Giddens, A

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Poverty, Welfare and Social Exclusion Poverty What is poverty? Measuring poverty Recent trends in poverty in the UK Who are the poor? Explaining poverty Poverty and social mobility

The underclass controversy Background to the underclass debate The underclass, the EU and migration Is there an underclass in Britain?

Social exclusion Forms of social exclusion The homeless Crime and social exclusion

Welfare and the reform of the welfare state Theories of the welfare state The rise of the British welfare state Reforming the welfare state

Conclusion: rethinking equality and inequality Summary points Questions for further thought Further reading Internet links

311 311 312 313 315 316 319 320 321 321 322 323 326 328 331 332 332 334 336 340 341 343 343 343

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Chapter 11: Poverty, Welfare and Social Exclusion

estate and, in any case, she can’t afford to buy many fresh products. Carol worries about spending too much time away from her children, but she doesn’t see any way around her dilemma. After she and her husband divorced, she spent the first eighteen months at home with the children, living off government benefits. Although she is struggling to cope with her present situation, she does not want to become dependent on welfare. Carol hopes that after some years of experience at the call centre, she might be able to rise into a more responsible and better-paying position. Many people who encounter someone like Carol might make certain assumptions about her life. They might conclude that Carol’s poverty and low position in society are a result of her natural abilities or a consequence of her own personal upbringing. Others might blame Carol for not

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Carol is a woman of twenty-four who works at a telephone call centre, providing information and customer service to people who want to make travel arrangements over the telephone. She works long hours, often late into the evening. The people who work alongside her at the call centre are all women. They sit in a large room in long rows, separated from one another by grey partitions. The women speak into telephone headsets while entering and retrieving information from the computer terminals in front of them. Like many of her co-workers, Carol is a lone mother. She supports her two small children on her low wages. Each month she receives a small amount of child support from her ex-husband, but it never seems to be enough to cover expenses. Carol lives from pay cheque to pay cheque. Three mornings a week she takes on extra work as a cleaner at an office building near her flat. The money she is able to earn from this additional work allows her to pay most of her bills on time, to buy clothes for her children and to cover the cost of childcare. Despite these extra hours, Carol struggles each month to make ends meet. She and her children live in a council-owned flat on a housing estate. Her prime goal is to advance enough to move herself and her children into a safer, more desirable area. On the evenings when Carol works late at the call centre, she rushes from work to fetch her two children from her mother, who cares for them after the day care centre closes each afternoon. If she is lucky, the children fall back to sleep as soon as she takes them home, but many nights it is a struggle to get them to bed. By the time the children are asleep, Carol is too exhausted to do anything but switch on the television. She has little time to shop for food or to cook proper meals, so she and the children eat a lot of frozen foods. She knows that they would all benefit from a more balanced diet, but there are no shops close by on the council

Figure 11.1 Average poverty level in six countries Sources: OECD. From the Guardian, 12 Jan. 2000.

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working hard enough to overcome her difficult situation. Are these views accurate? It is the job of sociology to analyse these assumptions and to develop a broader view of our society that can make sense of the experiences of people like Carol. Carol and her children are only one example of the many households in the United Kingdom that exist in conditions of poverty. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Britain has one of the worst poverty records in the developed world (see figure 11.1). Many people might be shocked to learn that Britain holds such a dubious distinction. More affluent people often have little accurate knowledge about the extent of the poverty in their midst.

Poverty What is poverty? What is poverty and how should it be defined? Two different approaches to poverty have been favoured by sociologists and researchers: absolute poverty and relative poverty. The concept of absolute poverty is grounded in the idea of subsistence – the basic conditions that must be met in order to sustain a physically healthy existence. People who lack these fundamental requirements for human existence – such as sufficient food, shelter and clothing – are said to live in poverty. The concept of absolute poverty is seen as universally applicable. It is held that standards for human subsistence are more or less the same for all people of an equivalent age and physique, regardless of where they live. Any individual, anywhere in the world, can be said to live in poverty if he or she falls below this universal standard. Not everyone accepts that it is possible to identify such a standard, however. It is more appropriate, they argue, to use the concept of relative poverty, which relates poverty to the overall standard of living that prevails in a particular society. Advocates of the concept of relative

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poverty hold that poverty is culturally defined and should not be measured according to some universal standard of deprivation. It is wrong to assume that human needs are everywhere identical – in fact, they differ both within and across societies. Things that are seen as essential in one society might be regarded as luxuries in another. For example, in most industrialized countries running water, flush toilets and the regular consumption of fruit and vegetables are regarded as basic necessities for a healthy life; people who live without them could be said to live in poverty. Yet in many developing societies, such items are not standard among the bulk of the population and it would not make sense to measure poverty according to their presence or absence. There are difficulties in the formulations of both absolute and relative poverty. One common technique for measuring absolute poverty is to determine a poverty line, based on the price of the basic goods needed for human survival in a particular society. Individuals or households whose income falls below the poverty line are said to live in poverty. Yet using a single criterion of poverty can be problematic, because such definitions fail to take into account variations in human needs within and between societies. It is much more expensive, for example, to live in some areas of the country than others; the cost of basic necessities will differ from region to region. As another example, individuals who are engaged in physical labour outdoors will be likely to have greater nutritional needs than, say, office workers who spend their days sitting inside. A single criterion of poverty tends to mean that some individuals are assessed as above the poverty line when in fact their income does not even meet their basic subsistence needs. The concept of relative poverty presents its own complexities, however. One of the main ones is the fact that, as societies develop, understandings of relative poverty must also change. As societies become more affluent, standards for relative poverty are gradually adjusted upwards. At one time, for example, cars, refrigerators, central

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heating and telephones were considered to be luxury goods. Yet in most industrialized societies today, they are seen as necessities for leading a full and active life. Some critics have cautioned that the use of the concept of relative poverty tends to deflect attention away from the fact that even the least affluent members of society are now considerably better off than in earlier times. They question whether ‘true’ poverty can be said to exist in a society, such as present-day Britain, where consumer goods like televisions and washing machines now sit in practically every home. It is true that even among the lowest income families there is now much better access to goods and services than was true two decades ago (see figure 11.2). Yet it would be wrong to suppose that this signals an absence of poverty. While British society as a whole has become more affluent, the gap between the richest and poorest members of society is becoming ever more pronounced. Households towards the bottom of the income distribution, such as Carol’s, still have difficulty making ends meet. By using a deprivation index which measures the presence or absence of items which are necessary for a child’s upbringing, sociologists have found that many households struggle to provide ‘the basics’ for children – such as fresh fruit at least once a day, a waterproof coat, or the chance to pursue a hobby or leisure activity (Middleton et al. 1997). Malnutrition, ill-health, limited access to education and public services, and unsafe housing conditions remain widespread among low income households. Such indicators suggest that in relative terms, poverty remains deeply entrenched in British society.

Measuring poverty Official measurements of poverty In contrast to the United States and many other countries, where there is an official ‘poverty line’, in Britain interpretations of poverty as such are not provided by the government. Because of

the absence of an official definition of poverty, researchers in the UK have relied on other statistical indicators, such as benefit provision, to measure poverty levels. Studies used to define anyone having an income at or below the level of supplementary benefit as living ‘in poverty’. Supplementary benefit referred to cash benefits paid to people whose income did not reach a level deemed necessary for subsistence. People with incomes of between 100 and 140 per cent of the supplementary benefit level were defined as living ‘on the margins of poverty’. Recently, supplementary benefit has been replaced by income support, and poverty is now most commonly measured by reference to the number of households living on below the average (median) income, or at or below half average income. The number of people living in, or on the margins of, poverty thus defined increased dramatically throughout the 1980s (Blackburn 1991), and this affected increasing numbers of children. In 1979, 10 per cent of children (those under fifteen years of age) were living in households with income 50 per cent below the national average; by 1991 this proportion had grown to 31 per cent (Kumar 1993). After the dramatic rise in poverty during the 1980s, poverty levels remained fairly constant during the 1990s. Data from the late 1990s revealed that approximately 10.7 million Britons were living on below half average income, with the number rising to 14 million when accounting for housing costs (Howarth et al. 1999).

Subjective measurements of poverty Some researchers believe that measuring poverty in terms of income alone underestimates the true extent of deprivation among low income households. Several important studies have set out to measure poverty according to subjective criteria, rather than objective ones such as income level. Peter Townsend is one scholar who believes that the official measures of poverty are inadequate. Rather than relying on income statistics, Townsend’s studies have turned to people’s subjective understandings of poverty (1979; Townsend et al.

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1987). Respondents were asked their opinions about how much income is necessary to maintain their household adequately and whether their present income meets, exceeds or falls short of that amount. Across a broad range of households, respondents’ estimates of necessary income were on average 61 per cent higher than the government minimum required for the provision of benefits. Respondents also provided detailed information about their lifestyles, including living conditions, eating habits, work, leisure and civic activities. This data revealed that there were often significant discrepancies between the households’ perceived needs and their ability to meet those needs. Below a certain income level, households suffered ‘multiple deprivations’, which means that they were going without several of the items or activities that they deemed essential. Based on these findings, Townsend concluded that government rates for means-tested benefits were more than 50 per cent too low, falling well short of the minimum amount needed by a household to participate fully and meaningfully in society. Building on Townsend’s research, Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley have carried out two important studies on relative poverty in Britain. For a television programme called Breadline Britain, Mack and Lansley conducted an opinion poll to determine what people considered to be ‘necessities’ for an ‘acceptable’ standard of living. On the basis of these responses, they created a list of twenty-one basic necessities that more than 50 per cent of respondents considered important for a normal life. More than 90 per cent of respondents were agreed on the importance of a further five necessities: heating, an indoor toilet and bath, a bed for each member of the household, and a home free from damp. According to these twenty-six necessities – and their presence or absence among British households – Mack and Lansley measured poverty levels in 1983 and again in 1990. Their results revealed a significant growth in poverty during the 1980s, with the number of people living in poverty (defined as a lack of three or more of the twenty-six necessities) rising from 7.5 to 11 million, and the num-

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Table 11.1 Percentage of households that did not feel that they could afford certain items, EU comparison, 1995

Portugal Greece Spain United Kingdom Irish Republic Italy France Belgium Austria Denmark Netherlands Luxembourg Germany

Eat meat every other day

New clothes

A week’s holiday

6 35 2 10 4 6 5 4 8 2 2 3 5

47 32 9 15 7 15 10 10 10 5 13 5 15

59 51 49 40 38 38 34 26 24 16 15 14 12

Source: Social Trends, 29 (1999), table 5.12. Crown copyright.

ber living in severe poverty (a lack of seven or more necessities) rising from 2.6 to 3.5 million (Mack and Lansley 1985, 1992). Similar deprivation indexes based on subjective criteria have been used to measure child poverty and to make international comparisons of relative poverty levels (see table 11.1).

