Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- one Introduction and overview
- two Income poverty
- three Beyond low income: economic resources, financial hardship and poverty
- four Experiencing poverty: the voices of poverty and disadvantage
- five Identifying the essentials of life
- six Measuring deprivation
- seven A new poverty measure
- eight Defining social exclusion and the social inclusion agenda
- nine Identifying social exclusion
- ten Conclusions and implications
- References
- Index
five - Identifying the essentials of life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- one Introduction and overview
- two Income poverty
- three Beyond low income: economic resources, financial hardship and poverty
- four Experiencing poverty: the voices of poverty and disadvantage
- five Identifying the essentials of life
- six Measuring deprivation
- seven A new poverty measure
- eight Defining social exclusion and the social inclusion agenda
- nine Identifying social exclusion
- ten Conclusions and implications
- References
- Index
Summary
The concept of deprivation
The concept of deprivation has exerted a major influence on poverty research since it was first used to identify poverty over three decades ago by Townsend (1979). Since then, the ideas he developed have had a profound and growing impact on how poverty research is conducted, reducing its dependence on the use of poverty lines. The basic ideas captured in the concept and measurement of deprivation have already been outlined in Chapter One. This chapter provides a more thorough discussion of the concept and presents new evidence on a key ingredient of the approach – the identification of what constitutes the essentials (or necessities) of life that form the basis for identifying deprivation.
Townsend's development of deprivation was motivated by his concern to give a richer and more nuanced empirical meaning to the concept of poverty that encompasses a more direct articulation of what poverty actually involves. This requires specification of the many dimensions in which people's needs remain unfulfilled because of a lack of resources. In what has become its classic modern formulation, Townsend defined poverty in the following way:
Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns and activities. (Townsend, 1979, p 31)
The important feature of deprivation embodied in this definition is that it focuses directly on the lack of access to, or participation in, those goods and activities that are necessary for people to function effectively as members of the society in which they are living. Effective functioning is interpreted broadly to cover people's ability to meet their material needs as consumers, workers, family members and citizens. By locating deprivation within a specific social context and adopting a living standards framework, the approach overcomes the limitations involved in deciding whether or not someone is poor on the basis of their income alone.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Down and OutPoverty and Exclusion in Australia, pp. 83 - 114Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2011