There are many personal and sociological perspectives on this question. Individual experiences shape one's opinion immensely. Poverty has serious consequences on an individual's life, so finding the causes of poverty is crucial in order to come up with solutions for it.
- We will look at the different sociological approaches to the causes of absolute and relative poverty.
- We will look at external causes of poverty.
- We will mention the individualistic, structural, and symbolic interactionist explanations.
- Then we will discuss the causes of poverty in Third World countries.
- We will consider the cause and effect of growing up in poverty.
Causes of absolute and relative poverty
Poverty became an important concern in the field of sociology in the 1960s. Since then, theorists have been trying to determine its causes.
There are three general approaches to the causes of poverty.
One blames the individual.
Another blames the system for the existence and continuance of poverty.
The third shifts the focus from blame to personal experience.
The belief in a particular explanation is usually the basis of a person’s attitude toward the poor and the social policies aiming to help them, states Theresa C. Davidson [2009].
Cultural and individualistic explanations
The individualistic approach to poverty focuses on the personal choices and decisions of poor people. It states that if people would make better choices about education, work, family, and extracurricular activities, they would not be poor. They would have higher incomes, afford better housing and higher quality food, and could better care for their children.
Poor individuals and families were previously thought to be biologically inferior - it was their genes that determined their financial status. Nowadays, this has shifted to the idea that the poor are generally less ambitious, less motivated, and don't work as hard.
This is also known as the victim-blaming approach to explaining poverty. Functionalists and the New Right have adopted this theory, claiming that poverty has always been present in society and will always remain present. They believe society offers equal opportunities to everyone, so when people end up in poverty it is a result of their individual failures.
Some theorists draw a distinction between two groups of poor people, depending on their personal attitudes towards their situation [O'Brien and Briar, 1997]:
- The deserving poor: In their definition, these are people who fell into poverty due to issues outside of their control [for example, natural disasters] and who are constantly trying to get out of poverty and improve their situations.
- The undeserving poor: They define the undeserving poor as people who, to a certain extent, have chosen their lifestyles and do little or nothing to change their financial situations. The undeserving live on social benefits and refuse to work out of laziness or lack of ambition. Charles Murray [2012] called them the ‘underclass’.
Criticisms of the individualistic approach
This explanation of poverty is criticised for two of its claims in particular.
It suggests that poverty can only be solved by poor people themselves and that the government bears no responsibility in this situation. In fact, the more the government helps the poor, the longer it allows them to 'leech off' others and not solve their own problems.
It also implies that developing countries are solely responsible for the extreme poverty their citizens may face, and that Western developed nations did not historically contribute to this at all [Browne, 2006]
External causes of poverty
The external causes of poverty are explained below
Structural explanations
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation [2004] attributes the creation of the first structural approach to poverty to Seebohm and Joseph Rowntree. They state that:
In his 1901 study... Rowntree argues that poverty is the direct result of low wages, contradicting a common view that poor people were responsible for their own situation. His study marks the beginning of a period in which research has a growing impact on the development of social policies. It is also highly influential in establishing a statistical and scientific approach to the measurement of poverty.
The Rowntrees were followed by R. H. Tawney and many subsequent sociologists, who claim that societal structures prevent the equal distribution of wealth, thereby being responsible for poverty.
This system-blaming approach points out that some social groups are much more privileged when it comes to opportunities than others. Followers of the structural explanation claim that elite groups in society determine who can benefit from which opportunities, and these divisions are extremely unequal. Women, ethnic minorities, working-class people, and disabled individuals are systematically disadvantaged when it comes to education, healthcare, and employment opportunities.
Furthermore, major societal changes have had a huge influence on poverty levels. These include:
Labour market changes: after the 1970s, working-class people in the UK experienced high levels of unemployment as the decline of the manufacturing sector eliminated many jobs.
Globalisation: in the globalised labour market, competition among workers is even greater.
Structural limits of welfare: welfare rarely provides sufficient training and education for people to go back to work. You can think of this as the poverty trap.
The feminisation of poverty: women suffer more from poverty than men because of inequalities in the labour market.
Structuralists believe that governments have a responsibility to solve the issue of poverty through welfare benefits and other social policies, such as the introduction of a minimum wage.
Intergenerational transmission [IGT]
The third explanation is often called inter-generation transmission theory or symbolic interactionism, and it is a bridge between individualistic and structural explanations.
Mick Moore [2001] argues that the intergenerational transfer of various forms of capital, or lack thereof, is responsible for the existence and continuance of poverty. He differentiates between five broad categories of capital, which include:
Human capital:
Labour contributions
Investment of time and money in education and training
Survival skills
Financial capital:
Money, inheritance and other assets
Insurance
Family debt
Environmental capital:
Pollution
Lack of work in the area [urban vs. rural areas]
Cultural capital:
Academic opportunities
Traditions and values
Socio-political capital:
Ethnicity, gender, class, religion, disability, family forms
Symbolic interactionists also look at the ways poverty and social exclusion affect people’s personal lives, beliefs, daily occupations, and identity formations.
Causes of poverty in Third World countries
The term 'Third World countries' is a rather offensive and outdated one in the social sciences. It is still in use; however, the area is more often referred to as 'the Developing World' or 'Global South' nowadays. We must keep in mind that even these terms are problematic from certain perspectives.
The individualistic approach blames the individuals of Third World countries for their extreme poverty. Some sociologists, like Max Weber, argue that the religions dominant in developing countries are not supportive of economic competition and don't celebrate financial achievements like the religious and ideological beliefs of First-World capitalist countries.
The structuralist and symbolic interactionist approaches argue that third-world countries suffered extensively from colonialism and are still being exploited by Western capitalist countries. This is the primary cause behind the extreme levels of poverty in the developing world.
Cause and effect of growing up in poverty
Analysing the causes of poverty is significant because growing up poor can have serious effects on individuals and social groups. Statistics show that children who grow up in poverty have worse life chances than their wealthier peers. They are more likely to live in low-quality housing and suffer from malnutrition and from further illnesses. They are less likely to succeed in school and end up in high-paying positions.
Sociologists have tried to identify the causes and effects of poverty in order to give suggestions on how to decrease the number of children growing up in poverty and better their chances in life.