Recent trends in poverty in the UK The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Policy Institute have compiled a list of fifty indicators of poverty and social exclusion which are monitored annually in order to assess the effectiveness of anti-poverty programmes (Howarth et al. 1999). The indicators include household income, but also encompass factors such as health, access to education, employment patterns and community activity. Some of the main findings in 1999 included the following:

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More than 2 million children live in households where there is no adult in paid work. More than 3 million children live in households where income is less than half the national average. More than two-thirds of the heads of households living in social housing are not in paid work. More than 1 million pensioners are completely dependent on the state pension and benefits for their livelihoods. Pensioners remain heavily concentrated among the lower half of the income distribution. Health inequalities are pronounced within the British population. Since 1991 there has been a 40 per cent increase in the number of local authority areas with mortality rates that are significantly above average.

How can we make sense of widespread deprivation in affluent nations such as Britain? One logical starting point is to consider the growing inequalities between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ in Britain and other industrial societies. The gap between the richest and poorest members of society increased dramatically during the 1980s: Britain was second only to New Zealand as the industrialized nation experiencing the steepest growth in economic inequality over the period from 1977 to 1990. A combination of factors led to this drastic shift, many of them connected to specific government policies aimed at revitalizing a stagnant economy. The theory underlying the policies of Mrs Thatcher’s government was that cutting tax rates for individuals and corporations would generate high levels of economic growth, the fruits of which would ‘trickle down’ to the poor. Similar policies were implemented in the United States during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, with comparable results. The evidence does not support the ‘trickle down’ thesis. Such an economic policy may or may not generate acceleration of economic development, but the result tends to expand the differentials between the poor and the wealthy,

actually swelling the numbers of those living in poverty. Government policies initiated during the 1980s and early 1990s tended to benefit the more affluent members of society while deepening the disadvantages experienced by the poor. The privatization of formerly nationalized industries provided lucrative opportunities for middle-class and upper-class investors. Meanwhile workers in manual and unskilled jobs often found their wages reduced as rights included in the Employment Protection Act were reduced. Other changes in the occupational structure and the global economy have also contributed to the trend towards social polarization in Britain, the United States and elsewhere. As we noted in chapter 10, the growth of professional and managerial jobs has been accompanied by a relative decline in the manual workforce. This has had an important effect both on patterns of income distribution and unemployment. It is often the case that workers in unskilled or semi-skilled jobs have found it difficult to re-enter a rapidly changing labour market where educational qualifications and technological competence are in increasing demand. Although there has been a marked expansion of opportunities in the service sector, this has been for positions that are low-paid and with little prospect for advancement. The entry of women into the labour market has meant a growing divide between ‘work rich’ households, characterized by dual earners, and ‘work poor’ households where no one is active in the labour market. Women’s earnings have become more critical to household income than they were in earlier times, and with women occupying influential and highly paid positions in greater numbers than before, the impact of their earnings can carry enormous weight. Indeed the success of dual earner households, particularly those without children, is one of the most important factors in the shifting pattern of income distribution. The differences between two-earner, one-earner and no-earner households are becoming increasingly apparent.

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on others for support – material, physical and emotional. In the United Kingdom, the over sixty-fives represent the largest group of individuals receiving means-tested benefits; 1.3 million were solely dependent on pensions and benefits administered by the state in 1998 (Howarth et al. 1999). Two-fifths of all social protection

Number of British children in families where no one of working age works 2.5 2.0

Millions

Perhaps the greatest influence on poverty is unemployment. This may seem self-evident, but it is a fact often underemphasized. A steady income is not enough to guarantee a life free from poverty, but it is an important prerequisite. ‘Work poor’ and no-earner households have little chance of escaping from poverty. The connection between poverty and joblessness is evident in figures on child poverty. Recent research has shown that nearly one-fifth of the children in the UK – over 2 million of them – are living in households where there is no adult in paid work (see figure 11.3). For governments intent on combating poverty, a buoyant labour market that permits good access to jobs is a top priority. If more people are employed, there are more resources available to be allocated from the national budget towards healthcare, education and other social services. As we shall see in our discussion of welfare reform, employment programmes which enable unemployed people to enter the labour market lie at the heart of many current anti-poverty strategies.

315

1.5 1.0 0.5 0

1990

1993

1996

1999

Percentage of UK children in families where no one of working age works 20

Who are the poor? It is impossible to present a profile to describe ‘the poor’; the face of poverty is diverse and ever-changing. Yet people in certain categories are more likely than others to be living in poverty. Often people who are disadvantaged in other aspects of life have an increased chance of being poor. The unemployed, those in part-time or insecure jobs, older people, the sick and disabled, children, women, members of large families and/or single-parent families, and ethnic minorities have an increased likelihood of living in poverty at some time in their lives. Poverty is widespread among older people living on pensions (see figure 11.4). Many people who may have been reasonably paid during their working lives experience a sharp reduction in income on retirement. With advancing age, some older people become increasingly dependent

15 % 10

5 79

90

92

93

94 95 Year

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Figure 11.3 Numbers and percentages of children in families where no one of working age works Sources: Joseph Rowntree Foundation; Department of Social Security. From the Guardian, 7 Dec. 1999.

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2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0

Poorest fifth

2nd

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Richest fifth

Members of ethnic minority groups are also disproportionately represented among the poor. Research into poverty in Britain in the 1990s has noted with alarm the high rates of poverty among Pakistani and Bangladeshi households where unemployment is particularly high. The preponderance of Afro-Caribbean single mothers has similarly attracted attention (Joseph Rowntree Foundation 1995). In the United States, ethnicity and poverty are tightly intertwined: the poverty rate among black Americans is 26.1 per cent (9.1 million people) and among Hispanics it is 25.6 per cent (8.1 million people) – roughly three times higher than the rate among the white population.

Figure 11.4 The concentration of pensioners in the lower half of the income distribution

Explaining poverty

Source: C. Howarth et al., Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 1999, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1999, fig. 5.

Explanations of poverty can be grouped under two main headings: theories that see poor individuals as responsible for their own poverty, and theories that view poverty as produced and reproduced by structural forces in society. These competing approaches are sometimes described as ‘blame the victim’ and ‘blame the system’ theories respectively. We shall briefly examine each in turn. There is a long history of attitudes that hold the poor as responsible for their own disadvantaged positions. Early efforts to address the effects of poverty, such as the poorhouses of the nineteenth century, were grounded in a belief that poverty was the result of an inadequacy or pathology of individuals. The poor were seen as those who were unable – due to lack of skills, moral or physical weakness, absence of motivation, or below average ability – to succeed in society. Social standing was taken as a reflection of a person’s talent and effort; those who deserved to succeed did so, while others less capable were doomed to fail. The existence of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ was regarded as a fact of life. Such outlooks have enjoyed a renaissance, beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, as the political emphasis on entrepreneurship and individual ambition rewarded those who ‘succeeded’ in

expenditure in 1996–7 went to this group (HMSO 1999). The proportion of children (those under fifteen years of age) living in households with income below half the national average has risen over recent years. In 1979, 10 per cent of children were living in such households. By 1991 this proportion had grown to 31 per cent. The most important influences on the spread of child poverty are high rates of unemployment, an increase in the proportion of low-paid jobs in the economy and the growth in the number of loneparent households. The effects of poverty on children’s life chances are pronounced: babies born in social classes IV and V are 20 per cent more likely to be underweight than those born in social classes I, II and III; rates of accidental death are higher among children in the bottom two classes than those in the upper three; and educational outcomes continue to reflect children’s social class origin (Howarth et al. 1999).

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Social polarization: is globalization to blame? In a time when globalizing forces have become a central feature of our changing world, it is often suggested that globalization is largely to blame for increasing economic inequality. The expansion of free trade arrangements is seen as allowing unskilled workers in some countries to undercut the positions of unskilled workers in other countries. Workers in textile factories in the Philippines, for example, demand lower wages and benefits than their counterparts in Britain or the United States. As a result, jobs are ‘shipped overseas’ as corporations contract out parts of the production process to international labour markets.

society, and held those who did not responsible for the circumstances in which they found themselves. Often explanations for poverty were sought in the lifestyles of poor people, along with the attitudes and outlooks they supposedly espoused. Oscar Lewis (1961) set forth one of the most influential of such theories, arguing that a culture of poverty exists among many poor people. According to Lewis, poverty is not a result of individual inadequacies, but a larger social and cultural atmosphere into which poor children are socialized. The culture of poverty is transmitted across generations because young people from an early age see little point in aspiring to something more. Instead, they resign themselves fatalistically to a life of impoverishment. The culture of poverty thesis has been taken further by the American sociologist Charles Murray. Individuals who are poor through ‘no fault of their own’ – such as widows or widowers, orphans, or the disabled – fall into a different category from those who are part of the dependency culture. By this term, Murray refers to poor people who rely on government welfare provision rather than

We should be cautious, however, about holding globalization responsible for economic inequality. An examination of income distribution trends shows that disparities are not necessarily most pronounced in those industries where international trade is most significant. Technological shifts are undoubtedly more important, increasing the demand for skilled workers and reducing the demand for unskilled workers, whose wages and job security decline correspondingly. Meanwhile, workers with abilities in the sphere of information technology become more marketable and able to secure better earnings.

entering the labour market. He argues that the growth of the welfare state has created a subculture which undermines personal ambition and the capacity for self-help. Rather than orienting themselves on the future and striving to achieve a better life, the welfare dependent are content to accept handouts. Welfare, he argues, has eroded people’s incentive to work (1984). Theories such as these seem to resonate among the British population. Surveys have shown that the majority of Britons regard the poor as responsible for their own poverty and are suspicious of those who live ‘for free’ on ‘government handouts’. Many believe that people on welfare could find work if they were determined to do so. Yet these views are out of line with the realities of poverty. About a quarter of those living in poverty in the UK are in work anyway, but earn too little to bring them over the poverty threshold. Of the remainder, the majority are children under fourteen, those aged sixty-five and over, and the ill or disabled. In spite of popular views about the high level of welfare cheating, fewer than 1 per cent of welfare applications involve fraudu-

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Hanging out on a council estate in North Peckham, in London: nothing to do and nothing to spend.

lent claims – much lower than in the case of income tax returns, where it is estimated that more than 10 per cent of tax is lost through misreporting or evasion. (See also box on ‘welfare dependency’, p. 337 below.) The second approach to explaining poverty emphasizes larger social processes that produce conditions of poverty that are difficult for individuals to overcome. According to such a view, structural forces within society – factors like class, gender, ethnicity, occupational position, educational attainment and so forth – shape the way in which resources are distributed. Writers who advocate structural explanations for poverty argue that the lack of ambition among the poor which is often taken for the ‘dependency culture’ is in fact a consequence of their constrained situations, not a cause of it. Reducing poverty is not a matter of changing individual outlooks, they claim, but

requires policy measures aimed at distributing income and resources more equally throughout society. Childcare subsidies, a minimum hourly wage and guaranteed income levels for families are examples of policy measures that have sought to redress persistent social inequalities.

