The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty

937 Pages·2019·27.443 MB·English

by  Linda Burton, David Brady

The Oxford Handbook of
T H E S O C IA L
S C I E N C E O F
P O V E RT Y

The Oxford Handbook of
THE SOCIAL
SCIENCE OF
POVERTY
Edited by
DAVID BRADY
and
LINDA M. BURTON
1
3
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© Oxford University Press 2016
First Edition published in 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Brady, David, 1972– editor. | Burton, Linda, 1954– editor.
Title: The Oxford handbook of the social science of poverty / edited by David Brady and Linda M. Burton.
Description: New York, NY: Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015019762 | ISBN 978–0–19–991405–0 (hardcover: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Poverty. | Poverty—Social aspects. | Social justice.
Classification: LCC HC79.P6 O974 2016 | DDC 305.5/69—dc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015019762
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan, USA
Contents
Foreword: Those Left Behind  ix
Carol B. Stack
List of Contributors  xi
1. Introduction  1
David Brady and Linda M. Burton
SECTION I CONCEPTS, THEORIES, AND
ORIENTING QUESTIONS
2. Poverty Measurement  21
Timothy M. Smeeding
3. Structural Violence, Poverty, and Social Suffering  47
Barbara Rylko- Bauer and Paul Farmer
4. Capability Deprivation  75
Rod Hick and Tania Burchardt
5. Ideologies and Beliefs about Poverty  93
Matthew O. Hunt and Heather E. Bullock
6. How Politics and Institutions Shape Poverty and Inequality  117
David Brady, Agnes Blome, and Hanna Kleider
7. Linking Poverty and Children’s Development: Concepts, Models,
and Debates  141
Vonnie C. McLoyd, Rosanne M. Jocson,
and Abigail B. Williams
vi Contents
SECTION II CLASSIC DEBATES
8. Poverty Knowledge and the History of Poverty Research  169

Alice O’Connor
9. The Discourse of Deservingness: Morality and the Dilemmas of

Poverty Relief in Debate and Practice  193
Celeste Watkins- Hayes and Elyse Kovalsky
10. Gender and Poverty  221
Janet C. Gornick and Natascia Boeri
11. Life, Death, and Resurrections: The Culture of Poverty Perspective  247

Jessi Streib, SaunJuhi Verma, Whitney Welsh,
and Linda M. Burton
12. The Historical Origins of Poverty in Developing Countries  270
Sambit Bhattacharyya
13. The Dynamics of Poverty  293

Anirudh Krishna

SECTION III PLACE AND CONTEXT
14. People and Places Left Behind: Rural Poverty in the New Century  317
Daniel T. Lichter and Kai A. Schafft
15. Poor Neighborhoods in the Metropolis  341
Mary Pattillo and John N. Robinson III
16. Segregation and the Perpetuation of Disadvantage  369
Douglas S. Massey
17. Urban Poverty, Race, and Space  394
William Julius Wilson
SECTION IV CAUSES AND THE

REPRODUCTION OF POVERTY
18. Single and Cohabiting Parents and Poverty  417

Christina M. Gibson- Davis
Contents vii
19. Job- Finding among the Poor: Do Social Ties Matter?  438
Sandra Susan Smith
20. Education  462
Emily Hannum and Yu Xie
21. Employment and the Working Poor  486
Jérôme Gautié and Sophie Ponthieux
22. Great Escapes and Great Divergences: Growth, Poverty,
and Income Inequality on a Global Scale  505
Robert H. Wade
23. Intergenerational Mobility  528
Liana Fox, Florencia Torche, and Jane Waldfogel
24. Economic Performance, Poverty, and Inequality in Rich Countries  555
David Brady and Markus Jäntti
SECTION V CONSEQUENCES
25. Material Deprivation and Consumption  577
Basak Kus, Brian Nolan, and Christopher T. Whelan
26. Hunger and Food Insecurity  602
Christopher B. Barrett and Erin C. Lentz
27. Poverty and Crime  623
Patrick Sharkey, Max Besbris, and Michael Friedson
28. Poverty and Informal Economies  637
Francois Bonnet and Sudhir Venkatesh
29. Social Class, Poverty, and the Unequal Burden of Illness
and Death  660
Ronald J. Angel
SECTION VI POLICIES, SOLUTIONS,
AND RESPONSES
30. Aid and Global Poverty  687
Simon Feeny and Mark McGillivray
viii Contents
31. The Welfare States and Poverty  709
Cheol- Sung Lee and In- Hoe Koo

32. Social Policy, Transfers, Programs, and Assistance  733
Laura Lein, Sandra K. Danziger, H. Luke Shaefer,
and Amanda Tillotson
33. Poor People’s Politics  751
Frances Fox Piven and Lorraine C. Minnite
34. Why and When Do Peasants Rebel?: Origins and Consequences
of Rural Collective Action  774
Guillermo Trejo

35. Unions and Poverty  800
Jake Rosenfeld and Jennifer Laird
36. Housing Programs  820
Peter A. Kemp
37. Microfinance and Financial Inclusion  843
Philip Mader
Conclusion: Toward a New Paradigm for Understanding Poverty  866
Mark R. Rank
Index  885
Foreword: Those Left Behind
Carol B. Stack
Midwinter, back in the late 1990s, I was sitting with a group of graduate students from
the University of Naples, Federico, one of the world’s oldest universities. The young
sociologists leaning together over a venerable round table at a cafe near the corner of
Piazza Plebiscito had been studying racism and the sociology of poverty in the United
States. Over endless cappuccinos they did not hesitate to fault America’s lack of uni-
versal healthcare and the absence of a commitment to the social welfare of its citizens.
Yet, these students asked me during their indictment of the United States and with a
turn to uncertainty and somehow expecting me to have an answer: “Why did Italy
endure centuries of persistent poverty in the Naples ghetto and elsewhere in the coun-
try? Apart from the surge of global immigrants to Naples, centuries of Italian families
faced persistent poverty, and as Edmondo, one of the students, told me, “We do not
have racism to blame.”
I did not have an answer to their query. Poverty lingers, even in rich countries and is
holding steady or getting more severe among countries that provide substantial assis-
tance within a welfare state. Even with the aid of the welfare state, most poor families
remain poor. These structural factors remain a constant reminder of how important this
interdisciplinary and comparative collection of chapters authored by global scholars is
to poverty research. This Handbook provides a basis for a global discourse on poverty.
These scholars ask questions beyond the local and beyond the urban that challenge us
to scrutinize new frames of analysis. They ask us to observe poverty through the lenses
of time and space and across generations. They follow population movements and par-
ticular social experiments and policy assumptions through a global hologram. And,
they demand that we pay attention to social policies and practices that shape and are
shaped by many actors, and policies that require us to ponder intractable social forces
that create greater equality in some nation states and not in others.
Many of the authors in this volume chose to focus on the structural violence of pov-
erty from the time they were young scholars, and over the decades they continued
to pay attention amid the tensions of evolving time and space. We learn as we read
through this volume that the ideologies about the poor and what they need, and how