- While absolute poverty focuses on the lack of the minimum requirements for survival, relative poverty defines poverty in relation to others creating social exclusion
- Relative poverty is the lack of resources leading to the inability to participate in the normal social activities.
- Therefore social exclusion focuses on the broader cultural and social dimensions of poverty in addition to having a low income
- Townsend (1968) introduced the concept of relative poverty in order to address the weaknesses identified in the absolute definition of poverty listed above.
- In order to operationalise poverty Townsend created a ‘deprivation index’ (as indicators of what seen as ‘normal’ for an acceptable standard of living)
- In summary Townsend argument identified examples of poverty apart from income
- Townsend identified other areas of poverty such as being homelessness; poverty in health-care; poverty in education; stress; low-self-esteem; poverty at work; poor health and social isolation
- He used a deprivation index to measure relative deprivation to benchmark an acceptable standard of living and found a close link between relative deprivation and low income
Continue to understanding Townsend’s deprivation index
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