***Evening Standard's best non-fiction 2021*** 'A brilliant, searing expose of the lies underpinning work' - Owen Jones 'Work hard, get paid.' It's simple. Self-evident. But it's also a lie-at least for most of us. For people today, the old assumptions are crumbling; hard work in school no longer guarantees a secure, well-paying job in the future. Far from a gateway to riches and fulfilment, 'work' means precarity, anxiety and alienation. Amelia Horgan poses three big questions: what is work? How does it harm us? And what can we do about it? While abolishing work altogether is not the answer, Lost in Work shows that when we are able to take control of our workplaces, we become less miserable, and can work towards the transformative goal of experimenting with 'work' as we know it.

This important book is concerned with the evaluation of changes in income distribution and the analysis of tax and transfer systems. The book begins with an introduction to the measurement of inequality and poverty, stressing the role of value judgements. The following six chapters deal with cross- sectional comparisons, including the analysis of a labour market model of income distribution, the choice of transfer system, marginal indirect tax reform, and the distributional effects of inflation. The next seven chapters are concerned with dynamic aspects of income distribution. These examine the complex relationship between cross-sectional and lifetime distributions, relative income mobility, and the effects of income mobility on temporary and permanent poverty. The Dynamics of Inequality and Poverty will be essential reading for students and scholars of public sector economics, welfare economics and social economics, along with those directly concerned with policy formulation.

The largest UK research study on poverty and social exclusion ever conducted reveals startling levels of deprivation. 18m people are unable to afford adequate housing; 14m can't afford essential household goods; and nearly half the population have some form of financial insecurity. Defining poverty as those whose lack of resources forces them to live below a publicly agreed minimum standard, this text provides unique and detailed insights into the nature and extent of poverty and social exclusion in the UK today. Written by a team of leading academics, the book reports on the extent and nature of poverty for different social groups: older and younger people; parents and children; ethnic groups; men and women; disabled people; and across regions through the recent period of austerity. It reflects on where government policies have made an impact and considers potential future developments. A companion volume Poverty and Social Exclusion in the UK Volume 2 focuses on different aspects of poverty and social exclusion identified in the study.

This book provides key insights into the nature of officer-recipient relationships and shows how they have non-negligible impacts on the way recipients feel and think about themselves and their lives using mixed methods and subjective and psychosocial well-being approaches. The importance of placing well-being at the heart of policy is widely accepted. Yet, it is far less clear how this can be translated into practice. Discussion has tended to focus on the outcomes of policy and particularly on the metrics to assess well-being. While these are important debates, they can obscure an equally vital dimension: the processes of policies and the effect that implementation can have on the experiences - and ultimately well-being outcomes - of the recipients. This is the subject matter of this book. By taking the world-renowned case of the Oportunidades-Prospera conditional cash transfer programme in Mexico, it provides an in-depth account of interactions between officers and recipients and how these influenced programme delivery and well-being outcomes. It particularly scrutinizes the implementation of the health conditionalities of Oportunidades-Prospera by physicians working in the health clinics of rural and indigenous localities.

Absolute poverty causes about one third of all human deaths, some 18 million annually, and blights billions of lives with hunger and disease. Developing universalizable norms aimed at tackling absolute poverty and the complex and multilayered problems associated with it, this book considers the levels, trends and determinants of absolute poverty and global inequality. Examining whether much faster progress against absolute poverty is possible through reductions in national and global inequalities that produce economic growth for poor countries and households, this book suggests that diverse moral views imply that international agencies as well as the citizens, corporations and governments of affluent countries bear a moral responsibility to reduce absolute poverty. In considering strategies of eradication through specific policies and structural reforms it is argued that because of its moral importance and requirement for only modest efforts and resources, the goal of overcoming absolute poverty must be given much higher political priority by international agencies and governments of affluent countries. Suggesting that these agencies should be encouraged to facilitate and promote new initiatives, this book concludes with a discussion of how such initiatives might be realized.