Evaluation Both theories have enjoyed broad support, and variations of each view are consistently encountered in public debates about poverty. Critics of the culture of poverty view accuse its advocates of ‘individualizing’ poverty and blaming the poor for circumstances largely beyond their control. They see the poor as victims, not as freeloaders who are abusing the system. Yet we should be cautious about accepting uncritically the arguments of those who see the causes of poverty as lying exclusively in the structure of society itself. Such

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Table 11.2 Adults moving within the income distribution between 1991 and 1996, Great Britain (per cent) 1996 income grouping

1991 income grouping Bottom fifth Next fifth Middle fifth Next fifth Top fifth

Bottom fifth

Next fifth

Middle fifth

Next fifth

Top fifth

All adults

52 25 11 7 4

26 35 21 12 6

12 22 33 20 11

7 12 23 37 21

4 6 12 23 59

100 100 100 100 100

Sources: British Household Panel Survey, Institute for Social and Economic Research. From Social Trends, 29 (1999), p. 98. Crown copyright.

an approach implies that the poor simply passively accept the difficult situations in which they find themselves. This is far from the truth, as we shall see below.

Poverty and social mobility Most research into poverty in the past has focused on people’s entry into poverty and has measured aggregate levels of poverty year by year. Less attention has traditionally been paid to the ‘life cycle’ of poverty – people’s trajectories out of (and often back into) poverty over time. A widely held view of poverty is that it is a permanent condition. Yet being poor does not necessarily mean being mired in poverty. A substantial proportion of people in poverty at any one time have either enjoyed superior conditions of life previously or can be expected to climb out of poverty at some time in the future. Recent research has revealed a significant amount of mobility into and out of poverty: a surprising number of people are successful in escaping poverty, but a larger number than previously realized live in poverty at some point during their lives. Statistical findings from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) show that just over half of the individuals who were in the bottom fifth

(quintile) by income in 1991 were in the same category in 1996 (see table 11.2). This does not necessarily mean that these people remained consistently in the bottom quintile over the five-year period, however. While some of them may have, others may have risen out of the bottom quintile and returned into it during that time. The BHPS also reveals that one in ten adults remained consistently within the poorest 20 per cent during five out of the six years in which the survey has been administered. Sixty per cent of adults were never in the bottom 20 per cent between 1991 and 1996. On the whole, these findings suggest that about half of the adults in the poorest 20 per cent at any given time are suffering from a constant state of low income, while the other half are moving in and out of the bottom group from year to year (HMSO 1999). Data on German income patterns between 1984 and 1994 have also revealed significant mobility into and out of poverty. Over 30 per cent of Germans were poor (earning less than half the average (half the median) income) for at least one year during the decade under review; this represents a figure more than three times higher than the maximum number of poor in any given year (Leisering and Leibfried 1999). Among those who ‘escaped’ poverty, the average income level

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attained was about 30 per cent above the poverty line. Yet over half of those individuals fell back into poverty for at least one year during the ten-year period. Scholars have stressed that we should interpret such findings carefully, as they can easily be used by those who wish to scale back on welfare provisions or avoid poverty as a political and social issue altogether. John Hills at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion has cautioned against accepting a ‘lottery model’ view of income determination. By this he means that we should be sceptical of arguments which present poverty as a ‘one-off ’ outcome that is experienced by people more or less randomly as they move through the income hierarchy. This view suggests that the inequalities between the wealthy and poor in society are not terribly critical; everyone has a chance of being a winner or loser at some point, so the idea of poverty is no longer a cause for serious concern. Some unlucky individuals may end up having low incomes for several years in a row, the argument goes, but essentially low income is a random phenomenon. As Hills points out, the BHPS does reveal a fair amount of short-range mobility on the part of those living in poverty. For example, among individuals in the poorest decile (10 per cent), 46 per cent were still there the following year. This suggests that more than half of the people in the lowest decile managed to escape from poverty. Yet a closer look shows that 67 per cent of the individuals remain within the bottom two deciles; only onethird progress further than this. Among the bottom fifth of the population by income, 65 per cent were still in the bottom fifth a year later; 85 per cent remained in the bottom two-fifths. Such findings suggest that about one-third of low income is ‘transient’ in nature, while the other two-thirds are not. According to Hills, it is misleading to think that over time the population gradually ‘mingles’ throughout the income deciles. Rather, many of those who move out of poverty do not advance far and eventually drift back in again; the ‘escape rates’ for those who remain at the bottom for more than one year get progressively lower (Hills 1998).

While climbing out of poverty is surely fraught with challenges and obstacles, research findings indicate that movement into and out of poverty is more fluid than is often thought. Poverty is not simply the result of social forces acting on a passive population. Even individuals in severely disadvantaged positions can seize on opportunities to better their positions; the power of human agency to bring about change should not be underestimated. Social policy can play an important role in maximizing the action potential of disadvantaged individuals and communities. In our discussion of welfare later in this chapter, we will draw attention to policy measures designed to relieve poverty by strengthening the labour market, education and training opportunities, and social cohesion.

The underclass controversy In chapter 10 we mentioned the idea of the underclass – a segment of the population that lives in severely disadvantaged conditions at the margins of society. These are individuals who experience long periods of unemployment (or highly fragmented work histories) and are largely reliant on state benefits to make ends meet. The term ‘underclass’ is a contested one at the centre of a furious sociological debate. Although the term has now entered everyday speech, many scholars and commentators are wary of using it at all! It is a concept that encompasses a broad spectrum of meanings, some of which are seen as politically charged and negative in connotation. The concept of an underclass has a long history. Marx wrote of a lumpenproletariat composed of individuals located persistently outside the dominant forms of economic production and exchange. In later years, the notion was applied to the ‘dangerous classes’ of paupers, thieves and vagabonds who refused to work and instead survived on the margins of society as ‘social parasites’. In more recent years, the idea of an underclass that is dependent on welfare benefits and bereft of initiative has enjoyed a renaissance, again due largely to the

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writings of Charles Murray, to whose views on this issue we shall turn shortly.

Background to the underclass debate Recent debates over the underclass have been prompted by several important works published by American sociologists about the position of poor blacks living in inner city areas. In The Declining Significance of Race (1978), drawing on research done in Chicago, William Julius Wilson argued that a substantial black middle class – white-collar workers and professionals – has emerged over the past three or four decades in the United States. Not all African-Americans still live in city ghettos, and those who remain are kept there, Wilson maintained, not so much by active discrimination as by economic factors – in other words, by class rather than by race. The old racist barriers are disappearing; blacks are stuck in the ghetto as a result of economic disadvantages. Charles Murray agreed about the existence of a black underclass in most big cities. According to Murray, however, African-Americans find themselves at the bottom of society as a result of the very welfare policies designed to help improve their position. This is a reiteration of the culture of poverty thesis. People become dependent on welfare handouts and then have little incentive to find jobs, build solid communities or make stable marriages (Murray 1984). In reply to Murray’s claims, Wilson repeated and extended his previous arguments, again using research carried out in Chicago. The movement of many whites from the cities to the suburbs, the decline of urban industries, and other urban economic problems, he suggested, led to high rates of joblessness among African-American men. The forms of social disintegration to which Murray pointed, including the high proportion of unmarried black mothers, Wilson explained in terms of the shrinking of the available pool of ‘marriageable’ (employed) men. In more recent work, Wilson has examined the role of such social processes in creating spatially concentrated pockets of urban deprivation popu-

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lated by a so-called ‘ghetto poor’. Members of the ghetto poor – predominantly African-American and Hispanic – experience multiple deprivations, from low educational qualifications and standards of health to high levels of criminal victimization. They are also disadvantaged by a weak urban infrastructure – including inadequate public transportation, community facilities and educational institutions – which further reduces their chances of integrating into society socially, politically and economically (Wilson 1999).

The underclass, the EU and migration Much debate over the underclass in the United States centres around its ethnic dimension. Increasingly this is the case in Europe as well; the tendencies towards economic division and social exclusion now characteristic of America seem to be hardening both in Britain and other countries in Western Europe. The underclass is closely linked to questions of race, ethnicity and migration. In cities such as London, Manchester, Rotterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and Naples, there are neighbourhoods marked by severe economic deprivation. Hamburg is Europe’s richest city, as measured by average personal income, and has the highest proportion of millionaires in Germany; it also has the highest proportion of people on welfare and unemployment – 40 per cent above the national average. The majority of poor and unemployed people in West European countries are native to their countries, but there are also many first and second generation immigrants in poverty and trapped in deteriorating city neighbourhoods. Sizeable populations of Turks in Germany, Algerians in France and Albanians in Italy, for example, have grown up in each of these countries. Migrants in search of a better standard of living are often relegated to casual jobs which offer low wages and few career prospects. Furthermore, migrants’ earnings are frequently sent home in order to support family members who have remained behind. The standard of living for recent immigrants can be precariously low.

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In cases where family members attempt to join a migrant illegally so that the family can be reunited, the potential for exclusion and marginalization is particularly high. Ineligible for state welfare benefits, migrants lacking official status are unable to draw on support from the state in order to maintain a minimum standard of living. Such individuals are extremely vulnerable, trapped in highly constrained conditions with few channels of recourse in the event of crisis or misfortune.

