the causes of poverty

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វិទ�នសហបតិបតិ�រណ៏ អន�រតិកម Cambodia International Cooperation Institute Cultural Studies Y3, S2 Topic The Causes of Poverty

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វិទ្យោស� នសហ្របតិបតិ�ករណ៏អន�រជាតិកម�ុជាCambodia International Cooperation Institute

Cultural Studies Y3, S2Topic

The Causes of Poverty

CONTENTS1. The Cause of Poverty…………………………………………………………………………………

2. The functionalist Perspective……………………………………………………………………

3. The Conflict Perspective…………………………………………………………………………..

4. Interactionist Perspective and Cultural Analysis……………………………………....

5. Future Prospects……………………………………………………………………………………

6. Full Employment……………………………………………………………………………...........

7. Education, Training, and Jobs…………………………………………………………….......

8. Income Maintenance Programs……………………………………....................................

9. Collective Action……………………………………………………………………………………

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1. The Cause of Poverty

The programs intended to alleviate poverty must rest on a clearunderstanding of its causes, and those causes are complex. People oftenfocus on the weaknesses or failures of individuals as the causes ofpoverty and ignore the part that societal factory play in generatingwidespread poverty. The three sociology perspectives remedy this.

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2. The functionalist Perspective

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Thus, the stratification system in society is an Essential mechanism for differentially allocatingrewards in order to motivation people to perform socially useful tasks. Furthermore, according to thefunctionalist view, people who do not perform useful tasks should receive fewer rewards. Poverty ,then , is society’s mechanism to discourage people from neglecting their social duties.

There are has been an ongoing debate over Davis and Moose’s functionalist approach topoverty: are reward really related to the importance of a position or to the scarcity of qualifiedpersonnel to fill it? There does appear to be a relationship between the contributions that people maketo society and the rewards the receive. However, some studies have found that the importance ofpositions is unrelated told the reward people receive. When the link between what a person does andwhat he or she receives become vague or broken entirely, then social disorganization can result.

The Economy According to the functionalist perspective, society is made up ofmany interrelated and interdependent parts, and a change in one parts can haveimplications for the other parts. In the realm of poverty, normal and some timesdesirable change in the economy can affect the level of poverty. One of thesechanges has to do with inflation. Many economists believe that unemployment isrelated to inflation.

The Functions of Poverty According to some functionalists, one of thereasons that poverty persists is that is performs some positive functions forsociety or at least for some group society. Although it is difficult to think ofpoverty in this light, this view illustrates a point that has been made elsewhere :social conditions or practices that some find undesirable or even repugnant ,such as poverty or crime may nonetheless make a positive contribution tosociety. How can poverty be functional ?

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3. The Conflict perspective

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Most conflict views of poverty derive at least in part from view of Kal Marx and his positioncontrasts sharply with that of the functionalists. Marx viewed society as involving a constant strugglebetween social classes over scarce resources with some groups managing to capture more of thisresources than other. Its should not be surprising that the affluent benefit in this ways, because it is theaffluent who write the tax laws, design the legal system and pay the police to enforce the law. they canconvince subordinate groups that e existing distribution of resources is “natural” or preferable to anyother. The one’s not having worked hard enough. Poverty is viewed as a personal problem rather that asocietal one and the poor are less inclined to demand changes in the system. One people have becomesuccessful, they tend to pass on their success to their children, and this makes it more difficult for peopleon the bottom to move up. Social mobility refers to the movement of people from in social position toanother in the stratification hierarchy. Although upward social mobility is fairly widespread I the UnitedStates, our stratification system is also characterized by considerable stability with a high degree ofoccupational inheritance.

In fact, a national tragedy is the fact that our society spends considerably less onthe education of poor children, who are more affluent desperately in need of theseresources, than it does on the education of affluent children.

From the conflict perspective, issues for poverty and inequality need to beassessed from a global vantage point, as was dome in chapter 2. The emerging globaleconomy pits large corporations In a competition out of which some people benefitwhile others suffer from an inability to find a job that will enable them to supportthemselves and their families in a dignified fashion.

For the United State, this loss of good paying jobs has been one of the reasons for the growth of an entrenched group of poor who do not have the education or skills essential to landing a good job today. The group poverty has become a permanent intergenerational problem.

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4. Interactionist Perspective and Cultural Analysis

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The functionalist and conflict perspectives focus on the role of social and economic structures in creating poverty. By contrast, the interactionist perspective focuses on the importance of the subjective element of social reality how people define themselves and their opportunities through day to day social interaction with others around them.

More recently, William J. Wilson (1991) has suggested that prolonged joblessness contributes to this cultural orientation by leaving people with a general sense that they are unable to achieve goals that they might set for them selves, that there is little point in making efforts or taking on challenges.

