Social workers' emotional labour with families in poverty: Neoliberal fatigue?

This study examines the emotional labour of social workers serving families living in poverty. Based on in‐depth interviews and focus groups, the study concentrates on frontline social workers' emotions when faced with increasing levels of poverty, growing caseloads, and neoliberal social policies in Israel. Findings highlight 3 interrelated aspects of the emotional labour of social workers involved with impoverished families: (a) the emotional flooding social workers experience in their professional routines, (b) the various practices of emotional labour they use to cope with the emotional backlash of their encounters with these families including emotional numbness, emotional Othering, and emotional splitting, and (c) confirmation of the harmful influence of institutional policies on their emotional well‐being and ability to respond effectively to the increasing demands of their clients. Based on Hochschild's theory of emotional labour, we maintain that social workers' emotions should be studied in the context of a specific social, institutional, and political background.     

Causes and consequences of childhood poverty in Korea: a panel data analysis

This study examines the causes and effects of childhood poverty in Korea using longitudinal data from the Seoul Child Panel Study. In the study, we find that not living with two parents or full-time employed parents are significant risk factors for child poverty in Korea. We also find that poverty is a risk factor lowering children's school achievement, and that family process factors such as family relation and parental monitoring are strongly related to children's internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. The article concludes by suggesting policy approaches to reduce child poverty and the negative impact of poverty on children's development.     

Social policy and embedded evaluation: Assessing the impact of a food insecurity project in the United Kingdom

Social policy making needs to involve robust evaluation to assess its impact. In this article, a social policy intervention focused on tackling food insecurity amongst vulnerable people is examined and the benefits and challenges of using an embedded approach to evaluation are considered. Food insecurity is defined as not always having the economic, social, and physical resources to ensure a sufficient supply of nutritionally appropriate food. Evidence suggests that food insecurity in the United Kingdom is increasing in the context of long-term poverty, austerity, insecure employment, rising living costs, low pay, and cuts to welfare and public services. An embedded evaluation was conducted involving interviews with the intervention participants and observations of a series of cooking and food budgeting classes. The findings suggest that the classes had a positive impact on many of the participants, who felt more confident about cooking and valued the shared experience. However, given the acute problems facing many of the participants including long-term poverty, policies aimed at tackling food insecurity need to go beyond cooking and food budgeting skills. The embedded evaluation approach contributed towards the overall impact of the intervention by providing insights that led to changes as part of an iterative process during the intervention rather than in the form of a final report after its completion. An embedded evaluation-based approach can be resource intensive, and the role of the evaluators can present challenges, but it can help to bridge the gap between intervention design, delivery, and social change.     

Breaking away from the cycle of poverty: The case of Malaysian poor

This paper observes the poverty issues examined in Malaysia and proposes the need to study the poor who have broken the poverty chain. Most studies generally focus on only the poor, their reasons for being poor, various poverty alleviation methods and poverty with regard to measurement. However, it will be more insightful if studies are carried out on the poor who have broken the cycle of poverty. Research conducted in several countries on those who have come out of poverty indicate far-reaching implications to all stakeholders. Hence, such studies in Malaysia would give a better understanding of how some of the poor have broken the shackles of poverty and are leading a better life. It would be very valuable to understand the strategies they used in real life situations to overcome the fetters of poverty.     

Social income transfers and poverty: A cross‐country analysis for OECD countries

Caminada K, Goudswaard K, Koster F. Social income transfers and poverty: a cross‐country analysis for OECD countries Poverty alleviation is an important policy objective in developed welfare states. This article reports on a study of the association between social transfer policies and poverty. It has been claimed in several studies that based on a simple bivariate approach, high social effort goes along with low poverty levels. Empirical studies have also found that factors such as demographic and economic conditions may also have an influence on poverty, affecting the relationship between social spending and poverty. In the present study, we empirically analysed the impact of social expenditure on poverty for the period 1985–2005, and in contrast to previous research, demographic and macroeconomic differences across countries were controlled for. Quite a strong negative relationship was still found between the level of social expenditure and poverty. Ageing and unemployment rates were found to have some explanatory power but without affecting the association between social transfers and poverty. Thus, the multivariate approach chosen in this study confirms the results of earlier research.     

