Explanations of Poverty

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New Right Explanations of Poverty

Sociologists from different approaches have varying explanations of poverty. These include the New Right theories, functionalist, Marxists and feminist explanations.

Murray

Murray (1984) examined the US governments’ social policies since the late 1960s that aimed to reduce poverty.
He focussed on the impact of these policies on the behaviour of members of the underclass (those that occupy the lowest levels of the social class hierarchy, below the working class).

Conclusions

In his view, policies actually produced poverty and encouraged people to become dependent on welfare benefits.
One example he used was welfare benefits led to an increase in unmarried young mothers and encouraged a hard core of unemployed young people to have no interest in finding jobs and become dependent on benefits.

The underclass

Murray associated the underclass with poor African-American and Hispanic people and argued that the underclass posed a threat to society’s wellbeing because its members are responsible for increases in crime rates and a burden to taxpayers.

Underclass in the UK

Murray (1996) argued that the underclass in the UK is growing rapidly.
He focused on the behaviour of the ‘undeserving poor’ and associated them with rising crime rates, an increase in the number of ‘illegitimate’ births and drop-out from the labour market among working-age men.
He argued that welfare reform encouraged crime, single parenthood and unemployment, as well as taking away the incentive to work.

Criticisms

Critics of the New Right approach reject the idea of an underclass with different attitudes and insist that this group doesn’t exist.
The term is used to blame the victims for their misfortune and bad luck.
The underclass are used as scapegoats for the problems of society.
When explaining poverty, sociologists should focus on the structure of society and the ‘over-class’ – the rich and powerful groups in society.

Other Approaches

Sociologists from different approaches have varying explanations of poverty. These include the New Right theories, functionalist, Marxists and feminist explanations.

Functionalism and poverty

Poverty performs positive functions for some groups in society.
For example it ensures that dirty and dangerous work gets done cheaply.
Critics argue that functionalism tries to defend the existence of poverty rather than explain it.

Marxism and poverty

Poverty is the inevitable outcome of class-based divisions in capitalist society.
Capitalism generates extreme wealth for the bourgeoisie and poverty within the proletariat.
Poverty serves the interests of the bourgeoisie because they can hire and fire workers as needed.
The fear of poverty and unemployment can be used to discipline workers, keep wages low and profits high.

Feminism and poverty

Women (especially lone mothers and older widows) face a greater risk of poverty than men.
A higher risk of poverty may be due to the gender pay gap and the inequality in the division of caring responsibilities.
Women are also more likely to outlive their partners.