Poverty In Contemporary Britain And Europe

Poverty in Contemporary Britain and Europe

Defining Poverty

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In the true economic term Poverty can be defined as the inability of attaining opportunities and choices and a lack of the capability to effectively participate in the society. When a family’s income fails to meet the established approach then there are different levels of poverty in different countries of the globe. Thus the poverty is measured with regards to the entire family’s income and not only the individual and is counted for the number of people in the family. It relates to the family not having enough to clothe and feed the members of the family or not have a land to grow one’s own food for their living, lack of security and power, not having enough access to credits and living in fragile environments without any access to clean sanitation, water and surroundings (Hills, J et al (2009). The international standard of extreme poverty is set to the possession of less than 1$ a day. Therefore poverty is defined in two different ways; that is Absolute poverty and Relative poverty. Then term absolute poverty measures the poverty in relation to the basic amount of money that is essential to meet the basic requirements like shelter, clothing and food. However absolute poverty is mainly concerned with the bigger quality of life issues and also with the overall level of the inequality faced by the society. But this concept failed to further recognize the essential cultural and social needs of every individual so hence this led to the development of the other concept of Relative poverty in which poverty is defined in relation to the status of the economy of the members of the society. In the given social context people are poor if they fall below the standard of living that is prevailed in a society. Relative poverty is used mostly to measure the poverty rates in the developed and wealthy nations of the world. Both these concepts are mainly concerned with the consumption and income of the society. To further define the concept of relative poverty there are three main aspects involved such as the income perspective shows that an individual is poor only if his or her income is below the set poverty line of a country, the basic needs perspective includes the income that goes beyond to include the need for providing the community the essential social services that is necessary to prevent the individuals falling into poverty and finally the capability perspective indicates the poverty that signifies the lack of few basic capability to function (Goulden  C. (2010) .

Poverty is a very complicated phenomenon of the society that tries to discover its causes and effects that are complicated and faced by the individuals of the society.  The concept of blaming the poor is very stereotypic and not applicable to all the underclass people because most of the poor people are willing and able to work if they are given a chance but are faced with the problems of lack of access to education and low wages for attaining a better paid job. Many researchers have focused on the different theories of poverty where the first theory deals with the flight of the middle class that include employers from the cities into the suburbs. These have very limited opportunities to find adequate jobs. However according to the second theory the poor will receive welfare payments rather than work in extreme low positions like in fast food restaurants or maids (Smelser N. J (2001). Although varying theories abound, sociologists will continue to pay attention to this issue in the years to come. Also according to a multidimensional nature of poverty many social aspects are also taken into consideration such as poor health, poor time and poor housing and these are to be clearly understood so as to create more effective programs to alleviate poverty from the society. The theories of poverty are also based on the concept that individuals are influenced by the cultural and physical context in which they presently live and it also gives much importance to the structure of the household and gender aspects (Field F. (2010) .

Absolute vs. Relative Poverty

 The effects of poverty are very serious and is said that children who grow up in poverty tend to suffer more frequent and severe health problems than compared to the children who grow up in better financial circumstances. These children who are raised in poverty happen to miss school often due to their poor health and also have a higher rate of accidents than the other children and they are also likely to have a much higher impaired hearing and vision, iron deficiency and impair brain functions. Many of the infants born under poverty usually have very low weight at birth which is associated with more physical and mental disabilities. Not only are these infants more likely to be irritable or sick but are also more likely to die before their first birthday. Therefore there is a distinction between absolute and relative poverty that the specific values are not attained at a given date or period but how this value changes as and when the distribution changes. Hence there is an important distinction that is seen between the general concept and the specific concept that underlines poverty. For the comparisons made that involve an extended time periods or various standards of living the absolute poverty is taken into consideration whereas the relative poverty is the cutoff point of the specific poverty levels that are obtained through these cutoffs and this leads to the changes in the results (Booth D (2003). Many countries in the world usually measure their poverty using the absolute threshold which us related to the fixed standards of how the households should be able to meet their daily basic needs while other few countries choose to measure their poverty using a more relative approach that includes a cutoff point in the overall distribution of the consumption and income of a country. Hence people in absolute poverty are com0pletelety away from crossing the border of poverty to a better living and they require long term efforts and strategies to cross the poverty line border and here the society is unable to meet their daily needs whereas in relative poverty there is a situation where the community is almost nearing to cross the border line of poverty and these societies have income but is said to be below the set income level. And these societies in relative poverty live with all the basic necessities to enjoy life but the level they are in does not let them enjoy their life fully, hence they are regarded as poor because they are not able to meet the required standards of living that are set by the community (Pantazis C et al (2006).

