Sociology of Poverty in Britain

a) Using the information in item A, identify two trends in the growth of poverty amongst British households in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

The report, Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain, shows that the proportion of households living in poverty rose from 14 to 24 % between 1983 and 1999. This indicates a significant increase in the phenomenon of poverty throughout Britain as a whole. In 1999 almost a quarter of households were experiencing poverty in Britain compared to less than a sixth in 1983.

   However, the growth of poverty was most rapid in the 1980s when 1% of households became ‘poor’ each year. During the 1990s this figure fell to 0.3% a year. This statistic suggests that although poverty is continuing to rise the trend is heading towards a plateau or ‘critical mass’ of poverty. i.e. if trends continue the rate of poverty will cease to increase and a consistent proportion of the population will experience poverty each year.

b) Using the data in Item B, identify two main changes in the percentage share of the national income between 1979 and 1995.

Data such as the Family Expenditure Survey demonstrate trends in the proportions of population situated in each income distribution decile. Item B shows that those in the top decile (defined in 1997 by Goodman, Webb and Johnson as: a single person earning £22,000 per annum; a couple with children with a gross income of £50,000; or a childless couple earning £17,000 each per annum) held 21% of the national income. In 1995 this figure had increased to 27% of the national income.

   Conversely, those in the bottom decile (e.g.. a pensioner with a basic pension of just £58.85 in 1997) accounted for only 4% of the national income in 1979. However, by 1995 this had almost halved to only 2.2% of the national income held by the bottom tenth of the population. These figures suggest a trend known as economical polarization, whereby the wealth of the economic elite is increasing at the expense of the lower deciles of society. Whilst the rich become richer, the poor are becoming poorer. This supports the Marxist claim that the capitalist system is only beneficial to the bourgeoisie, if national income is expressed as a hypothetical pie, the richest deciles continue to take larger and larger slices and as such, those in poverty did not reap the benefits of economic growth under the Thatcher government of the 1980s.

c) Identify and explain two difficulties facing sociological researchers attempting to measure relative poverty.

Townsend claims that ‘individuals can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet...have the living conditions... which are customary or at least widely encouraged or approved in the societies to which they belong’. Townsend operationalized this definition in the creation of his ‘deprivation index’, discovering that 22.9% of the population were in poverty in 1969 according to this criterion whilst by the state standard it was only 9.2. However, researchers face many problems in attempting to measure relative poverty.

   Pichaud criticizes Towensend’s index commenting that it is unclear what items such as eating fresh meat have to do with poverty or how they are selected. In this respect, the measurement of relative poverty appears to be as invalid as Rowntree’s early work employing absolute definitions. Similarly, such indexes may be more greatly affected by cultural and social differences than the existence of poverty. For example, if a convention towards vegetarianism arose in society, according to this criterion a high proportion of the population would be experiencing poverty when this is clearly not the case. Pichaud states that ‘taken to its logical conclusion...only when everyone behaved uniformly would no-one be described as deprived’. The decision to include and exclude certain items in fact reflects the views of the researcher not what is ‘customary’ to society as a whole.

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   A problem which faces all researchers in the measurement of poverty is that of finding a point at which a line can be drawn. Selecting a line at which poverty starts to increase rapidly is as arbitrary as any other , e.g. the EU’s suggestion of 50% of the national average income. Similarly research such as Townsend’s is criticized on the basis that it is in fact a reflection of inequality, not poverty. In this respect the measurement of relative poverty is essentially worthless as inequality will always exist. Researchers such as Sen claim that relative deprivation cannot be ...

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