Author: Kirsten A. GrønbjergPublisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226309620
Category : Poverty
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Poverty and Social Change
Author: Kirsten A. GrønbjergPublisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226309620
Category : Poverty
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Changing Poverty, Changing Policies
Author: Maria CancianPublisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610445988
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 441
Book Description
Poverty declined significantly in the decade after Lyndon Johnson's 1964 declaration of "War on Poverty." Dramatically increased federal funding for education and training programs, social security benefits, other income support programs, and a growing economy reduced poverty and raised expectations that income poverty could be eliminated within a generation. Yet the official poverty rate has never fallen below its 1973 level and remains higher than the rates in many other advanced economies. In this book, editors Maria Cancian and Sheldon Danziger and leading poverty researchers assess why the War on Poverty was not won and analyze the most promising strategies to reduce poverty in the twenty-first century economy. Changing Poverty, Changing Policies documents how economic, social, demographic, and public policy changes since the early 1970s have altered who is poor and where antipoverty initiatives have kept pace or fallen behind. Part I shows that little progress has been made in reducing poverty, except among the elderly, in the last three decades. The chapters examine how changing labor market opportunities for less-educated workers have increased their risk of poverty (Rebecca Blank), and how family structure changes (Maria Cancian and Deborah Reed) and immigration have affected poverty (Steven Raphael and Eugene Smolensky). Part II assesses the ways childhood poverty influences adult outcomes. Markus Jäntti finds that poor American children are more likely to be poor adults than are children in many other industrialized countries. Part III focuses on current antipoverty policies and possible alternatives. Jane Waldfogel demonstrates that policies in other countries—such as sick leave, subsidized child care, and schedule flexibility—help low-wage parents better balance work and family responsibilities. Part IV considers how rethinking and redefining poverty might take antipoverty policies in new directions. Mary Jo Bane assesses the politics of poverty since the 1996 welfare reform act. Robert Haveman argues that income-based poverty measures should be expanded, as they have been in Europe, to include social exclusion and multiple dimensions of material hardships. Changing Poverty, Changing Policies shows that thoughtful policy reforms can reduce poverty and promote opportunities for poor workers and their families. The authors' focus on pragmatic measures that have real possibilities of being implemented in the United States not only provides vital knowledge about what works but real hope for change.
Families in Peril
Author: Marian Wright EdelmanPublisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674292291
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 150
Book Description
Too many American families are in serious peril, and both the reality of the situation and the myths obscuring that reality call for attention and swift action. In this incisive analysis, Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, charts what is happening, exposes myths, and sets a bold agenda to strengthen families and protect children.
Social Protection, Economic Growth and Social Change
Author: James MidgleyPublisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1781953953
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
This highly original and thought-provoking book examines the recent expansion of social protection in China, India, Brazil and South Africa four countries experiencing rapid economic growth and social change. The authors explore the developments in each country, analyse the impact of government cash transfers and discuss key future trends. The study reveals that social protection has complemented economic growth and supported development efforts and has been fundamental to promoting equitable and sustainable societies. The book is essential reading for students of social policy, economics, development studies and public administration and will be an important resource for policymakers and administrators everywhere.
Relational Poverty Politics
Author: Victoria LawsonPublisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820353124
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269
Book Description
This collection examines the power and transformative potential of movements that fight against poverty and inequality. Broadly, poverty politics are struggles to define who is poor, what it means to be poor, what actions might be taken, and who should act. These movements shape the sociocultural and political economic structures that constitute poverty and privilege as material and social relations. Editors Victoria Lawson and Sarah Elwood focus on the politics of insurgent movements against poverty and inequality in seven countries (Argentina, India, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Singapore, and the United States). The contributors explore theory and practice in alliance politics, resistance movements, the militarized repression of justice movements, global counterpublics, and political theater. These movements reflect the diversity of poverty politics and the relations between bureaucracies and antipoverty movements. They discuss work done by mass and other types of mobilizations across multiple scales; forms of creative and political alliance across axes of difference; expressions and exercises of agency by people named as poor; and the kinds of rights and other claims that are made in different spaces and places. Relational Poverty Politics advocates for poverty knowledge grounded in relational perspectives that highlight the adversarial relationship of poverty to privilege, as well as the possibility for alliances across different groups. It incorporates current research in the field and demonstrates how relational poverty knowledge is best seen as a model for understanding how theory is derivative of action as much as the other way around. The book lays a foundation for realistic change that can directly attack poverty at its roots. Contributors: Antonádia Borges, Dia Da Costa, Sarah Elwood, David Boarder Giles, Jim Glassman, Victoria Lawson, Felipe Magalhães, Jeff Maskovsky, Richa Nagar, Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales, LaShawnDa Pittman, Frances Fox Piven, Preeti Sampat, Thomas Swerts, and Junjia Ye.
