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Subject: Aspects of Society

Title : Definitions Of Poverty

I Absolute Poverty

Absolute poverty, also known as subsistence poverty, is usually defined in terms of food, clothing, shelter and health. This concept is used in Drewnowski and Scott’s “level of living index”, where nutrition is defined in terms of calories and protein, shelter in terms of quality of dwelling and degrees of overcrowding, and health in terms of infant mortality and the quality of available medical facilities. Some sociologists attempt to include measures of education, security, leisure and recreation as basic cultural needs to be added to the notion of subsistence.

However, the obvious criticism of this that in fact all notions of absolute poverty turn out to be applications of the notion of relative poverty. For example, the subsistence level of nutrition is relative to the job and lifestyle of each person. The addition of basic cultural needs also fudges the boundary between absolute and relative poverty.

There are also difficulties in defining security, although the number of violent deaths per 1000 is one putative measure.

Budget Standards and Poverty

Seebohm Rowntree conducted a study of poverty in York in 1899 using a definition of poverty close to the concept of absolute poverty.
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