Subjective experiences of older adults in poverty in urban China and the role of social policy

This study establishes an evidence base regarding the experiences of older adults living in poverty in Beijing. Given the factors that shape the lives of low-income older adults, the findings are relevant for many middle- and low-income countries. Based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with government officials and low-income older adults in Beijing, the study finds that poverty manifests as cumulative stress arising from four sources: financial strain, poor health, care burden and poverty-related shame. This stress is attributable to the co-existence of individual and structural factors that reflect the framing of anti-poverty policies in China.     

Social work students and social change: on the link between views on poverty, social work goals and policy practice

This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the factors that are associated with social work students' willingness to engage in policy practice. It examines a model according to which the willingness to engage in policy practice is linked to the importance that students attribute to the goals of social work and to their views on poverty. The sample consisted of 138 social work students in one of Israel's leading universities. The measures consisted of four questionnaires developed specifically for this study. The findings revealed strong relationships between students' views regarding the causes of poverty and their attitudes towards the preferred ways to deal with poverty. In addition, strong relationships were found between the importance that students attributed to the goals of social work and their willingness to engage in policy practice. However, no significant relationships were found between students' views on poverty and their willingness to engage in policy practice. Different explanations for these findings are advanced in the article.     

The breadth and depth of multidimensional child poverty in China

This study analysed the multidimensional child poverty status in China between 1989 and 2009, using the China Health and Nutrition survey data. Based on the Alkire–Foster method for measuring poverty, a multidimensional poverty index was calculated and further decomposed into seven deprivation dimensions: nutrition, water, sanitation, health, education, shelter and information. The study has four main findings: (1) The multidimensional child poverty rate in China declined gradually where the sanitation facility was most severely deprived; (2) The poverty gap between rich and poor provinces remained over the years; (3) The urban–rural disparity was reduced in all seven dimensions; (4) The poorest of the poor climbed out of ultra‐poverty and became the moderately poor or even the non‐poor.     

False positives or hidden dimensions: What can monetary and multidimensional measurement tell us about child poverty in Vietnam?

Roelen K, Gassmann F, de Neubourg C. False positives or hidden dimensions: what can monetary and multidimensional measurement tell us about child poverty in Vietnam? A widely used division between poverty measures based on conceptual underpinnings and analytical outcomes is that of monetary versus multidimensional measures. Comparisons of the use and outcomes of the two methods have shown that they predominantly provide different pictures of poverty in terms of size, rank and group. This article contributes to the long‐standing and ongoing debate on poverty measurement by comparing the use of monetary and multidimensional poverty approaches, with a special focus on children in Vietnam and extending the empirical analysis beyond conventional methods. In addition to investigating whether poverty outcomes or groups of identified poor children differ when using the two different poverty measures, we also investigated the drivers underlying these differences. Findings confirm a considerable degree of mismatch: both poverty measures proved to be inadequate proxies for the other and factors underlying the identification by either one or both of the measures differed.     

The prevalence and composition of asset poverty in Canada: 1999, 2005, and 2012

A household is considered asset poor if its assets (financial assets or net worth, taken separately) are insufficient to maintain well‐being at a low‐income threshold for 3 months. We provide the first national‐level estimates of asset poverty for Canada, using the 1999, 2005, and 2012 cycles of the Survey of Financial Security, and juxtapose these estimates with income poverty. The analysis provides new insight into economic insecurity by showing that asset poverty rates are consistently two to three times higher than income poverty rates. In addition to the prevalence of asset poverty across socio‐demographic groups, we analyzed how the composition of the poor change over time. Age and geography shape the risk for asset poverty in distinct ways. We found that while education appears to play a comparable role in shaping both income poverty and asset poverty, immigration places Canadians at a relatively higher risk of income poverty but not asset poverty. Key Practitioner Message: ? Practitioners ought to consider assets as well as income in assessing economic vulnerability; ? Asset poverty levels are 2–3 times higher than income poverty levels; ? Certain groups (e.g., immigrants) may be income poor but maintain sufficient assets.     

Poverty among households with children: a comparative study of Norway and Germany

The purpose of this study was to compare poverty among lone parent households and couple households with children in Norway and Germany. The study applied three different measurement strategies: income poverty, material deprivation and reception of social assistance. We found that income poverty and material deprivation rates are higher in Germany than in Norway and are also higher for lone parents than for couples with children. Our analysis of the reception of social assistance shows a different pattern in which both Norwegian and German lone parents frequently receive social assistance. The results show that the different dimensions of poverty are not independent of one another, nor do they wholly overlap. Household characteristic variables, factors influencing labour market status and educational levels also seem to influence the risk of experiencing poverty.     

