Abstract
This chapter will outline conceptual thinking around formal theories of poverty in the social sciences that rely upon international and national measures of poverty and upon public perception through ideological positions on poverty. These explanations also assume certain cause-effect notions of the main factors that create poverty, and by association inequality. For heuristic purposes a coalescence of theory and ideology can be divided into six schools of thought. Poverty as behaviour associated with conservative ideology that tends to blame poor people for their plight. Poverty as the deprivation of certain basic social wants such as shelter or social rights of citizenship such as work, a decent standard of living, housing rights and so on. Poverty as inequality that argues we cannot discuss poverty without looking at the root cause in social and economic inequality. Poverty as culture where it is seen as a way of life that involves supposedly attitudes of indifference, alienation, apathy, lack of incentives and self-respect. Poverty as exploitation taken from political economy traditions that see poverty as a form of exploitation in a society whereby those most in need get the least. Finally a broad school of thought that sees poverty as structure and studies the institutional and structural components of society that foster and help explain poverty’s continuation is discussed. We also consider policies, programs and interventions that have been targeted to redress poverty that are underpinned by these perspectives.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ACOSS. (2011). Indicators of inequality. http://acoss.org.au/images/uploads/ACOSS_Indicators_of_Inequality_Factsheet_April_2011.pdf. Accessed on 16 June 2014
ACOSS. (2013). Reduce poverty: Child poverty and family payments. http://acoss.org.au/images/uploads/Reducing_poverty_ACOSS_2013_election_factsheet.pdf. Accessed on 16 June 2014
ACOSS. (2014). Poverty in Australia 2014. Strawberry Hills: Australian Council of Social Services.
Adelman, L., Middleton, S., & Ashworth, K. (2012). Severe poverty: A severe problem? The extent and meaning of severe child poverty in Britain. In 12th Australian Institute of Family Studies conference, Family Transitions and Trajectories, Melbourne 24–27 July.
Adler, S. L., & Figueira-McDonough, J. (2002). Gender and poverty: Self-esteem among elementary school children. Journal of Children and Poverty, 8(1), 5–22.
American Psychological Association (APA). (2000). Resolution on poverty and socioeconomic status. Retrieved on November 21, 2005 from www.apa.org/pi/urban/povres.html
Bauman, Z. (1998). Work, consumerism and the new poor. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
Beder, S. (2006). Suiting themselves: How corporations drive the global agenda. London: Routledge.
Beder, S. (2009). This little kiddy went to market: The corporate capture of childhood. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Bitler, M., Gelbach, J., & Hoynes, H. (2002). The impact of welfare reform on living arrangements (NBER Working Paper 8784). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Blank, R. M. (2003). Selecting among anti-poverty policies: Can an economics be both critical and caring? Review of Social Economy, 61(4), 447–471.
Bradbury, B. (2003). Child poverty: A review report no 3/2003. Sydney: Social Policy Research Centre, The University of New South Wales.
Bradshaw, T. K. (2000). Complex community development projects: Collaboration, comprehensive programs and community coalitions in complex society. Community Development Journal, 35(2), 133–145.
Bradshaw, T. K. (2006). Theories of poverty and anti-poverty programs in community development (Rural Poverty Research Center Working Paper Number 06-05). http://www.rupri.org/Forms/WP06-05.pdf
Bradshaw, T. K. (2007). Theories of poverty and anti-poverty programs in community development. Community Development, 38(1), 5.
Bradshaw, J. (2011). The well-being of children in the UK (3rd ed.). Bristol: Policy Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Buckmaster, L. (2009). Money for nothing? Australia in the global middle class welfare debate (Research Paper 31). Canberra: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia.
Busby, W., & Busby, F. (1996). Children in poverty: The fundamental issue. Journal of Children and Poverty, 2(1), 65–91.
Cancian, M., Slack, K. S., & Yang, M. Y. (2010). The effect of family income on risk of child maltreatment (Discussion Paper no. 1385-120). Institute of Research on Poverty.
Carson, E., & Kerr, L. (2014). Australian social policy and the human services. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Chen, W. H., & Corak, M. (2008). Child poverty and changes in child poverty. Demography, 45(3), 537–553.
Conger, R. D., & Donnellan, M. B. (2007). An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 175–199.
Corbett, T. (1993). Child poverty and welfare reform: Progress or paralysis? Focus, 15(1), 1–47.
Cousins, M. (2005). European welfare states: Comparative perspectives. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Deeming, C., & Gubhaju, B. (2014). The mis-measurement of extreme global poverty. Journal of Sociology, 1–18. doi:10.1177/1440783314523867
DiNitto, D. M. (1991). Social welfare: Politics and public policy (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
DiNitto, D. M. (2011). Social welfare: Politics and public policy (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.
Engster, D. (2012). Child poverty and family policies across eighteen wealthy Western democracies. Journal of Children and Poverty, 18(2), 121–139.
Eversole, R. (2005). Overview – Patterns of indigenous disadvantage worldwide. In R. Eversole, J. McNeish, & A. Cimadamore (Eds.), Indigenous peoples and poverty: An international perspective (pp. 29–37). London: Zed Books.
