According to Townsend (1979) individuals or families can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the type of diet, participation in the activities that are at least widely encouraged in society. This is termed relative poverty. Absolute poverty occurs when a person’s life falls below a fixed standard, experiences complete destitution and can not meet minimum needs of food and shelter (Townsend, 1979). Gender difference is a significant factor that has caused social exclusion and it could be argued that this exclusion is socially constructed. Firstly although much has improved there still is discrimination and inequalities in the labour market.
It is more likely that poor people will always have problems with education and employment. But without a good education you cannot get that job that you want so a lot of people settle for low income jobs because of their
He believes that while some people are able to follow this patch to success, others are blocked because of their position in the social structure. Some groups have lower educational achievement so there is a tension between an individual's needs and the needs of the society. Some people are socialised into goals but enable to achieve them. Merton argues that people either show the conformity displayed by most people or adopt one of the four forms of deviance which is innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. Innovation - poor education and unemployment means that some people accept the shared goals (they want the money) yet reject the means of achieving them so they turn to crime as an alternative.
Another aspect that will also be examined is how racial, ethnic, gender, and social class issues influence the way in which the privileged or dominant groups are tied to the oppression of subordinate groups. And for more understanding of the impact of oppression on subordinate groups there need to be an examination of individuals and social forces in relation to various manifestations of oppression. Social inequality may be defined as a socially-defined categorization of people according to characteristics such as gender, age, class and ethnicity and how they are differentially placed with respect to access to a variety of social goods, such as the labour market and other sources of incomes, educational level and other influential status they represent. Social inequality draws a very ambiguous class distinction among members of the society like upper class, lower class and middle class. Consequently, selected groups who are more powerful hold the educational, production system and goods and services making it unequally distributed among society.
There is also evidence that schools with mainly working class pupils have less effective systems of parent-school contacts, making it harder for parents to keep in touch about their children’s progress. Therefore there is strong evidence that the reason for every working class parent who does not have sufficient
The new liberals were the ones who decided it was time to take direct action and help tackle problems with poverty. Laissez Faire failed because of the politicians deciding to no longer help the poor, also philanthropy was known to be quite fashionable but was not being successful and also there were a few charities like the salvation army, YMCA and the RSPCC who all helped the poor but they were relying on vouchers, it did help people but it did not tackle the causes of poverty. Charles Booth and Seehom Rowntree were agreeing with the new liberals .Charles Booth was a very wealthy man, his pinpoint on poverty was that family’s living under £1:05 a week would really struggle to gain necessities. However Seebohm Rowntree did not agree with Booth’s findings his pinpoint was that family’s needed £1:08 to survive, to cover basic things such as food, fuel and bills. These men discovered the main causes of poverty were out with the control of the individual, such as old age, sickness, low wages and unemployment.
Ultimately, the failure of the Delta to diversify has caused people to find themselves trapped in a never-ending turmoil between poor education and indigence. Poverty and education share a relationship with one another and in order to fix the problems associated with poverty the problems with education must first be addressed. Another way that economical factors play a role in education is the cost of college. Due to the high expenses that come with college, many families cannot afford to send their children to universities. This means students have to apply for loans, which can take years to pay off.
The lack of education in the poverty level is due to students who do not succeed in the corridors of our school system. They choose to drop out rather than continue to fight to learn necessary skills to graduate. The lack of marketable skills comes from students who drop out of school before graduation and are left to the streets to find menial work if any work at all. Also, in the poverty level of society is a deviant subculture that consists of drug sales and usage, addiction and low income
Generation Debt The struggle to become financially independent and successful is a goal that has become increasingly more difficult for individuals aged 18-35. With the excessive price tag that comes with pursuing a college degree and the lack of good job opportunities, young people commonly find themselves in greater and greater debt. Rather than enjoying a life they believe they deserve, they find themselves unable to afford even basic necessities such as health insurance or a decent living arrangement. They become stuck, trapped in a situation that doesn’t offer the opportunity of settling down. Unfortunately, much of the older generation believes that this lack of opportunity is due to laziness.
Social divisions are created in society by inequalities through ranking individuals according to particular abilities or characteristics, such as social class, gender, ‘race’ and ethnicity. Social divisions emphasize the differences between people, the way they live and therefore the identity they exhibit and the way others perceive them. Social class perhaps is a social division which provides the most obvious separation between individuals and groups. For example material possessions are a visible sign of wealth or lack of it. Houses, cars, clothes are able to distinguish what class status one is part of.