Defining and measuring poverty
- Absolute poverty is lacking the basic necessities for survival, such as food, shelter and clothing.
- Relative poverty is being poor compared with the typical standard of living in a society. In the UK, households with less than 60% of the median income are usually counted as in relative poverty.
- Townsend (1979) measured relative deprivation using a deprivation index of items most people saw as normal, such as a week's holiday a year or a cooked breakfast on most days.
Who is at risk and why
- Groups at higher risk include children, lone-parent families, disabled people, some ethnic minority groups, older people and people on low pay or unemployed.
- Individual explanations blame the behaviour or culture of the poor, such as a "culture of poverty".
- Structural explanations blame the way society is organised, such as low pay, unemployment, cuts to benefits and discrimination.
The welfare state
- The welfare state was set up after the Second World War, based on the Beveridge Report (1942), which aimed to defeat five "giants": want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness.
- It includes the NHS, state education, benefits and state pensions. Debates continue about whether welfare reduces poverty or creates dependency.
Key terms
- Absolute poverty
- Lacking the basic necessities for survival.
- Relative poverty
- Being poor compared with the typical living standard in a society.
- Relative deprivation
- Lacking the things most people see as normal.
- Deprivation index
- A list of items used to measure deprivation.
- Welfare state
- State support for people's health, education and income.
- Culture of poverty
- The idea that the poor have values that keep them poor.