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measuring and defining poverty
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essay about measuring and defining poverty sociology IGSCE Essay
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Chapter 1 - Theory and Methods
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2.2 How do we learn to be human?
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2.1 What is the relationship between the individual and society?
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Poverty line is the dividing point between those who are poor and those who are not. The minimum level ofadequate income, this poverty line in Britain nowadays stands on $1.25 per day (rallies et 2009)
The problem defining Poverty is that there are so many versions of poverty for example Absolute poverty is lacking
the minimum requirements necessary to maintain human health and life. Which can be differentiated between
primary poverty and secondary poverty. Primary poverty is where families lack things that we need to sustain life,
like food, shelter and clothing. Secondary poverty is where families have the necessities but are still in poverty as
they spend their money on thing that are not essential like tobacco and alcohol. Absolute poverty is not having the
seven basic needs; Clean water, Sanitation, Shelter, Education, Information, Food, and Health. Essentially if you do
not have these seven basic needs then you are poor. An example of how to measure absolute poverty would be the
proportion of the population eating less than 2000-2500 calories a day. Relative poverty is defined in relation to a
generally accepted standard of living in a specific society at a particular time. It is relative poverty that is dependent
on what is normal and acceptable in a given society. One relative measurement would be to compare the total
wealth of the poorest one-third of the population with the total wealth of the richest 1% of the population.
Therefore based on those definitions the difference between the two is biological and cultural since absolute poverty
is about the biological line which everyone has to be above to stay out of poverty and relative is dependent on the
norms of the society.
difficulties in gathering data needed to measure poverty include Not having enough resources to gather good quality
data. Measuring the amount produced in a poor country in a year is very difficult, given resource constraints. There's
than need for some statistical guesswork. Some types of data, e.g. rely on surveys which are often poor quality. The
informal economy. This is a term for all the stuff that goes on that counts as work, and is therefore technically
production, but which avoids most ways of measuring GDP (the total value of money produced by a whole
country/nation), which rely on transactions taking place. Examples include housework and gardening. Disparity
between purchasing power of different currencies. Correcting for the fact that a pound goes much further in
Bangalore than it does in London is difficult and has a large error, introducing statistical imprecision into the
outcome. The data itself may not tell you enough. For example, distinguishing between transient poverty (which
merely requires a good safety network) vs. chronic poverty (which requires more advanced human capital policies) is
very difficult.
Sociologists have also found it difficult to measure poverty, since there are different ways of defining poverty,
meaning it has become rather hard to know what to measure. For example when trying to measure the poverty
lines. The British government defines poverty as anyone earning below 60% of the median income. (The
median is much less delicate to e.g. rich people increasing their earnings). This has the consequence that (given
some income inequality) one can never abolish poverty. An example that avoids this flaw is the famous $1.25 a
day line used by the World Bank. Another argument is that poverty lines are unequal as there is no clear line
dividing the poor from the non-poor. Finally, it if you want to brag about how many people you're 'lifting out of
poverty' it pays to concentrate on the people nearer the poverty line (the relative poverty) than the absolute
poverty.
Many governments have produced official statistics on poverty, which is good yet there may be issues relating
to the validity of the data. For in many places governments change the numbers by creating a “new” measure
of poverty which may exclude a group of people for example the elder people and young children when the
statistics talk about that only 10% who work are under the poverty line which then excludes these people to
make it look good and for practical reasons for example when wanting to look good against other countries or
during an election.
In conclusion both definitions have similar strengths and weakness, and both are flawed. For instance the
measurement for absolute poverty is flawed in that it doesn’t take into account the fact that poverty has
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