Poverty in Europe and Beyond

Abstract

Most discussion of the problem of poverty, and certainly most research into it, takes place within national boundaries. However poverty is of course an international, or rather a global problem. There are gross inequalities in the resources available to peoples in different parts of the world and within all countries, and this results in deprivation in relatively affluent countries and in severe deprivation in some less affluent ones when compared with wider international standards. We live in a profoundly unequal world in which the extreme poverty that leads to starvation and early death is unfortunately still quite common.