Is there an underclass in Britain? Since his initial writings about the United States, Charles Murray has subsequently applied his arguments to the UK (1990). According to him, there isn’t as yet a clearly defined underclass in existence in the UK, but one is rapidly developing. It will include not only members of ethnic minorities, but whites from impoverished areas where social disintegration is advancing. Murray’s work has been sharply criticized, however, by other sociologists working in this country. Duncan Gallie is one sociologist who argues that there is little basis for the idea of an underclass with a distinct culture. In his analysis of data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, Gallie (1994) asserts that there is little difference between working-class individuals and the long-term unemployed in terms of their political outlooks or work histories. In his view, the longterm unemployed may experience greater isolation and impoverishment, but continue to identify with the wider working class. He found that people who have been unemployed for long periods of time are more committed to the concept of work than are others. Lydia Morris has examined the spatial dimensions of poverty in Hartlepool, in the north-east of England. It is in areas like Hartlepool where there has been a decline in manufacturing industry and a large-scale rise in unemployment that an underclass is likely to emerge. Yet Morris’s research did not confirm the emergence of a distinct underclass. In her estimation, the concept

of underclass is too simplistic (and politicized) to reflect the complexity of poverty and social disadvantage in contemporary society. Morris studied three groups of unemployed workers: first, couples in which the man had been unemployed for at least twelve months; second, couples in which the man had held the same job for the last twelve months; and third, couples in which the man had started a new job within the last twelve months. In terms of whether individuals and families have networks of support on which they can rely, Morris found little difference between the three groups. Those who had been unemployed for more than a year were still concerned with the search for work; they had not created an anti-work culture. The situation of these men resulted from the long-term economic decline of the area, lack of skills and a relative absence of work-based informal contacts who might have helped them to find local employment. Morris did find, however, that most of the long-term unemployed had partners who were also unemployed, and that they had the highest proportion of unemployed friends. Nevertheless, she concluded that ‘there is no direct evidence in my study of a distinctive culture of the “underclass” ’ (Morris 1993: 410). Morris’s research is by no means conclusive. It was conducted in only one part of the country, and that was one where ethnic minorities were not heavily represented. West Indian and Asian men are more concentrated in semi-skilled work and have higher average rates of unemployment than white males.

Evaluation How can we make sense of these contrasting approaches to the underclass? Does sociological research support the idea of a distinct class of disadvantaged people who are united by similar life chances? The idea of the underclass was introduced from the United States and continues to make the most sense there. In the US extremes of rich and poor are more marked than in Western Europe.

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Particularly where economic and social deprivation converge with racial divisions, groups of the underprivileged do tend to find themselves locked out of the wider society. The concept of the underclass in these circumstances has a clear application. In the European countries it probably does not. While similar conditions of disadvantage exist in Europe, they seem less pronounced than in the US. There isn’t, or there isn’t as yet, the same level of separation between those who live in conditions of marked deprivation and the rest of the society.

Social exclusion Rather than using the concept of the underclass, most researchers in Europe prefer the notion of social exclusion. The idea of social exclusion has been taken up by politicians, but was first introduced by sociological writers, to refer to new sources of inequality. Social exclusion refers to ways in which individuals may become cut off from full involvement in the wider society. It is a broader concept than that of the underclass, and has the advantage that it emphasizes processes – mechanisms of exclusion. For instance, people who live in a dilapidated housing estate, with poor schools and few employment opportunities in the area, may effectively be denied opportunities for selfbetterment that most people in society have. It is also different from poverty as such. It focuses attention on a broad range of factors that prevent individuals or groups from having opportunities open to the majority of the population. In order to live a full and active life, individuals must not only be able to feed, clothe and house themselves, but should also have access to essential goods and services such as transportation, a telephone, insurance and banking services. In order for a community or society to be socially integrated, it is important that its members share in common institutions such as schools, healthcare facilities and public transport. These shared institutions contribute to a sense of social solidarity in the population.

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Social exclusion can take a number of forms, so that it may occur in isolated rural communities cut off from many services and opportunities, or in inner city neighbourhoods marked by high crime rates and substandard housing. Exclusion and inclusion may be seen in economic terms, political terms and social terms. (1) Economic exclusion Individuals and communities can experience exclusion from the economy in terms of both production and consumption. On the production side, employment and participation in the labour market are central for inclusion. In communities with high concentrations of material deprivation, fewer people work in full-time employment and the informal networks of information which can help unemployed individuals enter the labour market are weak. Unemployment rates are often high and occupational opportunities in general are limited. Once excluded from the labour market, people may find it extremely difficult to re-enter. Exclusion from the economy can also occur in terms of consumption patterns, that is, in regard to what people purchase, consume and use in their daily lives. The absence of a telephone can contribute to social exclusion – the telephone is one of the main points of contact between individuals and the larger world of friends, family, neighbours and community members. Not having a bank account is another indication of social exclusion, because people are not able to avail themselves of the many services which banks provide for customers. As we shall see shortly, homelessness is one of the most acute examples of social exclusion. People lacking a permanent place of residence find it almost impossible to participate on equal terms in society. (2) Political exclusion Popular and ongoing participation in politics is a cornerstone of liberal democratic states. Citizens are encouraged to remain aware of political issues, to raise their voices in support or opposition, to contact their elected representatives with concerns, and to participate at all levels of the political process. Yet

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The economic effects of teenage pregnancy Many discussions of the underclass touch on the high rates of pregnancy among teenage girls. The huge growth in single mothers raising children has been a contributing factor to poverty and increased welfare expenditure in Britain. Cases of girls as young as twelve and thirteen giving birth to babies fathered by boys the same age have fed into a moral panic about teenage parents. Although the rate of teenage pregnancy in the UK fell through the 1990s, it still remains by far the highest in Europe (see figure 11.5). In 1996 there were 63 conceptions per 1,000 women aged under twenty in England and Wales. Births to teenage mothers are more likely than those to older mothers to occur outside marriage – 89 per cent of births to teenagers were to girls who were unmarried. In 29 per cent of cases, the births were registered by the mother alone (HMSO 1999). The government’s Social Exclusion Unit, set up by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997, has addressed the phenomenon of teenage parenthood in its report Single Pregnancy (1999). The findings suggest that teenagers are not receiving adequate and accurate information

about sex through sex education programmes at school. When teenagers begin to experiment sexually, their ignorance about the consequences of sexual intercourse results in high numbers of unwanted pregnancies. The fact that only half of British teenagers under sixteen used protection when first having sex supports the view that improved sexual education is needed. But not everyone agrees that education is the answer. Critics on the political right argue that providing more information about sex in school only encourages these young people to become sexually active at an earlier age. Others have focused on social exclusion, poverty and cultural expectations of sexual behaviour as the main factors behind the UK’s high rate of teenage pregnancies. This approach claims that the attitude towards sex and fatherhood among many young men is shaped not by education or the influence of role models, but by media portrayals of sexual conquest and ‘macho’ behaviour. The fact that the UK leads Europe in rates of teenage pregnancy is simply a reflection of the great extent to which Britain is gripped by deprivation and exclusion.

active political participation can be out of the reach of the socially excluded, who may lack the necessary resources, information and opportunities to engage in the political process. Lobbying, taking part in rallies, and attending political meetings all require a degree of mobility, time and access to information that may be missing in excluded communities. Such challenges feed into a selfreproducing spiral, as the voices and needs of the socially excluded fail to be incorporated into political agendas.

(3) Social exclusion Exclusion can also be experienced in the realm of social and community life. Areas suffering from a high degree of social exclusion might have limited community facilities such as parks, sports fields, cultural centres and theatres. Levels of civic participation are often low. In addition, excluded families and individuals might have less opportunity for leisure pursuits, travel and activities outside the home. Social exclusion can also mean a limited or weak social network, leading to isolation and minimal contact with others.

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A longitudinal study of 9,000 young people born in 1970 sheds light on the potential implications of teenage parenthood for later life. A quarter of the female respondents who had become mothers while still in their teens were raising their children as lone parents by the age of twenty-six. Among men who were teenage fathers, 25 per cent were unemployed and only 4 per cent were in professional or managerial jobs, compared to 25 per cent of the men who had become fathers in their twenties (ESRC 1997).

United Kingdom Portugal Austria Irish Republic Greece Germany France Luxembourg Finland Belgium Spain Sweden Denmark Italy Netherlands 0

EU average 5 10 15 20 Rates per 1,000 women

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Figure 11.5 Live births to teenage women, European Union comparison, 1995 (rates per 1,000 women aged 15–19) Sources: Eurostat; Office for National Statistics. From Social Trends, 30 (2000), p. 43. Crown copyright.

The concept of social exclusion raises the question of agency. After all, the word ‘exclusion’ implies that someone or something is being shut out by another. Certainly there are instances in which individuals are excluded through decisions which lie outside their own control. Banks might refuse to grant a current account or credit cards to individuals living in a certain postal code area. Insurance companies might reject an application for a policy on the basis of an applicant’s personal history and background. An employee made

redundant later in life may be refused further jobs on the basis of his or her age. But social exclusion is not only the result of people being excluded – it can also result from people excluding themselves from aspects of mainstream society. Individuals can choose to drop out of education, to turn down a job opportunity and become economically inactive, or to abstain from voting in political elections. In considering the phenomenon of social exclusion we must once again be conscious of the

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A National Health Service largely free at the point of delivery has been seen as one of the jewels in the crown of the British welfare state.

interaction between human agency and responsibility on the one hand, and the role of social forces in shaping people’s circumstances on the other hand.

Forms of social exclusion Sociologists have conducted research into the different ways that individuals and communities experience exclusion. Investigations have focused on topics as diverse as housing, education, the labour market, crime, young people and the elderly. We shall now look briefly at three examples of exclusion that have attracted attention in Britain, as well as in other industrialized societies.

Housing and neighbourhoods The nature of social exclusion can be seen clearly within the housing sector. While many people in industrialized societies live in comfortable, spacious housing, others reside in dwellings that are overcrowded, inadequately heated or structurally unsound. When entering the housing market, individuals are able to secure housing on the basis of their existing and projected resources. Thus, a dual-earning childless couple will have a greater chance of obtaining a mortgage for a home in an attractive area, while a household whose adults are unemployed or in low-paying jobs may be restricted to less desirable options in the rented or public housing sector.

