Chapter 4: Wealth, poverty and welfare

Wealth and income
1. Reasons for change
  1. Change over time
    1. Unequal distribution
      1. Wealth
        =what you own
      2. Income
        =flow of case into household
    2. slight decline in % owned by richest
    3. slight growth in equality
  2. Globalisation
  3. Capitalism
  4. Entrepreneurial talents
  5. Government policy
  6. Lone-parent families
  7. Job Insecurity
Defining and measuring poverty
1. Social exclusion
  1. sees poverty in broadest sense
  2. Exclusion from leisure, health, education, etc.
2. Absolute poverty
  1. Based on minimum living standards
  2. Budget standard measure
3. Relative poverty
  1. Consensual - based on research
  2. Based on accepted standards of living
  3. Relative income measure
Extent and causes of poverty
1. Extent
  1. Total poverty in uk
  2. how to measure who is in poverty:
    1. household or economic status
    2. % of total poor or risk of being poor
2. High-risk groups
  1. low paid
  2. older people
  3. unemployed
  4. women
  5. children
  6. lone-parent families
  7. ethnic minorities
  8. sick or disabled
Existence and persistence of poverty
1. Dependency explanations
  1. individual- personal faults
  2. culture - culture of poverty
  3. Underclass - behaviour of distinct social class
2. exclusion explanations
  1. labour market - poorely paid work
  2. marxist - outcome of capitalism
  3. citizenship - groups are stigmatized and excluded
Welfare provision
1. Welfare state
  1. types of regime:
    1. Liberal
    2. Corporatist
    3. social democratic
2. Who should receive benefits?
  1. Universal vs selective
3. Who should provide benefits?
  1. State vs mixed economy
4. Who benefits?
  1. Tax + welfare services redistribute from rich to poor but
  2. mainly across individual's lifetime
Competeing aproaches
1. Third way
  1. mix of private and state provision
  2. Approach of late modernity & new labour
2. Marxism
  1. Welfare state is victory for workers
  2. Welfare state also controls workers
3. New right
  1. welfare state causes problems
  2. abandon welfare state
4. Social democracy
  1. traditional approach
  2. underpins ' cradle to grave' welfare state

Next up

Chapter 4: Wealth, poverty and welfare

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by hannahvullo over 10 years ago