Poverty Among Korean Immigrant Older Adults: Examining the Effects of Social Exclusion

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have shown that elderly Asian immigrants face greater risks for living in poverty compared with their native contemporaries. Particularly, Korean immigrant older adults are reported to be most likely to experience poverty among many Asian immigrant groups. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which demographic, human capital, and social exclusion factors contribute to such economic vulnerability among Korean immigrant older adults. Adding to previous research, this study broadly conceptualizes social exclusion and tests for its additive effects on poverty using nationally representative public data of Korean immigrant older adults. From the 2008–2010 Public Use Microdata Sample of the American Community Survey, this study extracts a sample that consists of individuals aged 65 years and older whose national origin is Korean, who were not born in the United States, and thereafter immigrated to the United States (N = 3,820). The findings indicate that 3 dimensions of social exclusion—exclusion from social and civic life, exclusion from asset building, and exclusion from the labor market—contribute significantly to Korean immigrant older adults’ odds of living in poverty. The study concludes with practice implications for socially inclusive workforce development as a way to ameliorate economic afflictions among Korean immigrant older adults.     

Endless Pressure: Life on a Low Income in Austere Times

Much has been written that details the decline in living standards following the ‘credit crunch’ in the UK. It remains that we understand to a lesser degree the lived reality of poverty through the Great Recession and into the era of austerity. This article draws on testimonies of 62 participants from low income households conducted in three different areas of the UK during 2012–13 to document the pressures that this period brought to bear on these households. According to these testimonies, the experience of poverty intensified in key respects: first, participants reported feeling, more than ever before, that they were ‘existing, rather than living’ due to the meagre budgets they were forced to live on; second, the precarious nature of work and social security contributed to a sense of insecurity that was all pervasive in our participants' lives; third, due to the pejorative political rhetoric and media coverage of poverty, our participants felt that their lives were placed under increased scrutiny which deleteriously impacted their wider relationships and sense of belonging. Our analysis demonstrates the profound consequences for those living on low incomes of the continued shift to residual forms of state welfare and the increased reliance on the ‘Big Society’ as a means to deal with the pressures identified in this article.     

‘Making It’ Versus Satisfaction: How Women Raising Young Children in Poverty Assess How Well They Are Doing

ABSTRACT

Using in-depth interviews with 17 women raising young children in urban poverty, two separate standards were examined—“making it” and satisfaction. “Making it” referred to one's perceived ability to meet the basic physical needs of her children. In contrast, satisfaction referred to how closely one's current life circumstances align with her personal notions of success. Results indicated that self-expectations greatly influenced which standard individuals prioritized, such that those with higher expectations valued satisfaction while those with lower expectations prioritized “making it.” Self-expectations aligned largely with one's poverty status, and women with the fewest economic resources typically expected the least for their lives. Findings from this study suggest that efforts to support women raising young children in poverty must address both standards if they are to be relevant, effective, and sustainable. Similarly, if individuals are to succeed in such interventions, they must be supported in developing higher expectations for their lives, given the role that expectations play in catalyzing one's sense of a life beyond survival. Future research and implications for theory and practice are outlined.     

Child Poverty in Rural China: Multidimensional Perspective

This paper describes a pilot study on child multidimensional poverty in rural China by introducing the Alkire–Foster method based on survey data collected from five provinces/autonomous regions. Results showed that the headcount ratio of child multidimensional poverty was 14.29%. On average, multidimensionally poor children were deprived in 37.62% of all the dimensions, and their adjusted headcount ratio (multidimensional poverty) index was 0.054. Health was the most deprived dimension, followed by the subsistence and participation dimensions. Disabled children, children influenced by HIV/AIDS, and ethnic minority children were severely deprived. This study not only adds to the current literature on child poverty in China, but also provides policy suggestions for future action plans.     

