Whose job is poverty? the problems of therapeutic intervention with children who are sexually violent

Children who commit sexually violent acts have been identified in increasing numbers since the 1980s. Professionals who practise therapeutic intervention with this group have struggled to find explanations for their client's deviant behaviour. Current explanations for, and discourses on, the occurrence of sexual violence minimize the effect of poverty in the therapeutic arena. The most difficult and worrisome child clients for participants of this research are the poor ones, yet the practice of counselling is unable to address structural disadvantage. This leads to a poverty culture explanation for sexual violence and child abuse which recognizes poverty yet pathologizes the individual. The identification of a new problem—children's sexual violence—the individualized case‐based approach to intervention and current social policy minimize the continuing and persistent problem of poverty. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

AMERICAN POVERTY CAUSE BELIEFS AND STRUCTURED INEQUALITY LEGITIMATION

Poverty cause attribution research has sporadically explored social stratification beliefs for over three decades with mixed results. Explanations given for why there are poor people in America may reveal much about underlying structured inequality legitimating mechanisms. Using multiple regression, one-way ANOVA, and frequency distribution analyses, I uncover a conservative-liberal continuum underlying American poverty cause attributions. Past explanations for the mostly mixed nature of American attributions toward poverty are questioned. I suggest a more simple and straightforward explanation: mixed attribution styles, situated on a conservative-liberal continuum, may arise from American's distinguishing between at least two groups of poor people—“deserving” and “undeserving”—suggesting policy and future research agendas.     

Race,poverty, and markets: urban inequality after the neoliberal turn

Classic scholarship on the problem of urban inequality tends to highlight the absence of “the market” and the correspondingly problematic and inadequate role of the state in poor communities. This article explores how the relationship between markets and urban poverty has shifted in recent decades. Scholars have become increasingly attentive to the growing influence of market logics and privatization—core features of “neoliberal” change—in areas such as housing, education, federal policy, local politics, employment, and social services. I discuss how this recent work adds to our understanding of how markets shape urban disadvantage. I also argue that—given the rising influence of market logics in city governance—urban scholarship stands to benefit from a deeper engagement with insights from the field of economic sociology. Building bridges between the two subfields, I argue, will help to specify what markets mean in the lives of the urban poor, and also can bring issues of race and poverty to the attention of economic sociologists.     

Measurement and identification of asset-poor households: a cross-national comparison of Spain and the United Kingdom

This paper is concerned with the analysis of the wealth dimension of poverty in developed countries, which cannot be measured by means of information on household income. We focus on identifying the group of households that lack enough wealth holdings to sustain them during a period of economic crisis in order to quantify asset poverty, and its demographic weight, in two industrialized countries with particularly different household demographics and saving attitudes such as Spain and the United Kingdom. Our results show that the age profile of the asset poor is remarkably similar in the two countries. In both it is individuals in households whose head is under 45 years old who are more likely to be asset poor. However, some country-specific differences also arise. For instance, the incidence of wealth poverty in the United Kingdom is about twice that of Spain. Using counterfactual analysis we find that, although the different household demographics clearly contribute importantly to this result, there remains a significant part of the asset-poverty gap which is not explained by this relevant factor.     

Research Note: Religious Affiliation and Poverty Explanations: Individual,Structural, and Divine Causes

Abstract

Prior studies of people's explanations for poverty have relied upon individual, structural, and fatalistic explanations. This paper explores an additional explanation for poverty, divine intervention. Using a sample of 360 college students, I show that divine intervention is a distinct explanation for poverty. I then examine if or how six religious groups—conservative, African American, and mainline Protestants, Catholics, the nonaffiliated, and those with “other” beliefs—differ in their views of individual, structural, and divine explanations for poverty. Results show that members of conservative Protestant denominations are more individualistic than Catholics and the nonaffiliated. African American Protestants were significantly more structuralist than conservative Protestants. African American Protestants are more likely than conservative Protestants, and both are more likely than Catholics, the nonaffiliated, and those with “other” beliefs, to believe that divine intervention is an important explanation for poverty.     

