Sort each description by whether it is a case of absolute or of relative poverty.
Groups: Absolute poverty · Relative poverty
- Income below 60 per cent of the national median for that year
- The measure Rowntree used to identify primary poverty in York
- Rises automatically if the middle of the distribution pulls away
- Unchanged as a standard even if the whole society becomes richer
Hints
- One kind of threshold is fixed against a basket and one moves with the distribution.
- Ask what happens to each threshold if every income in the country doubles.
Show the answer
Absolute poverty: The measure Rowntree used to identify primary poverty in York, Unchanged as a standard even if the whole society becomes richer
Relative poverty: Income below 60 per cent of the national median for that year, Rises automatically if the middle of the distribution pulls away
The last pair is the sharpest test. Double every income and absolute poverty vanishes while relative poverty is exactly unchanged, which critics read as a defect and defenders as the point: a society in which some people cannot do what everyone else treats as ordinary has a problem that rising averages do not solve.
Practise Inequality, Poverty and Social Exclusion
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Sociology I is free to start.
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