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Stratification within the housing market occurs at both the household and community level. Just as disadvantaged individuals are excluded from desirable housing options, whole communities can be excluded from opportunities and activities that are norms for the rest of society. Exclusion can take on a spatial dimension: neighbourhoods vary greatly in terms of safety, environmental conditions and the availability of services and public facilities. For example, low-demand neighbourhoods tend to have fewer basic services such as banks, food shops and post offices than do more desirable areas. Community spaces such as parks, sports grounds and libraries may also be limited. Yet people living in disadvantaged places are often dependent on what few facilities are available. Unlike residents of more affluent areas, they may not have access to transport (or funds) which would allow them to shop and use services elsewhere. In deprived communities, it can be difficult for people to overcome exclusion and to take steps to engage more fully in society. Social networks may be weak; this reduces the circulation of information about jobs, political activities and community events. High unemployment and low income levels place strains on family life; crime and juvenile delinquency undermine the overall quality of life in the neighbourhood. Low-demand housing areas often experience high household turnover rates as many residents seek to move on to more desirable housing, while new, disadvantaged entrants to the housing market continue to arrive.

Young people One might not think of young people as likely candidates for social exclusion. After all, teenagers and young adults are entering the prime of life, beginning careers and families, and building their futures. Yet the transition from youth to adulthood is a challenging one. Many young people struggle to integrate into society and find themselves excluded from it in a variety of ways. Several changes in recent years have made youth exclusion an important problem. The first relates

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to the shifting labour market. In earlier times, the transition into adulthood usually occurred at the start of one’s work career. Now the labour market for young people is less secure than it once was, making the transition from home to independent adult life less straightforward. Many young people have difficulty finding work; unskilled jobs are giving way to positions requiring skills or expertise in new technology. In 1997 in Britain approximately 160,000 young adults aged sixteen to eighteen were not in education, training or work (Howarth et al. 1999). Changing welfare benefits have also affected patterns of exclusion among young people. While still inheriting political rights and status, young people’s social rights to employment, education and housing are being reduced. This has led to a greater (and longer) dependency on the family. In the past, young people could count on income support and housing benefit during the transition to adult life. Cutbacks in the welfare state since the 1980s have left some young people feeling more vulnerable than they once did, particularly at a time when earning levels among many young people are dropping. In the spring of 1999, 1.25 million young adults in Britain aged sixteen to twenty-four were paid at rates less than half that of male average hourly earnings (Howarth et al. 1999). There is also concern that the educational system is excluding a growing number of young people – both formally and informally. Shifting employment patterns have made education appear irrelevant to many young people. Current policies which promote selection within and among schools tend to disadvantage those young people who are already located on the margins of society (France and Wiles 1998). Homelessness is one of the main expressions of exclusion among young people. A growth in youth homelessness since the 1980s suggests that the present housing sector is ill-equipped to handle the changing patterns of youth mobility. Compared to previous times, young people now leave their family homes at an earlier age – often to pursue education or training in another city,

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to begin a family, to take a job in another region, or simply to begin an independent life. Yet because many young people have limited resources, there are few affordable housing options available to them. Examinations of the Family Expenditure Survey have revealed a growing number of ‘transitional’ and ‘surrogate’ housing arrangements, such as hostels and peer households, where a number of young people share accommodation. Young people’s needs for flexible and affordable accommodation, however, are not necessarily catered for by a housing market that is dominated by private and public housing options. While some young people may choose to return home to avoid the pressures of the housing market, others turn to the streets (Jones 1997).

Rural areas Although much attention is paid to social exclusion in urban settings, people living in rural regions can also experience exclusion. Some social workers and caregivers believe that the challenges of exclusion in the countryside are as large, if not larger, than those in cities. In small villages and sparsely populated areas, access to goods, services and facilities is not as extensive as in more settled areas. In most industrial societies, proximity to basic services such as doctors, post offices, schools, churches, libraries and government services is considered a necessity for leading an active, full and healthy life. But rural residents often have limited access to such services and are dependent on the facilities available within their local community. Access to transport is one of the biggest factors affecting rural exclusion. If a household owns or has access to a car, it is easier to remain integrated in society. For example, family members can consider taking jobs in other towns, periodic shopping trips can be arranged to areas that have a larger selection of shops, and visits to friends or family in other areas can be organized more readily. Young people can be fetched home from parties. People who do not have access to their own transport, however, are dependent on public transport, and in country areas such services are

limited in scope. Some villages, for example, might be serviced by bus only a few times a day, with reduced schedules on weekends and holidays, and none later in the evening.

The homeless Most poor people live in some sort of home or permanent shelter. Those who do not, the homeless, have become very visible in the streets of cities over the past twenty years. Homelessness is one of the most extreme forms of exclusion. People lacking a permanent residence may be shut out of many of the everyday activities which others take for granted, such as going to work, keeping a bank account, entertaining friends and even getting letters in the post. Some homeless people deliberately choose to roam the streets, sleeping rough, free from the constraints of property and possessions. But the large majority have no such wish at all; they have been pushed over the edge into homelessness by factors beyond their control. Once they find themselves without a permanent dwelling, their lives sometimes deteriorate into a spiral of hardship and deprivation. Who are the homeless in Britain? The category is in fact a mixed one. About a quarter are people who have spent time in a mental hospital. At least some of these individuals would have been long-term inmates before the 1960s, when people with chronic mental illnesses began to be released from institutions as a result of changes in health care policy. This process of deinstitutionalization (see also below) was prompted by several factors. One was the desire of the government to save money – the cost of keeping people in mental hospitals, as in other types of hospitals, is high. Another, more praiseworthy motive was the belief on the part of leaders of the psychiatric profession that long-term hospitalization often did more harm than good. Anyone who could be cared for on an out-patient basis, therefore should be. The results haven’t borne out the hopes of those who saw deinstitutionalization as a positive step. Some hospitals discharged people who had

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Social exclusion at the top The examples of exclusion that we have considered thus far all concern individuals or groups who, for whatever reason, are unable to participate fully in institutions and activities used by the majority of the population. Yet not all cases of exclusion occur among those who are disadvantaged at the bottom of society. In recent years, new dynamics of ‘social exclusion at the top’ have been emerging. By this it is meant that a minority of individuals at the very top of society can ‘opt out’ of participation in mainstream institutions by merit of their affluence, influence and connections. Exclusion at the top can take a number of forms. The wealthy might retreat fully from the realm of public education and health care services, preferring to pay for private services and attention. Affluent residential communities

nowhere to go, and who perhaps hadn’t lived in the outside world for years. Often, little concrete provision for proper out-patient care was in fact made. Most of the homeless, however, aren’t former mental patients, and they aren’t alcoholics or regular consumers of illegal drugs. They are people who find themselves on the streets because they have experienced personal disasters, often several at a time. Becoming homeless is rarely the outcome of a direct ‘cause–effect’ sequence. A number of misfortunes may occur in quick succession, resulting in a powerful downward spiral. A woman may get divorced, for instance, and at the same time lose not only her home but her job. A young person may have trouble at home and make for the big city without means of support. Research has indicated that those who are most vulnerable to homelessness are people from lower working-class backgrounds who have no specific job skills and very low

are increasingly closed off from the rest of society – the so-called ‘gated communities’ located behind tall walls and security checkpoints. Tax payments and financial obligations can be drastically reduced through careful management and the help of private financial planners. Particularly in the United States, active political participation among the elite is often replaced by large donations to political candidates who are seen to represent their interests. In a number of ways, the very wealthy are able to escape from their social and financial responsibilities into a closed, private realm largely separate from the rest of society. Just as social exclusion at the ‘bottom’ undermines social solidarity and cohesion, exclusion at the ‘top’ is similarly detrimental to an integrated society.

incomes. Long-term joblessness is a major indicator. Family and relationship breakdowns also appear to be key influences. According to Shelter, the housing action group, homelessness grew by 300 per cent over the years from 1978 to 1992. Government statistics indicate that there were 132,300 homeless people living in England and Wales in 1998. Homeless advocacy groups like Shelter, however, put the true number considerably higher than that. Among homeless people, ‘rough sleepers’ attract the most attention from charity workers, the media and the population at large. Current estimates place the number of rough sleepers in Britain at 2,000 people, with more than 600 of those on the streets of London alone. Sleeping rough is a dangerous business. Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) into homelessness and street crime in London, Glasgow and Swansea provides the first indication of the extent of victimization suffered

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Shut out from economic prosperity, the homeless make a home where they can.

by homeless people on the streets. The British Crime Survey, the leading statistical indicator of crime in Britain, does not include the homeless among its respondents. In Unsafe Streets (1999), the IPPR revealed that four out of five rough sleepers have been the victims of crime at least once. Almost half of them have been assaulted, yet only one-fifth chose to report the crimes to the police. The picture that emerges is one of homeless people who are victims of high levels of violence on the streets, but who are also excluded from the systems of legal and police protection that might possibly offer some assistance. In 1999 the government announced its intention to cut the number of rough sleepers by two-thirds by 2002. While making homelessness a top priority has been universally praised, there is little consensus on how to get people off the streets into permanent housing and leading more

stable lives. Advocates for the homeless agree that a more long-term approach – including counselling, mediation services, job training and befriending schemes – is needed. Yet, in the meantime, many charity groups are loath to suspend short-term measures such as delivering soup, sleeping bags and warm clothing to the homeless on the streets. The issue is a controversial one. In trying to shift attention towards the need for permanent solutions, the ‘homelessness tsar’ Louise Casey remarked that ‘well-meaning people are spending money servicing the problem on the streets and keeping it there’ (quoted in Gillan 1999). Many housing action groups agree. Yet charity and outreach groups such as the Salvation Army take a different approach: as long as there are people living on the streets, they will continue to go to them and offer what assistance they can.