Fawcett, B., Goodwin, S., Meagher, G., & Phillips, R. (2010). Social policy for social change. South Yarra: Palgrave MacMillan.
Fenna, A. (2004). Australian public policy. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Longman.
Fernandez, E. A. (2013). Early childhood: Dimensions and contexts of development and well-being. In A. Ben-Arieh, F. Casas, I. Frønes, & J. Korbin (Eds.), Handbook of child well-being. Dordrecht: Springer.
Fernandez, E., & Ramia, I. (2015). Child poverty in the international context. In E. Fernandez et al. (eds.), Theoretical and empirical insights into child and family poverty (Children’s well-being: Indicators and Research, Vol. 10). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-17506-5_5.
Fraser, M. (1997). Risk and resilience in childhood: An ecological perspective. Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice. Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. Cambridge: Polity.
Garmezy, N. (1985). Stress-resistant children: The search for protective factors. In J. E. Stevenson (Ed.), Recent research in developmental psychopathology (pp. 213–233). Tarrytown: Pergamon Press.
Gilbert, N., & Specht, H. (1974). Dimensions of social welfare policy (1st ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Gilbert, N., & Terrell, P. (2002). Dimensions of social welfare policy (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Ginsburg, H. (1978). The myth of the deprived child. In H. Bee (Ed.), Social issues in developmental psychology (pp. 178–197). New York: Harper & Row.
Glasser, I., & Bridgman, R. (1999). Braving the street: The anthropology of homelessness. New York: Berghahn Books.
Gornick, J. C., & Meyers, M. K. (2003). Families that work: Policies for reconciling parenthood and employment. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation.
Gould, M. (1999). Race and theory: Culture, poverty and adaptation to discrimination in Wilson and Ogbu. Sociological Theory, 17(2), 171–200.
Harju, A., & Thorod, A. B. (2011). Child poverty in a Scandinavian welfare context: From children’s point of view. Child Indicators Research, 4, 283–299.
Harrington, M. (1962). The other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan.
Harvey, D. (2010). The enigma of capital: And the crises of capitalism. London: Profile Books.
Hawke, R. J. (1987, June 23). Election campaign speech, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Hayek, F. (1944). The road to serfdom. London: Routledge.
Higgins, J. (1978). The poverty business: Britain and America. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Huston, A. C. (2011). Children in poverty: Can public policy alleviate the consequences? Family Matters, 87, 13–26.
Jamrozik, A. (2009). Social policy in the post- welfare state (3rd ed.). Sydney: Pearson Education.
Jencks, C. (1996). Can we replace welfare with work? In M. R. Darby (Ed.), Reducing poverty in America (pp. 69–81). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Jung, S. Y., & Smith, R. J. (2007). The economics of poverty. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 16(1–2), 21–39.
Karoly, L. A., Kilburn, M. R., & Cannon, J. (2005). Early childhood intervention proven results, future promise. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation.
Kershaw, P. (2007). Measuring up: Family benefits in British Columbia and Alberta in international perspective. IRPP Choices, 13(2), 4–42.
Leatherman, T. L. (2005). A space of vulnerability in poverty and health: Political ecology and biocultural analysis. Ethos, 33(1), 46–70.
Lewis, O. (1961). The children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican family. New York: Random House.
Lindsey, D. (2004). The welfare of children. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lindsey, D. (2009). Child poverty and inequality: Securing a better future for America’s children. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lindsey, D., & Martin, S. K. (2003). Deeping child poverty: The not so good news about welfare reform. Children and Youth Services Review, 24, 165–173.
Loury, G. (1997). A dynamic theory of racial income differences. In P. Wallace & A. Lamond (Eds.), Women, minorities, and employment discrimination (pp. 153–188). Lexington: Health.
Mallon, A. J., & Stevens, G. V. G. (2012). Children’s well-being, adult poverty, and jobs-of-last-resort. Journal of Children and Poverty, 18(1), 55–80.
Marx, I., Nolan, B., & Olivera, J. (2014). The welfare state and anti-poverty policy in rich countries (Discussion Paper Series). Bonn: Institute for the Study of Labour. Pdf available http://ftp.iza.org/dp8154.pdf
Masten, A. S., Best, K. M., & Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience and development: Contributions from the study of children who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 425–444.
McLanahan, S., & Sandefur, G. D. (1994). Growing up with a single parent: What hurts, what helps. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
McNaughton, C. (2008). Transitions through homelessness: Lives on the edge. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Mendes, P. (2008). Australia’s welfare wars: The players, the politics and the ideologies. Kensington: The University of New South Wales Press.
Moreira, V. (2003). Poverty and psychopathology. In S. Carr & T. Sloan (Eds.), Poverty and psychology: From global perspective to local practice (pp. 69–86). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Nguyen, V., & Peschard, K. (2003). Anthropology, inequality and disease: A review. Annual Review of Anthropology, 32, 447–474.
