| A | B |
|---|
| Absolute poverty | Bare physical survival or subsistance; being so poor that you lack the basic physical necessities. |
| Deprivation index | A term used by Townsend. A list of items which, if people do not have, they are said to be in poverty. |
| Dependency Culture | A set of norms and values which keep people in poverty because they expect a benefits from the state, rather than working for a living. A term favoured by New Right sociologists, such as Marsland. |
| Wealth gap | The difference in wealth betwen the richest and the poorest in society; a measure of economic inequality. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation study "Inquiry Into Income & Wealth" (1995) found that the wealth gap was increasing in the 1990s. |
| Poverty line | An imaginary line drawn across society, below which people are said to be living in poverty. A term first used by Rowntree in his 1899 study of York. |
| Relative poverty | When people are poor relative to, or compared to, the standards of their particular society. Relative poverty therefore varies over time and between societies. |
| Culture of poverty | A subculture which contains norms and values (such as immediate gratification, fatalism, & apathy) which keeps its members in poverty. A concept used by Oscar Lewis |
| Breadline Britain | A study by Mack & Lansley which used a social consensus definition of poverty: the general public were asked what they thought people should not be deprived of. |
| Westergaard & Resler | Marxists, who say that capitalism causes poverty, and that other explanations are bourgeois ideology. |
| Superclass | A concept (ONLY!) used by Adonis & Pollard, referring to a very rich group of people working in comerce & banking. |
| Exploitation | The Marxist idea that the capitalists extract surplus labour value (profit) from the proletariat, by not paying them the full value of their labour. |
| Poverty | The idea that individuals lack money, goods, and resources, and that this is a social problem. |
| Individualistic explanations | The idea that the poor are to blame for their poverty. Idle or less talented people will be poor because of their personal characteristics. |
| Kincaid | Marxist who said that capitalism needs a certain amount of poverty, in order to discipline and frighten the proletariat into working harder. |
| Underclass | A New Right concept: a group of people at the bottom of society who are characterised by single parenthood, violent crime, and welfare dependency. |
| Universal benefits | Welfare benefits from the government that everyone is entitled to: child benefit, NHS, and education. Marsland says they encourage welfare dependency. |
| Means test | A test of how much money people have got, so hat benefits can be accurately targetted. |
| Spencer | Victorian sociologist who said that poverty was due to "poor moral character". An individualistic explanation. |
| Structural explanation | An explanation of poverty which blames society, rather than the individual. |
| Immediate gratification | The norm that people want to make themselves happy straight away, rather than delaying it. One of the causes of poverty, according to subcultural theorists. |