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Even though it isn’t the whole answer, most sociologists who have studied the issue agree that the provision of more adequate forms of housing is of key importance in tackling the multiple problems of the homeless, whether the housing is directly sponsored by the government or not. As Christopher Jencks concludes in his book, The Homeless (1994): ‘Regardless of why people are on the streets, giving them a place to live that offers a modicum of privacy and stability is usually the most important thing we can do to improve their lives. Without stable housing, nothing else is likely to work.’ Others disagree, stressing that homelessness is only 20 per cent about ‘bricks and mortar’, and 80 per cent about social work and outreach to counter the effects of family breakdown, violence and abuse, drug and alcohol addictions and depression. Mike, a homeless man in his late fifties, concurs: ‘I think that for most people the situation is much more complicated than it seems. Often the problem is about their own belief in themselves, their self worth. A lot of people on the street have low self esteem. They don’t believe they can do anything better.’ (quoted in Bamforth 1999)

Crime and social exclusion Some sociologists have argued that in industrialized societies such as Britain and the United States there are strong links between crime and social exclusion. There is a trend among late modern societies, they argue, away from inclusive goals (based on citizenship rights) and towards arrangements which accept and even promote the exclusion of some citizens (Young 1998, 1999). Crime rates may be reflecting the fact that a growing number of people do not feel valued by – or feel they have an investment in – the societies in which they live. Elliott Currie is an American sociologist who has investigated the connections between social exclusion and crime in the United States, particularly among young people. Currie argues that American society is a ‘natural laboratory’ that is already demonstrating the ‘ominous underside’ of

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market-driven social policy: rising poverty and homelessness, drug abuse and sharp increases in violent crime. He notes that young people are increasingly growing up on their own without the guidance and support they need from the adult population. While faced by the seductive lure of the market and consumer goods, young people are also confronted by diminishing opportunities in the labour market to sustain a livelihood. This can result in a profound sense of relative deprivation, and a willingness to turn to illegitimate means of sustaining a desired lifestyle. According to Currie there are several main links between the growth of crime and social exclusion. First, shifts in the labour market and government taxation and minimum wage policies have led to an enormous growth in both relative and absolute poverty within the American population. Second, this rise in social exclusion is felt in local communities, which suffer from a loss of stable livelihoods, transient populations, increasingly expensive housing and a weakening of social cohesion. Third, economic deprivation and community fragmentation strain family life. Adults in many poor families are forced to take on multiple jobs to survive – a situation which produces perpetual stress, anxiety and absence from home. The socialization and nurturing of children is, as a result, weakened; the overall ‘social impoverishment’ of the community means that there is little opportunity for parents to turn to other families or relatives for support. Fourth, the state has ‘rolled back’ many of the programmes and public services that could ‘reincorporate’ the socially excluded, such as early childhood intervention, childcare and mental health care. Finally, the standards of economic status and consumption that are promoted within society cannot be met through legitimate means by the socially excluded population. According to Currie, one of the most troublesome dimensions to this connection between social exclusion and crime is that legitimate channels for change are bypassed in favour of illegal ones. Crime is favoured over alternative means, such as the political system or community organization (Currie 1998a).

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Welfare and the reform of the welfare state Most industrialized and industrializing countries in the world today are welfare states – that is, states in which the government plays a central role in reducing inequalities within the population through the provision or subsidization of certain goods and services. The aim of welfare is to counteract the negative effects of the market for people who, for a variety of reasons, find it a struggle to meet their basic needs. It is a way of managing the risks faced by people over the course of their lives: sickness, disability, job loss and old age. The services of a welfare state vary from country to country, but often include provision in the realms of education, health care, housing, income support, disability, unemployment and pensions. The level of spending on welfare also varies. Some countries have highly developed welfare systems and devote a large proportion of the national budget to them. In Sweden, for example, spending on the welfare state represents nearly 50 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). One of the main differences between welfare models is the availability of benefits to the population. In welfare systems providing universal benefits, welfare when it is needed is a right to be enjoyed equally by all, regardless of level of income or economic status. Welfare systems predicated on universal benefits are designed to ensure all citizens’ basic welfare needs are met on an ongoing basis. The Swedish system has a higher proportion of universal benefits than the UK one, which depends more on means-tested benefits. The phrase ‘means-testing’ refers to the process by which applicants for welfare are deemed eligible or ineligible for a service. Means-testing is often done on the basis of income. For instance, housing benefit may be offered only to people on low incomes. This distinction between universal and meanstested benefits is expressed at a policy level in two contrasting approaches to welfare. Supporters of an institutional view of welfare argue that access

to welfare services should be provided as a right for everyone. Those taking a residualist view believe that welfare should only be available to those members of society who truly need help and are unable to meet their own welfare needs. This is also a dispute about tax. Welfare services have to be funded through taxation. Some feel that tax levels should be high, because the welfare state needs to be well funded. They argue that the welfare state must be maintained and even expanded in order for the state to limit the harsh polarizing effects of the market, even though this means a large tax burden. They claim that it is the responsibility of any civilized state to provide for and protect its citizens. Advocates of the ‘safety net welfare state’ approach stress that only the most needy – as demonstrated through meanstesting – should be the recipients of welfare benefits. They see the welfare state as expensive, ineffective and too bureaucratic and call for it to be reduced. This difference of opinion over institutional and residual welfare models is at the heart of current debates over welfare reform. In all industrialized countries, the future of the welfare state is under intense examination. As the face of society changes – through globalization, migration, changes in the family and work, and other fundamental shifts – the nature of welfare must also change. In this section we shall examine the rise of the welfare state in Britain, the challenges it currently faces and attempts to reform it.

Theories of the welfare state Why is it that welfare states have developed in most industrialized countries? How can we explain the variations in the welfare models favoured by different states? The face of welfare is different from country to country, yet on the whole industrial societies have devoted a large share of their resources to addressing public needs. Many theories have been advanced to explain the evolution of the welfare state. Marxists have seen welfare as necessary for sustaining a capitalist system, while functionalist theorists held that

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welfare systems helped to integrate society in an orderly way under the conditions of advanced industrialization. While these and other views have enjoyed support over the years, the writings of T. H. Marshall and Gøsta Esping-Andersen have been perhaps the most influential contributions to theories of the welfare state.

Marshall: citizenship rights Writing in the 1960s, Marshall saw welfare as an outcome of the progressive development of citizenship rights alongside the growth of industrial societies. Taking a historical approach, Marshall traced the evolution of citizenship in Britain and identified three key stages. The eighteenth century, according to Marshall, was the time when civil rights were obtained. These included important personal liberties such as freedom of speech, thought and religion, the right to own property, and the right to fair legal treatment. In the nineteenth century, political rights were gained: the right to vote, to hold office, and to participate in the political process. The third set of rights – social rights – were obtained only in the twentieth century. The right of citizens to economic and social security through education, health care, housing, pensions and other services became enshrined in the welfare state. The incorporation of social rights into the notion of citizenship meant that everyone was entitled to live a full and active life and had a right to a reasonable income, regardless of their position in society. In this respect, the rights associated with social citizenship greatly advanced the ideal of equality for all (Marshall 1973). Marshall’s views have been influential in sociological debates over the nature of citizenship and questions of social inclusion and exclusion. The concept of rights and responsibilities is tightly intertwined with the notion of citizenship; these ideas are enjoying popularity in current discussions about how to promote ‘active citizenship’. Yet although Marshall’s work on citizenship rights remains relevant to contemporary discussions, it is of limited usefulness. Critics have noted that Marshall focused exclusively on the UK in develop-

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ing his views on citizenship rights; it is not clear that the evolution to welfare has occurred in the same way in other societies.

Esping-Andersen: three worlds of welfare The Danish writer Gøsta Esping-Andersen’s The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990) is a later addition to theories of the welfare state. In this important work, Esping-Andersen compares Western welfare systems and presents a threepart typology of ‘welfare regimes’. In creating this typology, Esping-Andersen evaluated the level of welfare decommodification – a term which simply means the degree to which welfare services are free from the market. In a system with high decommodification, welfare is provided publicly and is not in any way linked to one’s income or economic resources. In a commodified system, welfare services are treated more like commodities – that is, they are sold on the market like any other good or service. By comparing policies on pensions, unemployment and income support among countries, Esping-Andersen identified the following three types of welfare regimes: 





Social democratic Social democratic welfare regimes are highly decommodified. Welfare services are subsidized by the state and available to all citizens (universal benefits). Most Scandinavian states are examples of a social democratic welfare regime. Conservative-corporatist In conservative-corporatist states, such as France and Germany, welfare services may be highly decommodified, but they are not necessarily universal. The amount of benefits to which a citizen is entitled depends on their position in society. This type of welfare regime may not be aimed at eliminating inequalities, but at maintaining social stability, strong families and loyalty to the state. Liberal The United States is an example of a liberal welfare regime. Welfare is highly commodified and sold through the market. Means-tested benefits are available to the very needy, but become highly stigmatized. This is

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because the majority of the population is expected to purchase its own welfare through the market. The United Kingdom does not fall cleanly into any of these three ‘ideal types’. Formerly it was closer to a social democratic model, but welfare reforms since the 1970s have been bringing it closer to a liberal welfare regime with higher levels of commodification.

The rise of the British welfare state The welfare state as we currently know it was created during the middle years of the twentieth century, following World War Two, yet its roots stretch back to the Elizabethan era. As part of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial society, traditional forms of informal support within families and communities began to break down.

The slums of the nineteenth century housed a hard and precarious life, but a sociable one.

In order to maintain social order and reduce the inequalities brought about by capitalism, it was necessary to offer assistance to those members of society who found themselves on the periphery of the market economy. The Poor Laws were the first attempt by the government to impose some order on the provision of aid and assistance to the poor and sick. At that time, the main source of welfare was a loose network of private charities, many of which were linked to the church. With time, as part of the process of nation-building, the state came to play a more central role in administering to the needy. Legislation which established the national administration of education and public health in the late 1800s was a precursor of the more extensive programmes which would come into being some sixty years later. The years following World War Two witnessed a powerful drive for the reform and expansion of the welfare system. It is from this period that the present-day welfare state can be said to date. Rather than concentrating solely on the destitute and ill, the focus of welfare was broadened to include all members of society. The war had been an intense and traumatic experience for the entire nation – rich and poor. It produced a sense of solidarity and the realization that misfortune and tragedy were not restricted to the disadvantaged alone. This shift from a selective to a universalist vision of welfare had been encapsulated in the Beveridge Report of 1942, often regarded as the blueprint for the modern welfare state. The Beveridge Report was aimed at eradicating the five great evils: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. A series of legislative measures under the postwar Labour government began to translate this vision into concrete action. Several main Acts lay at the core of the new universalist welfare state. The 1944 Education Act tackled lack of schooling, while the 1946 National Health Act was concerned with improving the quality of health among the population. ‘Want’ was addressed through the 1946 National Insurance Act, which set up a scheme to protect against loss of earnings due to unemployment, ill-health,

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retirement or widowhood. The 1948 National Assistance Act provided means-tested support for those who were not covered under the National Insurance Act. Other legislation addressed the needs of families (1945 Family Allowances Act) and the demand for improved housing conditions (1946 New Towns Act). The British welfare state came into being under a set of specific conditions and alongside certain prevailing notions about the nature of society. The premises on which the welfare state was built were threefold. First, the welfare state equated work with paid labour and was grounded in a belief in the possibility of full employment. The ultimate goal was a society in which paid work played a central role for most people, but where welfare would meet the needs of those who were located outside the market economy through the mischance of unemployment or disability. Connected to this, the vision for the welfare state was predicated on a patriarchal conception of families – the male

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breadwinner was to support the family while the wife tended to the home. Welfare programmes were designed around this traditional family model, with a second tier of services aimed at those families in which a male breadwinner was absent. Second, the welfare state was seen as promoting national solidarity. It would integrate the nation by involving the entire population in a common set of services. Welfare was a way of strengthening the connection between the state and the population. Third, the welfare state was concerned with managing risks that occurred as a natural part of the life course. In this sense, welfare was viewed as a type of insurance that could be employed against the potential troubles of an unpredictable future. Unemployment, illness and other misfortunes in the country’s social and economic life could be managed through the welfare state. These principles underpinned the enormous expansion of the welfare state in the three decades

For some older people, the line between a proud independence and social exclusion can be narrow.

