Explaining Poverty (AQA A-Level Sociology): Revision Notes
Explaining Poverty
Sociological theory offers several different explanations for why poverty exists and persists in contemporary society. Each perspective provides distinct insights into the causes of poverty and suggests different solutions to address this social issue.
This overview explores six major sociological perspectives on poverty: feminist, functionalist, Marxist, New Right, social democratic, and Weberian approaches. Each theory offers unique insights into both the causes of poverty and potential solutions.
Feminist perspective on poverty
The feminist approach to poverty emphasises how gender inequalities contribute to women's higher likelihood of experiencing poverty. Feminist theorists argue that traditional sociological explanations focus too heavily on formal economic structures whilst ignoring the lived experiences of women.
Feminisation of poverty describes the over-representation of women amongst single parents and single pensioners in the UK. This pattern occurs because women often bear primary responsibility for childcare and domestic duties, limiting their economic opportunities.
Research Example: Kathy Hamilton's Study (2012)
Hamilton identified how women make personal sacrifices to ensure their partners and children are fed and have access to branded goods. These sacrifices create an impression of artificial affluence and serve as stigma management strategies for low-income mothers. When women fail to maintain these standards, they are often labelled as the undeserving poor.
Jan Pahl (1989) discovered that household income allocation is rarely equal, with men typically having more money for personal spending than their female partners. This research demonstrates that women's poverty cannot be understood without considering the broader context of gender inequalities throughout life.
Critical Perspective: Christopher Pierson (2006) notes that feminists may overstate the gendered nature of poverty, pointing to countries like Sweden where poverty rates are comparable between men and women despite overall lower poverty levels.
Functionalist perspective on poverty
Functionalist theory views poverty as an inevitable outcome for those who fail to embrace the opportunities available in a meritocratic society. This perspective incorporates elements of victim blaming and the concept of the undeserving poor, suggesting that poverty results from individual laziness or lack of talent.
Herbert J. Gans contributed to functionalist understanding through his analysis of poverty's functions for society. He argues that poverty actually benefits those fortunate enough to avoid it, particularly the wealthy and powerful. This creates a vested interest in maintaining rather than eliminating poverty.
Worked Example: Gans' Three Functions of Poverty
Gans identifies three key functions that poverty serves in society:
- Labour supply: The poor provide workers for society's worst jobs that others refuse to do
- Employment creation: Poverty generates jobs for social workers, welfare workers, and police officers
- Social measurement: Poverty serves as a yardstick for others to measure their success, whilst the poor can be scapegoated for society's problems
Marxist perspective on poverty
Marxist theory locates the cause of poverty within the economic system of capitalism, which prioritises profit over human needs. Marxists argue that only through socialist transformation can poverty be truly eliminated.
In capitalist systems, the interests of capital and profit consistently take precedence over people's welfare. This creates structural conditions including low wages, poor worker protection, and uncertain employment arrangements such as zero-hours contracts. Poverty becomes a class issue rather than an individual problem, affecting all workers regardless of employment status.
Key Marxist Insight: Poverty undermines class consciousness by encouraging the working class to adopt media criticisms of benefit recipients as welfare scroungers. This prevents solidarity and collective action against the capitalist system.
Ralph Miliband (1974) demonstrates how the poor lack both economic and political resources, creating a cycle where economic deprivation is a source of political deprivation; and political deprivation in turn helps to maintain and confirm economic deprivation.
New Right perspective on poverty
New Right ideology became influential during the late 1980s through sociologists like David Marsland (2003) and Peter Saunders (1990). This perspective argues that generous welfare provision creates fecklessness and a dependency culture.
Marsland adopts an intolerant approach to poverty, arguing that organisations like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation deliberately exaggerate poverty levels to deceive the public. He criticises universal benefits and services as examples of state generosity that encourages hopelessness and dependence.
According to Marsland, the welfare state offers sentimentally utopian support for idleness and reckless lack of foresight, gradually transforming a free people into a subjugated mass of underclass serfs. Charles Murray (1989) similarly describes welfare as contributing to an underclass living outside society with deviant subcultural values.
Major Criticism of New Right Approach: This perspective has been criticised for blaming individuals for their poverty whilst ignoring structural factors beyond personal control, such as involuntary unemployment, illness, disability, and poverty in old age.
Social democratic perspective on poverty
Social democratic ideology believes poverty is structural in nature and can be eliminated through increased and targeted state spending. This contrasts sharply with New Right approaches by advocating for strong welfare state provision to address inequalities.
Success Example: Scandinavian Model
Social democrats point to Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden, as examples of successful poverty reduction through state intervention. Sweden demonstrates a remarkably egalitarian income distribution and low poverty rates, with poor citizens maintaining living standards closer to the national average than in other advanced countries.
Critics of social democratic approaches, particularly New Right theorists like David Marsland (2003), argue that high taxation required for generous welfare states encourages idleness and over-reliance on the state, undermining people's natural capacity for enterprising self-reliance.
Weberian perspective on poverty
Although the underclass concept is often associated with the New Right, it originates from Weberian analysis linked to individual status. Max Weber analysed inequality through three dimensions: social class, status, and party.
This multi-dimensional approach explains poverty as resulting from people's inability to secure well-paid employment in the labour market. Unlike Marxist class-based analysis, Weberian theory can explain why specific groups like women, some ethnic minorities, and disabled people experience higher poverty rates.
Weberian Sophistication: Weberian analysis is more sophisticated than Marxism because status and power are conceptually distinct from economic class. Poverty exists because of differences in prestige and authority in society - groups lacking these advantages inevitably have poor market positions, which determines their material income.
Contemporary application
Shildrick and Macdonald (2015) suggest it has become unfashionable to discuss poverty in contemporary UK. Politicians and media have constructed a context of political invisibility around poverty because absolute poverty appears to have been eliminated (except homelessness).
This creates an assumption that only a tiny minority can be considered truly poor, despite measures of relative poverty showing large numbers of people in marginalised positions of social exclusion.
Key sociologists
Pete Alcock (2006) explains why many people in poverty distance themselves from the poor label. This stems from society's emphasis on pride in managing difficult circumstances. He argues that to identify oneself as poor is to identify oneself as having a problem and being in need of help. Poor people are therefore culturally defined as unable to manage and maintain respectability, particularly regarding family life.
Key Points to Remember:
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Feminist perspective highlights how gender inequalities and caring responsibilities contribute to women's over-representation amongst the poor
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Functionalist theory sees poverty as serving important functions for society, including providing labour for undesirable jobs and employment for welfare professionals
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Marxist analysis locates poverty within capitalist economic structures that prioritise profit over human needs, making it a class rather than individual issue
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New Right ideology blames poverty on dependency culture created by generous welfare provision, advocating reduced state intervention
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Social democratic approaches view poverty as structural and solvable through increased state spending and intervention, using Scandinavian countries as successful examples
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Weberian perspective offers a multi-dimensional analysis considering class, status, and power as distinct but interconnected factors in poverty