Global Poverty in the South African Economy

Many studies have been made of the incidence of poverty in particular communities in South Africa (see Carnegie Conference Papers Nos 10–72, Maasdorp and Humphries, 1975; Simkins, 1978) but there have been no attempts to estimate the extent of poverty in the economy as a whole. This paper presents the results of crude estimates of the extent of poverty within the four ‘race’ groups, and an estimate of poverty for the whole economy. Observations are also made about past trends in poverty in the metropolitan regions. No attempt is made to provide theoretical explanations of the observed poverty, to examine the likely effects of the growth path of the economy on the incidence of poverty, or to suggest policies for the amelioration of the plight of the poor. Some directions for future research are suggested in the concluding section.     

Resource Dependency and Rural Poverty: Rural Areas in the United States and Japan*

Abstract Although rural residents often expect resource extraction to lead to local prosperity, much of the recent research finds that resource extraction is associated with poverty. This paper tests these results by examining whether the findings may be due to methodological factors such as the tendency to focus on extreme cases, particular extracting sectors, and certain periods of time. By comparing two localities that have followed very different developmental trajectories—the state of Wisconsin and Hokkaido Prefecture in Japan—during the period from 1970 to 1990, this paper addresses these issues. The results do not clearly support either the expectation that resource extraction will lead to poverty or that it will lead to economic prosperity. Instead, like a handful of studies on resource dependency, the results indicate that the relationship between extraction and poverty is unique to location. Despite the many differences between the United States and Japan, the strongest correlates of poverty in each country involve the proportion of land in an area that is forested. Particularly because these results mirror the findings from the one previous study that included this variable, future research must give greater attention to this explicitly environmental variable, as well as examining some of the possible reasons for the relationship.     

God,Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes

Moral attitudes justifying economic inequality are often embedded within conservative religion and politics in the United States, even as traditional Christian values assert the need for compassion toward the poor. Using the Baylor Religion Survey, we assessed the role of religion in influencing partisan attitudes about poverty, finding that Republicans not only oppose federal policy aimed toward redistribution of wealth but also articulate less of a personal moral obligation to help the poor. However, Republicans who believe in a highly engaged God are strikingly similar to Democrats on these economic justice issues, suggesting that some types of religion do make conservatives more “compassionate.”     

The “American Dream” in Poor Urban Neighborhoods: An Analysis of Home Ownership Attitudes and Behavior and Financial Saving Behavior

Abstract

The desire for home ownership and saving to accumulate wealth are two hallmarks of the “American Dream” that are typically associated with middle class values. Much urban research has suggested that continual exposure to neighborhood poverty has produced attitudes and behavior that differ dramatically from these values. In this study, we examined whether residents in poor urban areas embraced these tenets of the American Dream. Based on the Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey of Chicago, logistic and multivariate analyses were used to assess the relationship of neighborhood poverty, race/ethnicity, household economics, and social variables to attitudes and behavior about home ownership and saving. The effects of “ghetto poverty” and neighborhood poverty “tipping points” were evaluated. Findings showed varying effects of race / ethnicity, neighborhood poverty, and social indicators depending on whether attitudes or behavior were under consideration. We also found that household economic status consistently was better in explaining participation in these tenets of the American Dream than variables that directly measure neighborhood poverty.     

RURAL POVERTY, URBAN POVERTY, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING

Data from the National Survey of Families and Households are used to compare the psychological well-being of the rural and urban poor. Overall, the urban poor are higher in perceived health than the rural poor, although no differences are apparent in happiness or depression. Significant interactions are present between rural/urban poverty and sex, race, and family status. The psychological well-being of poor African Americans is higher in rural than urban areas, whereas the well-being of poor whites is higher in urban than rural areas. This trend is especially pronounced for depression among males. In addition, single men without children have especially high depression scores in rural areas, whereas married women without children have especially low depression scores in urban areas. The results are interpreted in terms of the environmental quality of inner-city neighborhoods and attitudes toward poverty in urban and rural communities.     

