POSC411 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Complex Number, Social Stratification
16 May 2018
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❖ General Definition of Poverty
o Poverty—the lack of goods and services necessary to maintain minimal adequate
standard of living
▪ Food, clothing, shelter, transportation, energy
o Poverty as a human condition can be traced to the accumulation surpluses of
food and material goods
▪ With surpluses, a more complex division of labor emerged
▪ With surpluses, it was possible for some people to accumulate more
goods than others
▪ The changes ushered in a more elaborate system of social stratification
o Poverty is a human condition that arises when a certain type of social
organization exists
▪ Social organization/structure where there is an uneven distribution of the
resources
▪ Resulting in some people accumulating more goods and resources than
others
❖ Areas around the equator more susceptible to poverty, why?
o Resources
o Geography
❖ Poverty as a Phenomenon
o Economic phenomenon
o Social phenomenon
▪ Human relationships
o Political phenomenon
▪ How people use their position of power for exploitation and control
▪ Determine how resources are allocated and used
❖ Poverty → Absolute Depravation (Economic Phenomenon):
o A condition where there is an absence of minimum amount of resources needed
to meet the minimum requirements for basic living
o Forms of absolute poverty:
▪ Income
▪ Productive resources
▪ Lack of participation in decision-making (when individuals cannot
participate in the decision making process, it can contribute to creating
conditions)
▪ Low-wage worker
▪ Lack of family support systems
▪ Social institutions and safety nets
o Absolute poverty is a primary poverty condition because it involves situations
where incomes are insufficient to meet basic needs
o Problems with using family income level; arbitrary
o Problems with using food costs to make assumptions
▪ Food cost vary
▪ Ignore nutritional habits’
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