because poverty is closely linked to inequality, rather than anything else

  -As society changes, the definition of poverty must reflect these changes
• Measurements of relative poverty

  -->HBAI (Households Below Average Income) Labour gov. (1997- 2005)- Those below the 60% median income- mainly used to determine child poverty.

  -->Deprivation Index Townsend- Those who meet the indicators of deprivation based on what is required to be a part of society at that time.

  -->Consensual Approach Gordon (2000)Mack and Lansley (1993)-Those who could not meet 3/22 items listed on an agreed census on basic needs
• Evaluation

  -can't capture long term change

  -material well-being may have improved

  -consider household income in relation to others
• Subjective poverty

  An individual's perception of his or her financial/material situation. Poverty is defined on the basis of individual feelings.
• Official Poverty Line

  -Abolished in 2015 by Conservative government

  -Used in Britain and by the EU

  -People living on or below 60% of median income

  -People at or below this level of income are thought to be excluded from a minimum acceptable way of life in the society they live in.
• Minimum Income Standard

  -Single people - £29,500 annually (before tax)

  -Couples with 2 children - £50,000 annually (each and before tax)

  -For a minimum acceptable standard of living

  -This measure was devised by sociologists, experts and general public reaching a consensus.
• Social Metric Commission (SMC) Relative poverty measure


  -New poverty measure based on contributions from The Conservative Party and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF)

  -This measures income, but also considers assets, savings, debt repayments, childcare costs and disability.
• Structural


  -These theories explain social behaviour by exploring social institutions e.g. the economic system, the job market, the education system etc.

  -Structural explanations suggest that poverty is the result of inequalities of power and wealth in a capitalist society
• Cultural

  -These theories explain social behaviour by exploring norms, values and attitudes of individuals social groups

  -Often known as victim-blaming theories

  -This means blaming the poor/ the individual
• The culture of poverty-Oscar Lewis (1950s), Mexico & Puerto Rico

  -The poor have a 'culture of poverty' with its own norms and values and way of life

  -This separates the poor from the rest of society

  -Culture is transmitted from generation to generation through socialisation

  -This 'victim-blaming' approach was developed by writers of the New Right
• Dependency culture-David Marsland (1989)

  -Poverty arises from the generosity of the welfare state

  -This is because the New Right sees many of the poor as undeserving

  -Therefore, those that depend on the welfare state become lazy and undermine the production of wealth
• The 'Underclass'-Charles Murray (1984)


  -American New Right sociologist

  -Charles Murray suggests that there is a class that is beneath the working class

  -This new class emerged after the 'Nanny state'

  -This particular class socialise their families to be dependent on the state
• Pros


  -Could provide sociologists with an understanding of how people may end up in poverty e.g. generational attitudes and circumstances. Helps us to understand family dynamics.
• Cons

  -->There is no clear cut evidence that children inherit their parents' attitudes-Blanden and Gibbons (2006) found poverty did get passed on between generations, with children growing up in poverty more likely to be poor as adults. But they emphasise that parental attitudes is just one factor, others include lack of skills and employment opportunities.

  -->Blaming the victims rather than the causes-Cultural explanations of poverty tend to blame the poor for their own poverty, and imply that if only the poor changed their values, then poverty would disappear. However, in most cases it is economic circumstances, not attitudes, which made them poor in the first place. Cultural explanations are convenient ones for those in positions of power, as they put the blame for poverty on the poor themselves.

  -->They are based on myths of the welfare state-Baumberg, Bell and Gaffney (2013) suggest that the New Right view of the dependency culture and an underclass generated by the generosity of the welfare state is based on 'a constant polluting flow of misinformation' and a series of myths spread by government and the media.
• 3 features of underclass- murray


  -family instability

  -crime+drug abuse

  -exclusion from school