Beyond Piketty: A new perspective on poverty and inequality in India

The socio-economic literature has focused much on how overall inequality in income distribution (frequently measured by the Gini coefficient) undermines the “trickle down” effect. In other words, the higher the inequality in the income distribution, the lower is the growth elasticity of poverty. However, with the publication of Piketty’s magnum opus (2014), and a subsequent study by Chancel and Piketty (2017) of evolution of income inequality in India since 1922, the focus has shifted to the income disparity between the richest 1% (or 0.01%) and the bottom 50%. Their central argument is that the rapid growth of income at the top end of millionaires and billionaires is a by-product of growth. The present study extends this argument by linking it to poverty indices in India. Based on the India Human Development Survey 2005–12 – a nationwide panel survey-we examine the links between poverty and income inequality, especially in the upper tail relative to the bottom 50%, state affluence (measured in per capita income) and their interaction or their joint effect. Another feature of our research is that we analyse their effects on the FGT class of poverty indices. The results are similar in as much as direction of association is concerned but the elasticities vary with the poverty index. The growth elasticities are negative and significant for all poverty indices. In all three cases, the disparity between the income share of the top 1% and share of the bottom 50% is associated with greater poverty. These elasticities are much higher than the (absolute) income elasticities except in the case of the poverty gap. The largest increase occurs in the poverty gap squared – a 1% greater income disparity is associated with a 1.24% higher value of this index. Thus the consequences of even a small increase in the income disparity are alarming for the poorest.     

Closing the gap: the growing divide between poverty research and policy in Australia

This paper reviews major developments in Australian poverty research in the 50 years since the Melbourne poverty study established the Henderson measurement framework. It focuses on the limitations of the dominant, but narrow income (poverty line) approach used in Australia, contrasts it with the deprivation approach pioneered and refined in the United Kingdom, and shows how this provides more compelling evidence that poverty exists. Against the background of recent developments in international poverty research, the paper identifies existing gaps in Australia, and explores what needs to be done to address this situation. It then draws on international experience to examine how anti‐poverty policy has evolved, focusing on the role of poverty targets in producing better data and promoting debate between policy makers, researchers and community sector practitioners about developing better measures. Australia lags behind these developments: a new approach is needed that engages researchers, policy makers, and other key stakeholders in positive dialogue aimed at setting a new framework for poverty measurement and an achievable anti‐poverty policy agenda.     

Microfinance as a Development and Poverty Alleviation Tool in Rural Bangladesh: A Critical Assessment

Poverty is multidimensional in nature and exists in every part of the world. Microfinance is considered one of the most important programs to achieve poverty reduction, particularly in Bangladesh. It has been estimated that nearly 45% of Bangladesh's population lives below the poverty line. This qualitative research study was conducted in order to determine the effectiveness of microfinance programs and the contributing factors to the high‐level of poverty among microfinance beneficiaries in the district of Bogra, Bangladesh. Study findings indicated that microfinance programs were ineffective as a result of high interest rates; insufficient loans; unproductive use of loans; corruption and poor skills of microfinance institution staff; weekly repayment schedules; and physical and mental harassment of poor women. Additionally, the lack of employment opportunities, education, healthcare facilities and social safety nets; natural disasters; the dowry system; and the rising cost of basic daily needs have also contributed to chronic poverty.     

The relevance of educational poverty in Europe: Determinants and remedies

This paper explores the degree of educational poverty in European countries using data from OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This research adopts the class of additive multidimensional poverty measures proposed by Alkire & Foster (2011) and investigates the degree of educational poverty in terms of incidence, breadth, depth and severity. Also, we analyse the impact of students’ characteristics and school-level factors on the probability of being educational poor in various learning dimensions. The findings reveal that between 2006 and 2015 the incidence of educational poverty became more relevant in many European countries, while most of them experienced a reduction of poverty depth and severity. Therefore, several policy scenarios are simulated in order to highlight the school factors that can be activate to alleviate the risk of educational poverty in the European countries that experienced the highest incidence of educational poor student.     

Impacts of off‐farm employment on welfare,food security and poverty: Evidence from rural Vietnam

How off‐farm employment can enhance welfare in terms of food consumption and poverty alleviation is a critical question facing many developing countries. This study addressed that question by pursuing two objectives: (i) to quantify the impact of off‐farm employment on rural households’ welfare, food security and poverty; and (ii) to examine the factors that affect their decision to work off‐farm. Using panel data, we estimated a difference‐in‐difference combined with a propensity score matching model. The findings show that off‐farm employment improves income, ensures food security and contributes to poverty alleviation. The results also show that age, marital status, education, labour, financial capital, land, location, market access and losses from natural disasters are significant contributing factors to the decision to participate in off‐farm employment. The findings suggest that to improve the welfare of rural households, the Vietnamese government should proceed with policies that enhance their opportunities for participation in off‐farm employment.