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following the war. As the manufacturing economy grew, the welfare state represented a successful class ‘bargain’ that met the needs of the working class as well as those of the economic elite who depended on a healthy, high-performing workforce. Yet, as we shall see in the next sections, beginning in the 1970s the splintering of political opinion into institutional and residualist welfare camps became increasingly pronounced. By the 1990s both the left and the right had acknowledged that the conditions under which the welfare state was formed had changed, rendering the Beveridge vision for welfare outmoded and in need of significant reform.

Reforming the welfare state The Conservative ‘roll-back’ The political consensus about the purposes of the welfare state began to break down in the 1970s and intensified during the 1980s when the administrations of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US attempted to ‘roll back’ the welfare state. Several main criticisms were at the heart of attempts to reduce welfare. The first concerned the mounting financial costs of the welfare state. General economic recession, growing unemployment and the emergence of enormous welfare bureaucracies meant that welfare expenditures continued to increase steadily – and at a rate greater than that of overall economic expansion. A debate over welfare spending ensued, with advocates of a roll-back pointing to the ballooning financial pressure on the welfare system. Policy-makers emphasized the potentially overwhelming impact of the ‘demographic time bomb’ on the welfare system: the number of people dependent on welfare services was growing as the population aged, yet the number of young people of working age paying into the system was declining. This signalled a potential financial crisis. The ‘greying’ of the population is discussed in ‘Health and ageing’ on p. 162

A second line of criticism was related to the notion of welfare dependency. Critics of existing welfare institutions argued that people become dependent on the very programmes that are supposed to allow them to forge an independent and meaningful life. They become not just materially dependent, but psychologically dependent on the arrival of the welfare payment. Instead of taking an active attitude towards their lives, they tend to adopt a resigned and passive one, looking to the welfare system to support them. In Britain, the debate over welfare dependency was linked to criticisms of the ‘nanny state’, a phrase suggesting that the government dutifully (but unnecessarily) took care of citizens’ every need. The Conservative government under the leadership of Mrs Thatcher promoted individual initiative and self-sufficiency as core values. As part of the turn towards a fully free market economy, reliance on handouts from the state was discouraged through a series of welfare reforms. Only those who were unable to pay for their own welfare were to receive assistance from the state. The 1988 Social Security Act allowed the state to cut back on welfare expenditures by raising eligibility criteria for income support, family credit and housing benefit schemes. The Conservative government implemented a number of welfare reforms that began to shift responsibility for public welfare away from the state towards the private sector, the voluntary sector and local communities. Services which were formerly provided by the state at highly subsidized rates were privatized or made subject to more stringent means-testing. One example of this can be seen in the privatization of council housing facilities in the 1980s. The 1980 Housing Act allowed rents for council housing to be raised significantly, laying the groundwork for a large-scale sell-off of council housing stock. This move towards residualism in housing provision was particularly harmful to those located just above the meanstested eligibility line for housing benefit, as they could no longer get access to public housing but could ill afford to rent accommodation at market rates. Critics argue that the privatization of

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Welfare dependency The idea of welfare dependency is a controversial one and some deny that such dependency is widespread. ‘Being on welfare’ is commonly regarded as a source of shame, they say, and most people who are in such a position probably strive actively to escape from it as far as possible. Carol Walker has analysed research into how people living on income support manage to organize their lives. She found a picture very different from that painted by those who argue that living on welfare is an easy option. Of unemployed respondents in one study, 80 per cent had experienced a deterioration in their living standards since living on welfare. For nearly all, life became much more of a struggle. For a minority, on the other hand, social assistance can bring improvements in living standards. For instance, someone who is unemployed and reaches age sixty is relabelled a ‘pensioner claimant’ and can claim benefits 30 per cent higher than those previously obtained.

council housing contributed significantly to the growth of homelessness in the 1980s and 1990s. The Conservative government also promoted the privatization of welfare by shifting some responsibility for service provision to voluntary organizations. Rather than administering services directly through large bureaucracies, the state increasingly channelled funds for welfare through individual groups, arguing that efficiency and quality would be greatly enhanced. The Conservative ‘roll-back’ of welfare also included support for deinstitutionalization, the process by which individuals cared for by the state (in institutions) are returned to their families and communities (see p. 328 above). The disabled and mentally ill were

The category of those whose circumstances may improve does in fact include single parents. Research indicates that as many as a third of single parents – almost all of them women – were better off after the break-up of their marriage than they were before. The large majority, however, became worse off. Only 12 per cent of people living on social assistance in the 1990s said they were ‘managing quite well’. Most said they were ‘just getting by’ or ‘getting into difficulties’. Planning ahead is difficult. Money cannot be put aside for the future, and bills are a matter of constant concern. In spite of its importance, food is often treated as an item which can be cut back on when money is short. Walker concludes: ‘Despite sensational newspaper headlines, living on social assistance is not an option most people would choose if they were offered a genuine alternative. Most find themselves in that position because of some traumatic event in their lives: loss of a job, loss of a partner or the onset of ill health’ (Walker 1994: 9).

among the groups most directly affected by deinstitutionalization, although the process also had significant implications for the communities and family members given responsibility for their care. Another attempt to reduce welfare expenditure and increase its efficiency came through the introduction of market principles in the provision of public services. The Conservative government argued that injecting a degree of competition into welfare services such as health care and education would provide the public with greater choice and ensure high quality service. Consumers could, in effect, ‘vote with their feet’ by choosing among schools or health care providers. Institutions providing substandard service would

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be obliged to improve or forced to close down, just like a business. This is because funding for an institution would be based on the number of students, or patients, who chose to use its services. Critics charged that ‘internal markets’ within public services would lead to lower quality services and a stratified system of service provision, rather than protecting the value of equal service for all citizens.

Evaluating the Conservative roll-back To what extent did the Conservative governments of the 1980s succeed in rolling back the welfare state? In Dismantling the Welfare State? (1994), Christopher Pierson compares the process of welfare ‘retrenchment’ in Britain and the US under the Thatcher and Reagan administrations and concludes that the welfare states emerged from the conservative era relatively intact. Although both administrations came into office with the express intent of slashing welfare expenditure, Pierson argues that the obstacles to rolling back welfare were ultimately more than either government could overcome. The reason for this lies in the way in which social policy had unfolded over time: since its inception the welfare state and its institutions had given rise to specific constituencies that actively defended the benefits they received against political efforts to reduce them. From organized labour unions to associations of retired persons, an intricate network of interest groups mobilized in support of welfare. According to Pierson, decisions about welfare retrenchment were guided primarily by a fear of public outcry and backlash. Politicians found that rolling back the welfare state was far from the mirror opposite of welfare expansion. As a result, a new brand of political activity emerged: attempts were made to minimize opposition by compensating ‘losing’ groups or working to prevent alliances from forming between interest groups. ‘Far more than in the era of welfare state expansion,’ Pierson writes, ‘struggles over social policy become struggles over information about the causes and consequences of policy change’

(1994: 8). Those social programmes in which retrenchment did occur, such as housing policy and unemployment benefit, were generally those in which interest groups were successfully prevented from mobilizing. Pierson sees the welfare state as under severe strain, but rejects the notion that it is ‘in crisis’. Social spending has held fairly constant, he argues, and all the core components of the welfare state remain in place. While not denying the great rise in inequalities as a result of welfare reform in the 1980s, he points out that social policy on the whole was not reformed to the extent that industrial relations or regulatory policy were. In Britain a huge majority of the population continues to rely on public health and education services, while in the United States welfare services are more residualized.

Recent priorities in welfare reform Welfare reform remained a top priority for the New Labour government which came to office in the UK in 1997. Agreeing in some respects with conservative critics of welfare (and breaking with traditional left politics), New Labour has argued that new welfare policies are needed to cope with poverty and inequality, as well as to improve health and education. The welfare state itself is often part of the problem, creating dependencies and offering a ‘handout’ instead of a ‘hand up’. This has resulted in huge bureaucracies that now struggle to manage social problems in their fullblown form, rather than dealing with them preemptively at their origin. Such an approach has not proven successful in reducing poverty or redistributing income throughout the population. Most of the reduction in poverty, it is argued, is the result of overall increases in wealth rather than social policy. One of the main difficulties with the welfare system is that the conditions under which it was created have changed significantly. By the 1990s the dream of full employment had given way to persistent unemployment. Changes in family structure rendered the patriarchal view of the male