On the links between globalization and poverty

This article surveys the evidence on the linkages between globalization and poverty, drawing on a new NBER study that has been completed under the direction of one of the authors. We focus on two measures of globalization: trade and international capital flows. Past researchers have argued that global economic integration should help the poor since poor countries have a comparative advantage in producing goods that use unskilled labor. Our first conclusion is that such a simple interpretation of general equilibrium trade models is misleading. Second, the evidence suggests that the poor are more likely to share in the gains from globalization when there are complementary policies in place.Third, trade and foreign investment reforms have produced benefits for the poor in exporting sectors and sectors that receive foreign investment. Fourth, financial crises are very costly to the poor. Finally, the collected evidence suggests that globalization produces both winners and losers among the poor. The fact that some poor individuals are made worse off by trade or financial integration underscores the need for carefully targeted safety nets. We conclude the article by identifying a number of unanswered research questions regarding the impact of globalization on poverty.     

More than just nickels and dimes: a cross-national analysis of working poverty in affluent democracies

Despite its centrality to contemporary inequality, working poverty is often popularly discussed but rarely studied by sociologists. Using the Luxembourg Income Study (2009), we analyze whether an individual is working poor across 18 affluent democracies circa 2000. We demonstrate that working poverty does not simply mirror overall poverty and that there is greater cross-national variation in working than overall poverty. We then examine four explanations for working poverty: demographic characteristics, economic performance, unified theory, and welfare generosity. We utilize Heckman probit models to jointly model the likelihood of employment and poverty among the employed. Our analyses provide the least support for the economic performance explanation. There is modest support for unified theory as unionization reduces working poverty in some models. However, most of these effects appear to be mediated by welfare generosity. More substantial evidence exists for the demographic characteristics and welfare generosity explanations. An individual's likelihood of being working poor can be explained by (a) a lack of multiple earners or other adults in one's household, low education, single motherhood, having children and youth; and (b) the generosity of the welfare state in which he or she resides. Also, welfare generosity does not undermine employment and reduces working poverty even among demographically vulnerable groups. Ultimately, we encourage a greater role for the welfare state in debates about working poverty.     

Association of Egalitarian Attitudes with Income,Poverty, and Entitlement Program Utilization

This article examines the relationship between egalitarian gender attitudes and its effect on income, poverty, and social service utilization. In a sample of married fathers in the Fragile Families data (N = 717), we conducted regression analyses on these questions, five years after initial interviews. Our results indicate that egalitarian attitudes were positively associated with income and social service utilization and negatively associated with poverty. Implications of these findings are discussed, including possible explanations for these findings, their importance for social work practice, and recommendations for social policy.     

Getting Serious About Inequality

Sociologists have spent a great deal of energy studying social inequality, but in this presentation I suggest that we need to refocus our efforts a bit. I examine four popular myths among the general public, and among some in sociology, regarding the drivers of extreme inequality: (1) that most inequality is generated by race and gender, (2) that most inequality is driven by educational inequality, (3) that most inequality is driven by differences in family structure, and (4) that most inequality results from face‐to‐face interactions. I provide preliminary evidence that our explanations need some work. That work involves recognizing that most inequality is generated within demographic groups and that this inequality is growing rapidly. It also involves recognizing that there are few ways to incorporate underrepresented groups into the mainstream of a social and economic system where extreme inequality is getting worse and substantial percentages of the population face economic stagnation and downward mobility. The conclusion represents a call to focus on the most important group gap—the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor—and the mechanisms through which most people gain access to economic goods, services, and social respect—jobs and money.     

The Changing Spatial Concentration of America's Rural Poor Population*

Abstract This paper documents changing patterns of concentrated poverty in nonmetro areas. Data from the Decennial U.S. Census Summary Files show that poverty rates—both overall and for children—declined more rapidly in nonmetro than metro counties in the 1990s. The 1990s also brought large reductions in the number of high‐poverty nonmetro counties and declines in the share of rural people, including rural poor people, who were living in them. This suggests that America's rural pockets of poverty may be “drying up” and that spatial inequality in nonmetro America declined over the 1990s, at least at the county level. On a less optimistic note, concentrated poverty among rural minorities remains exceptionally high. Roughly one‐half of all rural blacks and one‐third of rural Hispanics live in poor counties. Poor minorities are even more highly concentrated in poor areas. Rural children—especially rural minority children—have poverty rates well above national and nonmetro rates, the concentration of rural minority children is often extreme (i.e., over 80% lived in high‐poverty counties), and the number of nonmetro counties with high levels of persistent child poverty remains high (over 600 counties). Rural poor children may be more disadvantaged than ever, especially if measured by their lack of access to opportunities and divergence with children living elsewhere. Patterns of poverty among rural children—who often grow up to be poor adults— suggest that recent declines in concentrated rural poverty may be short‐lived.     