O’Conner, A. (2001). Poverty knowledge: Social science, social policy, and the poor in twentieth century U.S. history. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
O’Hare, J. (2009). Brotherhood: Stories of courage and resilience. Camberwell: Viking.
Parker, S., & Kleiner, R. (1970). The culture of poverty: An adjustive dimension. American Anthropologist, 72(3), 516–527.
Paxson, C., & Waldfogel, J. (2003). Welfare reforms, family resources and child maltreatment. Journal of Labor Economics, 20(3), 435–474.
Pearl, A. (1970). The poverty of psychology: An indictment. In V. Allen (Ed.), Psychological factors in poverty (pp. 348–364). Chicago: Markham Publishing Company.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of the American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Rainwater, L. (1967). And the poor get children: Sex contraception and family planning in the working class. Chicago: Quadrangle Press.
Rank, M. R. (2004). One nation, underprivileged. Why American poverty affects us all. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rankin, B. H., & Quane, J. M. (2000). Neighbourhood poverty and the social isolation of inner-city African American families. Social Forces, 79, 139–154. doi:10.1093/sf/79.1.139.
Russell, M., Harris, B., & Gockel, A. (2008a). Canadian lone mothers describe parenting needs: European solutions explored. Canadian Social Work Review, 25(2), 169–185.
Russell, M., Harris, B., & Gockel, A. (2008b). Parenting in poverty: Perspectives of high-risk parents. Journal of Children and Poverty, 14(1), 83–98.
Sampson, R. J. (2001). Crime and public safety: Insights from community-level perspectives on social capital. In S. Saegert, J. P. Thompson, & M. R. Warren (Eds.), Social capital and poor communities (pp. 89–114). New York: Russell Sage.
Sandbaek, M. (2013). Child poverty in a rich welfare state. Child Indicators Research, 6(1), 53–69.
Saunders, P. (2005). The poverty wars: Reconnecting research with reality. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
Saunders, P. (2015). Not just statistics: Making children’s poverty more visible. In E. Fernandez et al. (eds.), Theoretical and empirical insights into child and family poverty (Children’s well-being: Indicators and research, Vol. 10). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-17506-5_5
Schraad-Tischler, D., & Azahaf, N. (2012). Social justice in the OECD – How do the member states. Compare? Sustainable governance. Indicators 2011. Gütersloh, Germany: Bertelsmann Stiftung.
Sen, A. K. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sen, A. K. (2009). The idea of justice. London: Penguin, Allen and Unwin.
Serr, K. (2006). Concepts of poverty. In K. Serr (Ed.), Thinking about poverty (3rd ed.). Annandale: The Federation Press.
Smith, L. (2010). Psychology, poverty and the end of social exclusion: Putting our practice to work. New York: Teacher’s College Press.
Smyth, P., & McClelland, A. (2010). Social policy in Australia: Understanding for action (2nd ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Sobhan, R. (2010). Challenging the injustice of poverty: Agendas for inclusive development in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage.
Steinert, H., & Pilgram, A. (Eds.). (2007). Welfare policy from below: Struggles against social exclusion in Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Stilwell, F., & Jordon, K. (2007). Who gets what?: Analyzing economic inequality in Australia. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Sullivan, L. (2000). Behavioural poverty. Melbourne: Centre for Independent Studies.
Titmuss, R. (1955). Essays on the welfare state. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Titmuss, R. (1974). Social policy. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Townsend, P. (1979). Poverty in the United Kingdom: A survey of household resources and standards of living. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Turner, K., & Lehning, A. J. (2007). Psychological theories of poverty. Journal of Human Behavior and the Social Environment, 16(1/2), 57–72.
Valentine, C. A. (1968). Culture and poverty: Critique and counter-proposals. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Waldfogel, J. (2004). Welfare reform and the child welfare system. Children and Youth Services Review, 26, 919–939.
Wallis, M. A., & Kwok, S. (2008). Introduction. In M. A. Wallis & S. Kwok (Eds.), Daily struggles: The deepening racialization and feminization of poverty in Canada (p. 9/18). Toronto: Canada’s Scholars Press.
Walz, T. H., & Askerooth, G. (1973). The upside-down welfare state. Minneapolis: Elwood Printing.
Waxman, C. I. (1983). The stigma of poverty: A critique of poverty theories and policies (2nd ed.). New York: Pergamon Press.
Wearing, M. (1998). Working in community services. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Weber, H., & Berger, M. T. (2007). Global poverty and inequality. In Richard Devetak, Anthony Burke & Jim George (Eds.), An introduction to international relations: Australian perspectives (pp. 283–294). Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Zigler, E., & Styfco, S. J. (1996). Reshaping early childhood intervention to be a more effective weapon against poverty. In M. R. Darby (Ed.), Reducing poverty in America (pp. 310–333). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wearing, M., Fernandez, E. (2015). Why Are Poor Children Always with Us? Theory, Ideology and Policy for Understanding Child Poverty. In: Fernandez, E., Zeira, A., Vecchiato, T., Canali, C. (eds) Theoretical and Empirical Insights into Child and Family Poverty. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17506-5_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17506-5_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-17505-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-17506-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)