Poverty Theory

Poverty theory in social studies

Since 1940s poverty was been interest to study by sociologist. After great depression in the world the case of poverty has been research. According to Jordan (1966) there are two mains of poverty theory.

Culture of poverty
This theory developed by Oscar Lewis, an anthropologist in 1959. Lewis developed his theory form his experience of Mexico.The culture of poverty is a specific syndrome that grows up in some situations. It requires an economic setting of cash economy, a high rate of unemployment and under employment, low wages and people with low skills. In the absence of voluntary or state support and stable family, the low-income population tends to develop the culture of poverty against the dominant ideology of accumulation of the middle class. The poor realize that they have a marginal position within a highly stratified and individualistic capitalistic society, which does not offer them any prospect for upward mobility.In order to survive the poor have to develop their own institutions and agencies because the larger society tends to ignore and bypass them

Structural theory of poverty
Structural theories of poverty hold that poverty is caused by the structure of the larger socioonomicorder. It is the macro structure of society that produces inequality and consequently poverty. The structure of global capitalism, for example, gives rise to inequality and large-scale poverty all over the world.Marxism of different varieties has remained a major theoretical perspective for understanding poverty. Dependency theory, which emerged in Latin America, has been particularly concerned with third world poverty. Theory of marginalization again of Latin American vintage has a rich tradition of exploring the fate of human deprivation and marginality. Another key phrase that has become immensely popular in recent years is social exclusion (Friedman, 1996).The term social exclusion was coined in France by Rene Lenoir in 1974(Gore, 1995; Silver, 1995; Haan, 1998). But it is to be pointed out that Georg Simmel (1858-1918), a German sociologist outlined a sociological perspective on social exclusion and inclusion as early as 1908 that may even be superior to current discourse on social exclusion. “This perspective is still topical, and it can be argued that in some respects Simmel's analysis is superior to later treatments of such processes”(Hvinden,). In Renoir’s view exclusion referred to people who were excluded from employment-based social security system. It became a popular term in France in 1980s to express new forms of poverty associated with technological change and economic restructuring--unemployment, ghettoisation, disruptions of family.

( By Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology. Vol. 2. No. 1. January 2005. 4)