Poverty and Theories of Global Inequalities

• Poverty


  A multifaceted phenomenon that refers to a condition of being extremely poor
• Absolute poverty


  • Household income is below a level that makes it extremely difficult for the individual or family to meet the basic needs of life
• Extreme poverty


  • A person lacks access to all or many of the goods needed for living
• Relative poverty


  • Defines poverty in relation to the economic status of other members of a society
• In 2018, 1 in 6 Canadians were in the low-income category (as measured by StatsCan)
• Extreme poverty, by continent and country


  • Source: https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
• Groups in Poverty in Canada

  • Seniors
  • Single-parent families
  • Women (feminization of poverty)
  • Racialized individuals
• Feminization of poverty


  • The male-female gap in poverty, as measured by income. Women tend to spend fewer years in the paid workforce and are more likely to work part-time
• Racialized individuals face higher levels of poverty, and the racialized population in Canada is growing
• Indigenous peoples


  • Colonization has left Indigenous peoples among the poorest people in Canada
  • The income gap persists despite recent growth in education attainment
  • It is vital to work with Indigenous communities in improving economic outcomes
• Social mobility


  The movement up or down the system of stratification over time
• Types of social mobility

  • Vertical mobility (movement up or down a certain hierarchy)
  • Horizontal mobility (a change in position within the same rank)
  • Intergenerational mobility (difference between parents' position and their children's)
  • Intragenerational mobility (upward or downward movement within a lifetime)
  • Structural mobility (movement up or down the ladder because of changes in the structure of society)
• The median yearly income of Canadians is 18 times the global average, while almost half of the global population lives on less than $2 per day
• Modernization theory


  Poor countries are dysfunctional because they lack Western economic values
• Dependency theory


  Western European countries created exploitative conditions that have enabled them to colonize poorer regions of the world and accumulate great wealth at the expense of the colonized
• Structural adjustment policies continue the relationship of dependency
• World systems theory


  A world division of labour between core, periphery, and semi-periphery
• The bottom billion


  • Caught in a complex series of traps: civil unrest, high mortality, lower life expectancy
  • Race to the bottom: a competitive situation in which a poor country tries to undercut its competitors' prices, by compromising and damaging its own standards and values
• The Global North and South


  The difference in living standards between the Global North (North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea) and South (Africa, Latin America)
• The global digital divide


  The gap in access to technological resources between the developed and developing countries of the world
• Social inequality involves any socially defined differences that are consequential for the lives people lead
• Over the last 40 years, the way that Canada's income and wealth have been distributed has become more unequal
• Poverty is a persistent issue in Canadian society, affecting women, racialized minorities, seniors and Indigenous people
• While Canadians have generally experienced upward social mobility, this may no longer be the case
• There is a divide between the Global North and Global South. Due to globalization, this rich-poor divide has widened to a very poor bottom billion