Exploring Material, Structural, and Cultural Explanations to Poverty

The poverty line, which was used in 2014 in the Britain and the European Union was used to describe individuals living on or below the 60% median income and distinguishes those who are poor. In 2012-2013 there were 21% of the population in Britain living on or below the poverty line and 33% of households lack three of more basic necessities of life, such as being able to adequately feed and clothe themselves and their children and being able to heat and insure their homes. It was found that 5.5 million adults go without essential clothing. 18 million live in inadequate housing conditions and 1 in 3 cannot heat their homes. So, despite Britain being one of the richest countries in the world and having a huge welfare state, it has failed to resolve the problems of poverty. It is believed that cultural and material explanations are blamed for the problems of poverty.

Material, Structural and Cultural Explanations

Material and structural explanations blame the material constraints, the inadequacy and welfare state, and the unequal social class structure and inequalities of power and wealth in capitalist society. The social and economic position, such as low pay, unemployment, disabilities and elderly influence the behaviour and attitudes of the poor society. Individuals with a job that has no scope for promotions or no employment at all have insufficient income to support themselves or their family. For poor families and individuals, their weekly resources for survival are what they focus on, and any distinctive cultural features are therefore more likely to be the response to poverty than a cause of it. Once material restrictions have been removed by providing adequate housing, good paid jobs, adequate benefits and adding some security in their lives will then diminish the dependency of culture, which will also diminish the culture of poverty. Coates and Silburn studied an area of Nottingham and emphasised on the circumstances of the poor and stated how they were trapped in a cycle of deprivation. If a child is born in a poor family, they might have inadequate housing and diet; this may lead to ill health and the child will therefore be absent from school. The child will then fall behind on exams, and be employed in a low earning job, or may even be unemployed, leading to poverty in their adult life. The problem with the cycle of deprivation is it does not explain how poverty began in the first place; it only explains poverty when it already exists.

Cultural explanations are victim-blaming theories that focus on the behaviour and attitudes of poor individuals. These theories suggest that poverty is persistence due to the existence of cultural poverty among the poor and a dependency culture, which is a set of values and belief, and a way of life, which is focused on the dependency of others, especially the welfare state, which supports individuals with benefits. Oscar Lewis developed the early work of cultural attitudes in Mexico and Puerto Rico and suggests the poor individuals have a culture of poverty that has its own norms and values and way of life, which include; rarely taking opportunities to escape poverty when they arise, having a sense of fatalism, believing nothing can be done to change their situation, they do not plan for the future, they make little effort to change their situation and lack the initiative to try and break free from their poverty, and they marginalise themselves, not seeing themselves as part of the mainstream society. Children growing up in this culture and this culture is passed on through generations, therefore keeping these individuals poor because their own values and behaviour are poor. The New Right theorists developed this idea further as Charles Murray and classed a section of society who he thought had a cultural dependency on the state and unwillingness to work as the 'underclass'. Murray recognised there was a rising number of single parent families, rising crime, and attitudes of individuals resisting work and although he noted that not all poor people resist working, he did state that there are a significant of individuals who do not want to work. The reason for individuals resisting work is due to the welfare state benefits are too high, therefore financially supporting individuals too much, taking away the encouragement to get a job. Also supporting Murray is Marsland who believes the level of poverty is exaggerated by other sociologists, but states the welfare state is too generous, which encourages the culture of not to work amongst certain groups. Walker criticised Murray as he found very little evidence of the different norms and values and behaviour among the poor community and states that blaming poor individuals diverts the real causes of poverty, which is the failure of social policy.

The conservative government were influenced by the new right theory and therefore reduced spending on welfare by removing some universal benefits, but only for the poorest households, which includes stopping benefit payments for 16-18 year olds, replaced grants with loans, abolished entitlement of students to benefits in the academic holiday and introduced the child support agency, which forces absent parents to pay child support rather than the state paying for the children. By doing this, the conservative party made it clear that they wanted to end the dependency culture by reducing benefits and allowances, the idea behind this was that people were better off working so that resources would be freed up enabling a positive effect on the economy. Social democrats believe social policy reforms could solve poverty and see institutions in society as the cause of poverty due to the inequality in wealth and income. The social democrats would like the government to redistribute wealth and resources from the rich to the poor, stating that increasing the welfare provision will help solve poverty. Mack and Lansley performed a public opinion poll and individuals stated they would pay higher taxes to solve poverty. Townsend states the solution to poverty is in the labour market by reducing inequalities as the poor are often unemployed or on a low wage, therefore policies are needed to improve wages and conditions to protect workers rights. The new right has criticised this and state that strengthening the welfare state and increasing the social policy will have disastrous effects in solving poverty as these things led to the increase in poverty.

Since 1997, the New Labour government has a third way approach and agrees that social policy will significantly reduce poverty as their theory combines the new right and social democrat theories. They believe that the poor need a hand up, meaning the state should have social policies to help the poor, agreeing with the social democratic theory, it also states the poor should not be given handouts and rely on state benefits, which agrees with the new right theory. They believe the state has a responsibility of helping individuals who need real help and individuals have a responsibility to also help themselves. The New Welfare contract of 1998 states the government must help individuals find work, increase pay to an amount which is rewarding and help with childcare and provide help to the poorest pensioners and individuals with disabilities. It states that individuals must seek work and become more independent, they need to support their families, save for retirement and not defraud the taxpayer by claiming benefits they shouldn't be claiming. The reforms that were introduced for the dependency on benefits were; working family credit, tax reductions for the low paid employees, introducing a new deal training and support package for the out of work, introduction of the welfare to work, cuts to income tax and half the starter rate, meaning that poorer families keep more of the wage they earn and educational maintenance allowance, providing extra money for students from poorer backgrounds encouraging them to stay in education, so they will less likely be claiming state benefits after finishing their education. The reforms for making the poor less socially excluded and isolated were social exclusion unit, which provides support to socially excluded individuals, introducing the concept of stakeholders in organisations and introducing childcare costs, which are paid or subsidised by the government.

Sociologist, Le Grand researched the welfare state and focused on the persistent, hard to shirt inequality, which covered five areas: health, education, housing, unemployment and poverty. The research found little evidence of the redistribution of resources and that the middle class were more likely to use the free services of the welfare state more than the working class and the poor. Marxists say nothing will work except for the overthrow of capitalism as the root cause of poverty is the inequality central to the capitalist system, by removing the capitalist system, poverty will be diminished. Marxists believe that the social policy does not prevent poverty, Westergaard and Resler argue that the welfare state has not reduced the inequality between social classes in Britain, their research focused on tax and benefits and found that the working class contribute the most in comparison to their income and the middle class benefit the most.

It is clear from the evidence provided that the various causes of poverty are still huge problems within society. There have been many reforms with the welfare state, but maybe more reforms need to happen to tackle both class inequality and poverty.

References

• Browne, K., 2015. Sociology For AQA Volume 1 AS and 1st Year A Level. 5th ed. Work, Poverty and Welfare. Cambridge: Polity Press.