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breadwinner inapplicable. An enormous number of women had entered the workforce and the growth of lone-parent households placed new demands on the welfare state. There had also been a distinct shift in the types of risks the welfare state needed to contend with. As an example, the welfare state proved to be an inadequate tool for dealing with the harmful consequences of environmental pollution or lifestyle choices such as smoking. A 1998 Green Paper put out by the government for discussion, ‘New ambitions for our country: a new contract for welfare’, provided an evaluation of the welfare state and described a vision of ‘active welfare’ aimed at empowering people in both their careers and personal lives. Arguing that old solutions to poverty and inequality no longer applied, New Labour advanced the idea of a welfare contract between the state and citizens based on both rights and responsibilities. The role of the state is to help people into work and stable income, not simply to assist them when they are located outside the labour market. At the same time, citizens must build on their action potential in order to change their circumstances, rather than waiting for welfare benefits to be dispensed. Employment became one of the cornerstones of New Labour social policy and great attention has been paid to the role of dynamic labour markets in welfare reform. The idea behind this approach is that the market not only creates inequalities, but can be part of reducing them as well. Getting people into work and income into households is one of the main steps that can be taken in reducing poverty. Among the most significant welfare reforms introduced under New Labour are the welfare-to-work programmes, whose driving intention is to move recipients from public assistance into paid jobs. Welfare-towork benefits are directed towards encouraging a variety of groups to enter the labour market. Young people under twenty-five are offered training and job opportunities instead of receiving state income support, lone parents are granted a tax credit to assist with childcare costs, and

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the long-term unemployed are offered lessons on how to present themselves to employers during job interviews. New Labour has also undertaken to improve the social capacity of individuals and communities to ‘help themselves’ by supporting local initiatives aimed at reducing poverty. Community empowerment zones in health action, employment and education have been created across the country, allowing local policy-makers to design solutions appropriate for the needs of local residents. Such an approach has several benefits. Assistance is targeted in a more direct way, small-scale innovative schemes can be introduced, and local participation in decision-making is enhanced. Such programmes promote a more active form of welfare in which citizens are integrally involved in building better lives for themselves in partnership with the state. The debate over welfare reform has not subsided, although there is a general consensus that change is necessary. The New Labour approach is not without its critics. Some see welfare-to-work programmes as a ruthless way of cutting social expenditure. People unable to enter the labour market, despite training and childcare incentives, risk losing their welfare benefits. Although the programmes are aimed at cutting the conditions for welfare dependency, they can end up forcing those who lose benefits into a life of crime, prostitution or homelessness. Others question the effectiveness of local empowerment ‘zones’ for combating social exclusion. They argue that poverty and deprivation are not concentrated in those designated areas alone, yet the programmes are targeted as if all the poor live together. The findings of the government’s own Social Exclusion Unit back this claim: in 1997 two-thirds of all unemployed people lived in areas outside the forty-four most deprived regions of the country. Localized initiatives, sceptics point out, cannot replace a nationwide anti-poverty strategy because too many people fall outside the boundaries of the designated empowerment zones.

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Evaluating welfare-to-work programmes Welfare-to-work programmes have been introduced quite recently in Britain and it is not yet possible adequately to judge what their full consequences have been. Initial results show that ‘New Deal’ employment programmes had helped over 1 million people into work by the end of 1999, 170,000 of whom were people who had been counted as long-term unemployed. Similar programmes have existed for some while in the United States, and there has been some opportunity there to study their implications. Daniel Friedlander and Gary Burtless studied four different government-

Conclusion: rethinking equality and inequality Economic inequality is a persistent feature of all social systems, including liberal democracies that are openly committed to the idea of equality as an integral part of citizenship. In practice, however, equality has proven difficult to attain. In a free market system, inequalities inevitably result. In the past, politicians on the left were intent on eradicating inequality by redistributing wealth from the affluent to the needy. The welfare state and high levels of taxation were two ways in which this was attempted. Such approaches have failed to eradicate poverty, however, and assistance does not always get to those in need. Increasingly, new visions of equality are being advanced which diverge from earlier ‘left’ and ‘right’ agendas for social policy. The concept of equality is being revised in a more dynamic manner, emphasizing equality of opportunity and the importance of pluralism and lifestyle diversity. Our understandings of inequality are also beginning to change. Although economic inequalities persist, our society is becoming more egalitarian

initiated programmes designed to encourage welfare recipients to find paid work. The programmes were roughly similar. They provided financial benefits for welfare recipients who actively searched for jobs, as well as guidance in job-hunting techniques and opportunities for education and training. The target populations were mainly single-parent heads of households who were recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the largest cash welfare programme in the country. Friedlander and Burtless found that the programmes did achieve results. People involved in them were able

in other ways. Women are much more equal in economic, social and cultural terms than in previous generations and significant legal and social advances are being made among minorities. Against this backdrop, however, there are new risks and threats facing our societies. These risks do not discriminate between the affluent and the poor. Pollution, destruction to the environment, and the runaway growth of urban areas are problems that we have manufactured ourselves. They are threats for which we are all responsible and which demand lifestyle changes from everyone if they are to be managed. As we begin to address these new challenges, the role of the state and welfare services is necessarily coming under review. Welfare is not simply about material prosperity, but about the overall well-being of the population. Social policy is concerning itself with promoting social cohesion, fostering networks of interdependence and maximizing people’s abilities to help themselves. Rights and responsibilities are taking on new importance – not only for those at the bottom attempting to move off welfare into work – but for those at the top whose wealth does not entitle them to evade civic, social and fiscal duties.

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either to enter employment or to start working sooner than others who didn’t participate. In all four programmes, the earnings produced were several times greater than the net cost of the programme. They were least effective, however, in helping those who needed them the most – those who had been out of work for a lengthy period, the long-term unemployed (Friedlander and Burtless 1994). Although welfare-to-work programmes have succeeded in reducing American welfare claims by approximately 40 per cent, some statistics suggest that the outcomes are not entirely positive. In the US, approximately 20 per cent of those who cease to receive welfare do not work and

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have no source of independent income; nearly one-third who do get jobs return to claim welfare again within a year. Between a third and a half of welfare leavers who are in work find that their incomes are less than their previous benefit levels. In Wisconsin, the US state which was one of the first to introduce welfare-to-work programmes, two-thirds of welfare leavers live below the poverty line (Evans 2000). Pointing to such findings, critics argue that the apparent success of welfareto-work initiatives in reducing the absolute number of welfare cases conceals some troublesome patterns in the actual experiences of those who lose their welfare.

1 There are two different ways of understanding poverty. Absolute poverty refers to a lack of the basic resources needed to maintain health and effective bodily functioning. Relative poverty involves assessing the gaps between the living conditions of some groups and those enjoyed by the majority of the population. 2 In many countries official measurements of poverty are made in relation to a poverty line, a level below which people are said to live in poverty. Subjective measurements of poverty are based on people’s own understandings of what is required for an acceptable standard of living. 3 Poverty is widespread in the affluent countries. Britain has one of the worst poverty records in the developed world. Inequalities between the rich and poor have widened dramatically as a result of government policies, changes in the occupational structure and unemployment. The poor are a diverse group, but individuals who are disadvantaged in other aspects of life (such as the elderly, the sick, children, women and ethnic minorities) have an increased chance of being poor. 4 Two main approaches have been taken to explain poverty. The ‘culture of poverty’ and ‘dependency culture’ arguments claim that the poor are responsible for their own disadvantages. Due to a lack of skills, an absence of motivation or a moral weakness, the poor are unable to succeed in society. Some of them become dependent on outside assistance, such as welfare provision, rather than helping themselves. The second approach argues that poverty is a result of larger social processes which distribute resources unevenly and create conditions that are difficult to contend with. Poverty is not a result of individual inadequacies, but of overarching structural imbalances.

SUMMARY POINTS

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5 Poverty is not a permanent condition. Many people who live in poverty will manage to escape it, although their mobility out of poverty may only be shortrange. Movement into and out of poverty seems to be more fluid than was previously believed. 6 The underclass is a segment of the population that lives in severely disadvantaged conditions at the margins of society. The idea of the underclass was first developed in the United States to describe the position of poor ethnic minorities in urban areas. Although the notion of the underclass has been applied to Britain, the concept seems more applicable in the US where there is a greater separation between those who are heavily deprived and the rest of society. 7 Social exclusion refers to processes by which individuals may become cut off from full involvement in the wider society. People who are socially excluded, due to poor housing, inferior schools or limited transportation, may be denied the opportunities for self-betterment that most people in society have. Homelessness is one of the most extreme forms of social exclusion. Homeless people lacking a permanent residence may be shut out of many everyday activities which most people take for granted. 8 Welfare states are states in which the government plays a central role in reducing inequalities in the population through the provision or subsidization of certain goods and services. Welfare services vary from country to country, but often include education, health care, housing, income support, disability, unemployment and pensions. 9 In welfare states providing universal benefits, welfare at times of need is a right to be equally enjoyed by all, regardless of income level or economic status. Means-tested benefits, by contrast, are made available only to some individuals, whose eligibility is determined on the basis of income and savings. The future of welfare provision is being debated in most industrialized countries. On the one side are those who believe that welfare should be well funded and universal; on the other are people who believe it should serve only as a safety net for those who truly can’t get help otherwise. 10 The present British welfare state developed in the years following World War Two. It was oriented to a broad vision of welfare that included all members of society. By the 1970s the welfare state was being criticized as ineffective, bureaucratic and too expensive. There was concern over welfare dependency – when people become dependent on the very programmes that are supposed to help them to lead an independent life. 11 The Conservative government attempted to roll back the welfare state by shifting responsibility for public welfare away from the state to the private sector, the voluntary sector and local communities. Deinstitutionalization is the process by which individuals cared for by the state (in institutions) are returned to their families and communities. The New Labour government carried on with welfare reform, including welfare-to-work programmes aimed at moving welfare recipients into paid jobs.

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1 2 3 4 5 6

Why is Carol poor? What level of income would you need in order to participate ‘fully and meaningfully’ in society? Why did rates of poverty increase in the UK after 1977? Does welfare dependency provide an explanation for the persistence of poverty? What are the causes of homelessness and how best can it be tackled? Why have efforts to reduce welfare spending largely failed?

Jet Bussemaker (ed.), Citizenship and Welfare State Reform in Europe (London: Routledge, 1999)

QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER THOUGHT

FURTHER READING

Gordon Hughes and Ross Ferguson (eds), Ordering Lives: Family, Work and Welfare (London: Routledge, 2000) David Miller, Principles of Social Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999) Anne Phillips, Which Equalities Matter? (Cambridge: Polity, 1999) Robert Walker (ed.), Ending Child Poverty: Popular Welfare for the Twenty-First Century? (Bristol: Policy Press, 1999)

Joseph Rowntree Foundation www.jrf.org.uk

INTERNET LINKS

Social Disadvantage Research Group, University of Oxford http://marx.apsoc.ox.ac.uk/sdrgdocs/ Social Exclusion Unit www.cabinet-office.gov.uk/seu UNDP on sustainable livelihoods http://www.undp.org/sl/

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