The government has been aiming to move the debate on poverty from relative poverty to life chances and therefore has carried out many researches and studies to combat poverty. The poverty line that promotes is that the government will seek to tackle issue through a much broader approach that will aim mainly at an improvement in life chances (Cheru F (2006). These approaches involved raising low incomes and improving the work and educational opportunities and also improving the parenting skills. Therefore it is considered that the more the better opportunities of education the lesser people would be in poverty. Many of the labors accepted this by spending more money of the public on policies and income redistribution through many programs held that aimed at life improvement and parenting and educational betterment and also an easy access to jobs. The reduction in child poverty was an introduction of the minimum wage and more generous levels of child credit and family credit, but it was also helped by falling unemployment and policies to improve access to jobs through improved employment services and provision of childcare. Poverty, however measured, is now likely to rise over the next few years as a result of the impact of the larger economic changes and the government’s policies at the level of relative and of absolute poverty. Any attempts made by the degrading of the importance of relative in favor of absolute poverty will not be allow the government to claim during poverty crisis their office terms as the net incomes of the poor population will drastically fall apart in the coming years (Kiernan, K (2011).

Causes and Effects of Poverty in Society

The government defined poverty by the Census Bureau that used the set of money income approaches that varied from family size to the composition of it and this further determined the people who were in poverty. If a family’s total income is less than the family’s threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty. The official poverty thresholds do not vary geographically, but they are updated for inflation using Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or benefits such as public housing, food stamps and medicaids. Therefore a program that monitors the system will give a continuous feedback on the program that has been implemented to identify the problems of poverty. This involves a process of evaluation that aims at showing how the program operates and also focuses on the issues related to the service deliveries. The cost benefit programs deals with the monetary programs which are related to the alternative uses of the same resources so as to benefit the produced programs (Adejumobi S (2006).  And the impact evaluation focuses on how to determine more broadly whether the program had the correct effects on individuals, households, and institutions and whether those effects are attributable to the program intervention and these impact evaluations can also see both the negative and positive consequences as well as the benefits gained by them.

Many criticisms have been raised about the different techniques used in poverty analysis that deal with a number of concerns that are seen within the dangers of the participatory exercises undertaken to move from the local assessments into the national ones. However this also refers to the relationship between the perception of the poor people and of their final results of the assessment. In this the researcher is an important element who makes sure that the participant is translated into the researcher (J. Gould (2005). This made sure that the results are confirmed so that every individual has its own perceptions. Hence from the initial program of participation a new era of change and empowerment and the different language and methods of the participation have entered the centre of development in the thinking and practice. The central challenge faced in using participatory methods for poverty analysis is implicit in moving the techniques from the project level to policy processes. While there have been examples of Participatory Poverty Assessments which have greatly contributed to the policy debate at the national level as well. There are many various challenging ideas of participatory methods which are the appropriate research tools for poverty analysis. This takes into consideration all the researches that compare the different methods of analyzing both the non-participatory and the participatory methods that highlight the strengths and weaknesses of poverty analysis. However the ways to adapt the new and integrated networks of poverty analysis seemed almost inevitable but the researches made a great effort to adopt both the participatory methods as well as the standard monetary assessments of poverty. Therefore the only solution to poverty is to end the entire process of impoverishment which involves the setting up of the social and economic system that is related to the democratic control and will result in eliminating all the inequalities and eradicating the injustices in the economy and also help in building up a more decent set of work standards in relation to human rights and the environment (Klees S (2001). That means above all that poverty must be viewed not as a problem of the poor but as a problem of the overall society (Abrahamsen R (2004). Hence the fight against poverty and against inequality is not possible only through charity and will never succeed without having radical changes and therefore it is the current system that produces ever greater inequality among the society.                                        

References

Abrahamsen R. The Power of Partnerships in Global Governance Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25 No.8, (2004).

Adejumobi S. Governance and Poverty Reduction in Africa: A Critique of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), A paper presented to the “Inter-Regional Conference on Social Policy and Welfare Regimes in Comparative Perspectives” (Austin, 2006)

Absolute Poverty Measures for the Developing World, Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 2007. Booth D. Fighting Poverty in Africa: Are PRSPs making a difference, (London; Overseas Development Institute, 2003)

Cheru F. Building and Supporting PRSPs in Africa: What Has Worked Well so Far? What Needs Changing? Third World Quarterly, 27:2 (2006)

Field, F. (2010) The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults, the report of the Independent Review on Poverty and Life Chances

Goulden, C. (2010) Cycles of Poverty, Unemployment and Low Pay, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Handbook on Poverty Statistics: Concepts, Methods and Policy Use, United Nations 2005.

Hills, J. Sefton, T. and Stewart, K (2009) Towards A More Equal Society, Bristol, Policy Press.

Gould the New Conditionality: The Politics of Poverty Reduction Strategies, (London; Zed Books (2005) 

Klees S. World Bank Development Policy: A SAP in SWAP’s clothing, Current Issues in Comparative Education (Columbia University, 2001)

Kiernan, K. and Mensah, F. (2011) ‘Poverty, family resources and children’s educational attainment: the mediating role of parenting’, British Educational Research Journal

Poverty Comparisons with Absolute Poverty Lines Estimated from Survey Data, Kenneth Simler, Review of Income and Wealth 2007.

Pantazis C., Gordon, D. and Levitas, R. (2006) Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain, Bristol, Policy Press.

Smelser N. J. and Baltes P.B  2001. International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences. Elsevier Oxford Science Ltd.

The Ethical Poverty Line: A Moral Quantification of Absolute Poverty, Peter Edward, Third World Quarterly 2006.