With such a cultural orientation poor people may despair of ever improving their lot. They may see little point in making efforts to change their circumstances because their fate the believe is out of their

Cultural analysis has been criticized because it seems to blame thevictim poor people are blamed for their own difficulties by arguing thatpoverty is due to the character flaws fo or lack of effort by thoseaffected.

A second criticism of the culture of poverty thesis is that researchsuggests that is applies only to a limited number of poor people. In fact,the traits that characterize the culture of poverty are probably foundamong less than half of all poor people and are more common amongsome poor. Research also shows that some poor people do improvetheir lives, despite the culture of poverty may inhibit some poor peoplefrom making things better for themselves, Its impact on perpetuatingpoverty in general is probably limited although not unimportant.

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5. Future Prospects

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Support for the fight againt poverty remains high in the United States. A survey in the late 1990s found that two-thirds of people in the United State felt that the governmetn should make a specialeffort to help the poor and the government was identifiesd as the sociental institution woth greatest responsibility for assisting the poor.

However, there has been a dramtic decline over the same periid in people’s confidence that the governmetn con do the job properly. So people continues to embrace the values that underlies poverty programs but theu are frustrated woth the government’s record of achievemetns in those programs.

6. Full Employment

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The Poverty is related in part to unemployment it seems sensible to promote policies that encourage. Full employment a situation in which everyone or nearly everyone who wants work a=can find a job. Although most politicians would probably support such a concept the control is over how to do it.

First, most of the poor as has been seen, are not able-bodied nonworkers. Rather, they are people who would be largely unaffected by the creation of more jobs children, the elderly the disable and women raising their children alone.

If anything, unemployment in the United States seems to have in creased somewhat over the years despite these policies.

7.Education, Training, and Jobs

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Some social policies aimed at reducing poverty focus on preparing the poor to compete effectively in the job market. The idea is that for some poor people the major factor holding them in poverty is that the lack the education skills or motivation to fund and keep good-paying jobs. A number of programs have been created over the years to focus on these issues.

Early childhood Interventions One approach is to focus on children by providing them with the educational and other experiences at a young age that will increase their ability to find and keep good jobs as adults.

Research over the decades on Heart Start and other early childhood educational intervention has shown that such programs do achieve may of their goals.

Jobs Programs Whereas Head Start is an indirect long-term approach to theproblem of poverty other programs have involved more direct and immediate effortsto train people and to find them jobs.

A Jobs training program that focus on youth the job corps has proven to befairly effective. Focus on high school dropouts from poor neighborhoods, the jobcorps gives participants academic education, vocational training counseling healtheducation and job placement assistance. Evaluation of the program.

In the late 1990s the then-existing welfare system was replaced with aprogram called temporary assistance for needy families .On education and trainingin order to help people find jobs and get off welfare. This policy change issufficiently important that the policy issue inert is devoted to a description andassessment of it.

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8. Income Maintenance Programs

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Modern Governments have taken on the responsibility of assisting those in need througha variety of programs that provide them with some minimal level of resources.

Public assistance which is what most people mean when they use the term welfare,refers to programs in which a person must pass a mean test to be eligible.

There are various social insurance programs in the United State. At both the federaland state levels over $700 billion are spend on such programs each year.

Social Security old age survivors and disability insurance commonly referred to as socialsecurity is intended to provide income for retired or disabled workers and their survivors.

Medicare is a health insurance program for the elderly and for some others who arereceiving social security. Its also provides supplementary medical insurance on return for amonthly premium.

Supplemental security income is given to certain categories of poor people with littleincome and few assets. Temporary assistance for need families .its provide temporaryassistance to parents and guardians who do not have the financial resources to support theirchildren but in return for the assistance the parents must seek work.

General Assistance is for people is for people in eligible. But only about half the stateshave GA.

Medicaid is a program providing medical and hospital services to people who cannot payfor them themselves. But it can also go to people who can provide for their own economicsupport except for necessary medical care.

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9. Collective Action

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Many of the programs intended to alleviate poverty have been designed by politicianseconomists, sociologist, and other experts who are not themselves poor. This raises thequestion of whether these experts have different from the poor or whether they have anaccurate and sincere understanding of poverty and its related problem.

Most want to work luck or circumstances, thy find themselves destitute. So the poormay need to take matters into their own hands through some collective action thatwould further their interests. In fact, the poor have poverty of the 1990s was in part areaction to the focus of the civil rights movement aimed at the problems of poor africanamericans.

A strategy such as this has its dangers, of course. Its could create a backlashagainst the poor and result in substantial reductions in public assistance.However, it does illustrate the point that disadvantaged groups in the US havetraditionally used collective active action as one avenue to pursue theirinterests.

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Thank You So Much Do you have any Questions?

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