Welcome back first years

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Welcome back first years
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SWP12SPP The Structural Bases of Poverty and
Inequality SWP12PPI Policy, Poverty
Inequality

• Lecture 1
• 2007
• Maureen Long

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How do you understand poverty?

• Lack of affordable, decent housing?
• Lack of opportunities?
• Limited access to services?
• Inequality?

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And what about inequality

• Does inequality matter?
• What kinds of inequality are of concern?
• Is it inequality of income, wealth, education,
  health, power or something else?
• In what ways should people be equal?

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Do you agree with the following

• The poor will always be with us?
• A civilised society should eradicate poverty
• There is no real poverty in Australia
• There is a growing divide between the haves and
  have-nots

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Why study poverty and inequality

• Social workers work with people who experience
  poverty and need to understand its reality
• Social works ethic of social justice demands an
  understanding of inequality and equality
• Need to understand social nature of poverty and
  inequality
• Need to understand how organisations respond to
  poverty and inequality

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Media images of poverty

• What images of Australian poverty are conveyed
• On television currently?
• What about films?
• In newspapers?
• Magazines?

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What ideas lie behind these images?

• Individual responsibility for situation?
• Lack of Government action?
• Combination approach?
• The poor are invisible?

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Aims and objectives of unit

• To explore poverty and inequality, the ideologies
  that inform our understandings and social policy
  responses.
• For PPI to also help understand how organisations
  respond.

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The unit will cover

• Meanings of poverty and inequality
• Extent and experience of poverty and inequality
• How to measure and find information about poverty
  and inequality
• Different philosophical explanations
• Social policy meaning concepts

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• Australias welfare state
• Particular policy areas labour market gender,
  income, Indigenous, global policies and practice
  responses
• Organisations and their responses

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Organisation of the units

• One 2 hour lecture, one 1 hour tutorial (and 6
  one-hour seminars for PPI plus 30 hours
  self-directed study)
• Tutorials will have readings, presentations and
  topic discussions.
• Tutorial lists have been posted on social work
  notice board need to check times allocated.

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• Assessment include facts commentary, and essay
  plus presentation and report for PPI.
• Lecturers myself plus guest lecturers
• Tutors myself and Maria Vucko and Maria Avgoulas
• Reading pack plus manual plus text book

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Key references

• Reading pack,
• See websites material from ABS, BSL, SPRC,
  NATSEM, ACOSS - see outline .
• ACOSS The Bare Necessities
• See key current texts in outline
• Australian Journal of Social Issues and Just
  Policy

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Essays and Assignments

• Make sure you have academic style
• correct
• Correct title
• Answer question
• Structure and logic
• Use of references Understand plagiarism
• Proof reading
• Resources available
• Study skills advisor
• Intercultural support worker
• Tutors and librarians

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What is poverty?

• Poverty is where people have unreasonably low
  living standards compared with others cannot
  afford to buy necessities, such as a refrigerator
  for example and experience real deprivation and
  hardship in everyday life (McClelland 2000 BSL
  Information Sheet No. 1)

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Poverty definitions and ideas

• Poverty is a relative concept used to describe
  the people in a society that cannot participate
  in the activities that most people take for
  granted
• (ACOSS Causes of Poverty the facts 2005)
• Poverty is an enforced lack of socially
  perceived necessities
• (Mack and Lanlsey (1985) as cited by Saunders,
  P. SPRC 2004 Paper No 31)

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Related ideas and conditions

• Needs what we require to be or do
• Disadvantage broader than income, process and
  treatment related to others
• Hardship point in time suffering
• Deprivation- missing out
• Living standards or resources - income
• Social exclusion not being part of the
  community
• Capability whether are able to achieve human
  potential
• Inequality many different meanings

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Multiple deprivation against relative living
standard

• So few resources in relation to the average that
  the purchase of goods and participation in
  activities regarded as normal is not possible. A
  state of relative deprivation that is morally
  unacceptable lack the resources to obtain the
  types of diet, participate in activities and have
  the living conditions and amenities that are
  customary .. (Townsend (1979) as cited in
  Saunders (2004) op. cit. p. 5)

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Key aspects of meaning of poverty

• Morally and ethically loaded
• Complex and culturally bound
• Multidimensional
• Related to a number of other ideas and conditions
• Dynamic factors important

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Equality and inequality

• Equality is the essence of human rights
• Substantive equality focus on the equality of
  result
• Formal equality looks at process rather than
  outcome
• (Australian Journal of Human Rights
  http//www.austwww.austlii.org/au/journals/AJHR/20
  00/6

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Different concepts of equality and justice

• Equality vs freedom
• What equality satisfaction, primary goods,
  economic resources, social status, power,
  capacity for personal fulfillment, opportunities
  for welfare or social position
• Of outcomes, opportunities or minimum standards
• Equality for whom-age, gender, class