Poverty Knowledge
Author: Alice O'ConnorPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400824745
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 391
Book Description
Progressive-era "poverty warriors" cast poverty in America as a problem of unemployment, low wages, labor exploitation, and political disfranchisement. In the 1990s, policy specialists made "dependency" the issue and crafted incentives to get people off welfare. Poverty Knowledge gives the first comprehensive historical account of the thinking behind these very different views of "the poverty problem," in a century-spanning inquiry into the politics, institutions, ideologies, and social science that shaped poverty research and policy. Alice O'Connor chronicles a transformation in the study of poverty, from a reform-minded inquiry into the political economy of industrial capitalism to a detached, highly technical analysis of the demographic and behavioral characteristics of the poor. Along the way, she uncovers the origins of several controversial concepts, including the "culture of poverty" and the "underclass." She shows how such notions emerged not only from trends within the social sciences, but from the central preoccupations of twentieth-century American liberalism: economic growth, the Cold War against communism, the changing fortunes of the welfare state, and the enduring racial divide. The book details important changes in the politics and organization as well as the substance of poverty knowledge. Tracing the genesis of a still-thriving poverty research industry from its roots in the War on Poverty, it demonstrates how research agendas were subsequently influenced by an emerging obsession with welfare reform. Over the course of the twentieth century, O'Connor shows, the study of poverty became more about altering individual behavior and less about addressing structural inequality. The consequences of this steady narrowing of focus came to the fore in the 1990s, when the nation's leading poverty experts helped to end "welfare as we know it." O'Connor shows just how far they had traveled from their field's original aims.
The Logics of Change
Author: Andreas KochPublisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144384439X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355
Book Description
We live in a world of constant and dynamic change. Change manifests in various guises ranging from small to big, local to global, individual to societal, or from subtle to sudden. It often comes out of the unexpected, yet people can also actively bring about change. Change can be for the better, but often reality means change for the worse. Preconditions for a contented and happy life, both material and intangible, are constantly challenged. Living conditions of individuals as well as communities are affected by inequality, exclusion, or poverty. Different kinds of challenge and change require different reactions. This volume results from a two-day conference in November 2011 in Salzburg, Austria, bringing together researchers and practitioners from different scientific disciplines in order to discuss approaches of poverty research, social inclusion strategies, and local knowledge applications with particular focus on transformation. The contributions shed light on appropriate theories, methodologies, and concrete applications of change concepts referring to poverty, place and identity at different temporal, social, and spatial scales. They address a readership ranging from social and political scientists, economists and statisticians, to philosophers, cultural scientists and geographers.
The Systems Work of Social Change
Author: Cynthia RaynerPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198857454
Category : Social change
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Book Description
The issues of poverty, inequality, racial injustice, and climate change have never been more pressing or paralyzing. Current approaches to social change, which rely on linear thinking and traditional power dynamics to 'solve' social problems, are not helping. In fact, they may only beentrenching the status quo.Systemic social challenges produce bewildering results when we try to solve them due to their complexity, scale, and depth. While strategies to tackle complexity and scale have received significant attention and investment, challenges that arise from deeply-held beliefs, values, and assumptions thatno longer serve us well have been largely overlooked. This book draws on stories of committed social changemakers to uncover a set of principles and practices for social change that dramatically depart from the industrial approach. Rather than delivering solutions or being lured by grander visionsof 'systems change', these principles and practices focus on the process of change itself. Simple yet profound, these stories distil a timely set of lessons for leaders, scholars, and policymakers on how connection, context, and power sit at the heart of the change process, ensuring broader agencyfor people and communities while building social systems that are responsive in a rapidly-changing world.
Development and Sustainability
Author: Alberto CimadamorePublisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1783606266
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Book Description
While the need for effective action toward a greener and socially inclusive economy has long been evident, health promotion in the context of sustainable development has faltered. Arguing that human health is the key factor to sustainable development, Development and Sustainability promotes a fresh, transdisciplinary approach to the eradication of extreme poverty. This ground-breaking book calls for new forms of cooperation which cross the traditional boundaries between social activism and science, and which are capable of harnessing the complex knowledge that such radical change requires. The contributions bridge the gap between those working for health and those working for sustainability science and the green economy, through developing the methodological and scientific means to deal with some of the most critical issues faced by humanity in the twenty-first century.
A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and MedicinePublisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309483980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619
Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.