Changing Economic Opportunities,Family Structure,and Poverty in Rural Areas1

Abstract Instrustrial restructuring in the 1980s ushered in a new pattern of growing economic diversity over geographic space. The objective of this study is to examine the extent and etiology of changing spatial inequality between and within metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas, as measured by increasing or decreasing county poverty rates. Results based on data from the 1980 and 1990 census summary tape files suggest several conclusions. First, poverty rates increased more rapidly in nonmetro than metro counties during the 1980s; historical patterns of metro-nonmetro economic convergence slowed over the past decade. Second, poverty rates tended to decline in nonmetro counties with traditionally high rates of poverty, thus providing counter-evidence to arguments suggesting that the gap between traditionally poor and nonpoor nonmetro counties has widened. Third, spatial differences in poverty rates and relative increases in county poverty rates over the 1980s were most strongly associated with women's employment and headship status. The results raise questions about the extent to which traditional rural economic development strategies address the potentially deleterious economic effects of rising percentages of poor female-headed families.     

Cumulative and Relative Disadvantage as Long‐Term Determinants of Negative Self‐feelings*

We analyze the long‐term effects of neighborhood poverty and crime on negative self‐feelings of young adults. Cumulative and relative disadvantage explanations are tested with the interactive effect of (1) neighborhood and individual‐level economic disadvantage and (2) neighborhood crime and economic disadvantage. Results from a longitudinal study following adolescents to young adulthood show that the development of negative self‐feelings (a combination of depression, anxiety, and self‐derogation) is determined by relative, rather than cumulative disadvantage. The poor in affluent neighborhoods have the highest negative self‐feelings, while the relatively wealthy in poor neighborhoods have the lowest negative self‐feelings. Similarly, we find the highest increase in negative self‐feelings is found in an affluent neighborhood with crime and not in a poor neighborhood with crime.     

POVERTY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: TRICKLE DOWN PETERS OUT

Previous studies have found that economic growth tends to "trickle down" to poor families. This study investigates whether use of a relative definition of poverty eliminates the impact of economic growth on the incidence of poverty of various demographic groups and whether a decrease in the impact of growth has occurred since 1964. With the exception of families with male heads, economic growth no longer affects poverty irrespective of whether a relative or absolute definition of poverty is used. Our findings indicate that the contribution of growth has been overstated, that much of the past success has been illusory, and that poverty will be more intractable in the future.     

Are the Effects of the Macroeconomy and Social Policies on Poverty Different in Nonmetro Areas in the United States?*

Abstract The macroeconomy and social policies can have substantial influences on poverty in the United States. In this paper, I investigate whether these influences differ across metro and nonmetro areas. To do so, using a 16‐year panel of state‐level data, I estimate state and year fixed effects models separately for metro and nonmetro areas to see if the effects of the macroeconomy and social policies differ between these two areas. These models are estimated using two measures—the poverty rate and the squared poverty gap—and by family type. I find that cyclical forces have a much stronger effect on the poverty rate in nonmetro areas in comparison to metro areas, but the effects are similar for the squared poverty gap; wage growth has a pronounced effect on poverty in metro areas but no effect in nonmetro areas; and state‐level social policies have slightly larger effects in nonmetro areas, but the effects are small.     

A New Scale of Poverty: How the Officially Recorded Poor People in Turkey Perceive Themselves

Governments adopt policies to prevent and address the socioeconomic problem of poverty. This article examines how officially recorded poor people perceive themselves and the causes of their poverty. It is based on a sample of 531 officially recorded poor people living in the Turkish province of Çankiri. A questionnaire was administered comprising 69 characteristics of poverty. The findings suggest that there are four main causal explanations for poverty attributions: fatalism, discrimination, moral deficiencies and personal deficiencies. The measure developed for this research can be tested and applied to different cultural groups with a high level of validity and reliability.