15E Health and Social Care Issue – Poverty

Highlights:

1. Concepts of poverty
Absolute Poverty
  • minimum subsistence – being inadequate to afford a bundle of goods and services that are regarded as essential to the physical need of an individual or a family
Relative Poverty
  • a person’s income is much lower than others in the population, so he/ she has not enough money to support a certain standard of living or
  • a person has less than others in society
2. Tools for Defining Poverty
Poverty Line
  • Indicating the minimum standard of that are regarded as essential to the physical needs of an individual or a family
  • Limitation: assets are not taken into account and this may overstate the number of people living in poverty
Budget Standards Methods
  • Based on the notion of a basket of goods and services, having the elements of “subsistence” and “basic minimums for social lives”
  • Limitation: only measure the proportion of expenditure on necessities, not reflect the access to resources and opportunities in social, cultural and political activities
Income Proxy Measures
  • The proportion of expenditure on necessities based on the consumption patterns
  • Limitation: only measure the proportion of expenditure on necessities, not reflect the access to resources and opportunities in social, cultural and political activities
Proportion of Median Income
  • People with income lower than a proportion of the median income (e.g. 50%) are regarded as living in poverty
  • Limitation: only measure income, not reflect the individual’s ability to participate in the everyday life of a society / assets are not taken into account

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3. Income Gap
Gini Index /Gini coefficient /Gini ratio
  • Measures the inequality of income distribution of individuals or families
Limitations
  • It does not measure “property” or “investment income” possessed by people, but measures the “salary” only
4. Causes of Poverty
Global
  • Economic ups and downs – unemployment due to global financial crisis
  • Natural disasters
  • Wars
National
  • Governance – corruption; ineffective / lack of policies for alleviating poverty
  • Social Inequality – some individuals are placed in the deprived social condition due to gender, races, ethnic groups and social classes
  • Unemployment due to the shift of labour market – e.g. from low-skilled to high-skilled
Community
  • Lack of job vacancies available in the community
  • Lack of social service and support available for some disadvantaged groups to enable them to seek job in labor market, e.g. child care service
Individual
  • Less incentive to work
  • Disease and disability
5. Approaches in Alleviating Poverty
Need-based
  • Uses direct aids and tangible services to meet the needs of the poor
  • e.g. Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA)
Asset-based
  • Aims to help the poor to build assets, which include capital assets and capacities
  • e.g. Child Development Fund (CDF)
6. International Organisations
World Bank
  • Related Strategies : To provide financial and technical assistance to develop infrastructure / create job opportunities
  • Examples : Low-interest loans, interest-free credit and grants
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
  • Related Strategies : To provide temporary financing to support policies aimed at correcting the
    underlying problems
  • Examples : Loans to low-income countries
Latest Update: October 2019
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Assessing my learning

  • What does poverty mean?
  • What are the causes of poverty?
  • How can we deal with poverty?