Understanding Poverty

Alcock, Pete

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-25666-2

Cited by 159 publications

(121 citation statements)

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“…This definition stresses two points: (1) income is necessary; (2) poverty is more than low income; indeed, it is separation from the community. Poverty is a multidimensional concept that may be usefully conceived of as social exclusion (Alcock, 2006;Barry, 2002;Brady, 2003;Levitas, 2005;Lister, 2004;Townsend, 1962Townsend, , 1987. This conception ideally requires a level of sophistication in the measurement that is incompatible with the severe constraints set by macro-comparative analysis.…”

Section: Poverty Is Not Inequality and Is Not Simply Low Incomementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This conception ideally requires a level of sophistication in the measurement that is incompatible with the severe constraints set by macro-comparative analysis. In fact, Alcock (2006) calls for qualitative measures as an aid to more fully understand the experienced meaning of poverty, and Ringen (1986), despite being critical of the use of income as an unique measure, deems as unrealistic a full analysis of all the causes of, or remedies for poverty (welfare, public investment, schools, families, neighborhoods, culture, and so forth). While a mixed-method approach that combines information from secondary data, surveys, and qualitative analysis is possible within one geographical context, this task would be daunting in comparative national analysis.…”

Section: Poverty Is Not Inequality and Is Not Simply Low Incomementioning

confidence: 99%

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Recalibrating the spirit level: An analysis of the interaction of income inequality and poverty and its effect on health

Rambotti

2015

Social Science & Medicine

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The publication of The Spirit Level (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009) marked a paramount moment in the analysis of health and inequality, quickly attracting a remarkable degree of attention, both positive and negative, both in academic and in public discourse. Following at least 20 years of research, the book proposes a simple and powerful argument: inequality per se, more specifically income inequality, is harmful to every aspect of social life. In order to confirm this idea, the authors present a series of bivariate, cross-sectional associations showing comparisons across countries and within the United States. Despite the methodological limitations of this approach, the authors advance causal claims concerning the detrimental effects of income inequality. They also rule out poverty as a plausible alternative explanation, without directly measuring it.Meanwhile, over the last decade stratification scholars have demonstrated the nonlinear effect of economic factors, especially income, on health. The results suggest that a relative approach is best for analyzing dynamics at the top of the income distribution, whereas an absolute approach seems most appropriate for studying the bottom of the distribution.Consistent with this perspective, here I reanalyze data from The Spirit Level, adding a measure of poverty, in order to control the effect of inequality and explore its interaction with poverty. The findings show that inequality and poverty-which I contend are two interdependent but nonetheless distinct phenomena-interact across countries, such that the detrimental effects of inequality are present or stronger in countries with high poverty, and absent or weaker in countries with low poverty; poverty replaces inequality as the favored explanation of health and social ills across states. The new evidence suggests that income distributions are characterized by a complex interplay between inequality and poverty, whose interaction deserves further analysis.

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Section: Poverty Is Not Inequality and Is Not Simply Low Incomementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Poverty Is Not Inequality and Is Not Simply Low Incomementioning

confidence: 99%

Recalibrating the spirit level: An analysis of the interaction of income inequality and poverty and its effect on health

Rambotti

2015

Social Science & Medicine

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“…For example: 'A family is poor if it cannot afford to eat … By any absolute standards there is very little poverty in Britain today ' (Joseph, 1976).The concept of 'absolute' poverty refers to poverty that exists independently of any reference group. It does not depend on the general living standards of the society in which it is conceived and nor does it vary over time (Alcock, 1993). The concept of 'absolute' poverty and its definition as some kind of minimum subsistence level is strongly associated with the late nineteenth-century British social reformers Charles Booth and Seebohm Rowntree.…”

Section: Defining Of Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

Target of Improving Poverty Alleviation Trek: A Case of Bangladesh

Hossain¹

2017

AJSSS

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The study aims to provide a systematic outline of Bangladesh development progress since its independence in 1971 to the present epoch regarding poverty alleviation trek. Though Bangladesh has achieved considerable progress in reducing head count poverty and poverty gap ratio but hunger poverty reduction and employment generation should be given more attention at the present time. According to MDG report last 2014; Bangladesh has made commendable progress in respect of eradication of poverty and hunger. It has sustained a GDP growth rate of 6 percent or above in recent years that has played a positive role in eradicating poverty. The main objective of the study is to investigate some important issues like poverty, inequality, unemployment scenery and social instability in the context of Bangladesh. The method of the study has been used to identify and review of Bangladesh government and UN published report analytically. The robust growth has been accompanied by corresponding improvements in several social indicators such as increased life expectancy and lower fertility rate despite having one of the world's highest population densities. This inclusive growth has resulted in impressive poverty reduction from 56.7 percent in 1991-92 to 31.5 percent in 2010; the rate of reduction being faster in the present decade than the earlier ones (MDG report last, 2014). The latest HIES 2010 data shows that the incidence of poverty has declined on an average 1.74 percentage points in Bangladesh between 2000 and 2010 against the MDG target of 1.20 percentage points. The estimated poverty headcount ratio for 2013 is 26.2 percent. Bangladesh has already met one of the indicators of target 1 by bringing down the poverty gap ratio to 6.5 against 2015 target of 8.0 (HIES Survey, 2010) .In conclusion, the challenges with regard to the dropping income disparity and the low economic involvement of women also remain as major concerns as well as reducing inequality, accelerating poverty lessening, moreover how to change the nature of the growth process should be prioritize for Bangladesh to consider sincerely.

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“…For this reason, the distinction between absolute and relative poverty has been often used in order to mark that relative poverty reflects things that persons need in a particular society (to live a normal or decent live), while absolute poverty refers to minimum standards necessary to survive or under which life is at least severely impaired (Alcock 2006). This distinction is, indeed, of some use, but it is also one of the key features of the capability approach that the same amount of basic goods and resources can yield different outcomes in different environments and for different persons depending on their needs and capacities.…”

Section: Concepts and Measures Of Child Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%