This is the first volume in an ambitious new series-"Patterns of Potential Human Progress"-inspired by the UN Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) and other initiatives to improve the global condition. The first and most fundamental of these goals-reducing poverty worldwide-is the focus of this book. Using the large-scale computer program called International Futures (IFs), developed over three decades at the prestigious University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies, this book explores the most extensive set of forecasts of global poverty ever made-providing a wide range of scenarios based on an authoritative array of data. It transcends the "$1 a day" baseline measure of poverty and probes important concepts like income poverty gaps and relative poverty. The forecasts are long-term, looking 50 years into the future, far beyond the 2015 date set out by the MDGs. They are geographically rich, spanning the entire globe and drilling down to the country level, including one of the most important global focal points, India. The poverty forecasts in this book, and all the volumes in the series, are fully integrated in perspective across a wide range of human development arenas including demographics, economics, politics, agriculture, energy, and the environment. Full of colorful and thoughtfully designed graphs, tables, maps, and other visual presentations of data and forecasts, this large-format inaugural volume ensures that the "Patterns of Potential Human Progress" series will become an indispensable resource for every development professional, student, professor, library, and indeed, country around the world.

In this persuasive study, social welfare and policy expert Paul Spicker makes a case for a relational view of poverty. Poverty is much more than a lack of resources. It involves a complex set of social relationships, such as economic disadvantage, insecurity or a lack of rights. These relational elements tell us what poverty is - what it consists of, what poor people are experiencing, and what problems need to be addressed. This book examines poverty in the context of the economy, society and the political community, considering how states can respond to issues of inequality, exclusion and powerlessness. Drawing on examples of social policy in both rich and poor countries, this is an accessible contribution to the debate about the nature of poverty and responses to it.

Engaging systematically with severe forms of poverty in Europe, this important book stimulates academic, public and policy debate by shedding light on aspects of deprivation and exclusion of people in absolute poverty in affluent societies. It examines issues such as access to health care, housing and nutrition, poverty related shame, and violence. The book investigates different policy and civic responses to extreme poverty, ranging from food donations to penalisation and "social cleansing" of highly visible poor and how it is related to concerns of ethics, justice and human dignity.

The Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion provides scholarly coverage of the religion, culture and history of the Islamic world, at a time when that world is undergoing considerable change and is a focus of international study and debate.

The non-Muslim world's perceptions of Islam have often tended to be dominated by unrepresentative radical extremist movements and media interpretations of events involving such movements, to the extent that many people are unaware of the depth and variety of Islamic thought. At the same time, many who have had a formal training in Islamic studies have tended to concentrate on the traditional, to the exclusion of the contemporary. The Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion covers the full range of Islamic thought, in historical depth, but it also provides substantial coverage of contemporary trends across the Muslim world.

With well over a thousand entries on Islamic theology, history, arts, science, law and institutions, and coverage of Islam in individual countries and cities around the world, the Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion provides an extremely rich resource for students and researchers in religious studies and Middle Eastern studies.

Entries are cross-referenced and bibliographies are provided. There is a full index. Routledge published The Qura'n: An Encyclopedia in 2005, an excellent companion to the Encyclopedia of Islamic Civilization and Religion.

Based on more than 30 case studies in eight different countries, this book explores the governance dynamics of local social innovations in the field of poverty reduction. The diverse team of contributors illustrate how different governance dynamics and welfare mixes enable or hinder poverty reduction strategies and analyse how they involve a variety of actors, instruments and resources at different spatial scales.

In 1970, a single mother with two children working full time at the federal minimum wage in the US received no direct cash benefits from the federal government. Today, after a period of austerity, that same mother would receive $7,572 in federal cash benefits. This money does not come from social assistance, family allowances, or other programs we traditionally see as part of the welfare state. Instead, she benefits from the earned income tax credit (EITC) and the child tax credit (CTC)-tax credits for low-income families that have become a major component of American social policy. In The Fiscalization of Social Policy, Joshua T. McCabe challenges conventional wisdom on American exceptionalism, offering the first and only comparative analysis of the politics of tax credits. Drawing comparisons between similar developments in the UK and Canada, McCabe upends much of what we know about tax credits for low-income families. Rather than attributing these changes to anti-welfare attitudes, mobilization of conservative forces, shifts toward workfare, or racial antagonism, he argues that the growing use of tax credits for social policy was a strategic adaptation to austerity. While all three countries employ the same set of tax credits, US child poverty rates remain highest, as their tax credits paradoxically exclude the poorest families. A critical examination of social policy over the last fifty years, The Fiscalization of Social Policy shows why the US government hasn't tackled poverty, even while it implements greater tax benefits for the poor.

This book focuses on the effects of welfare state arrangements on the dynamics of poverty in Europe. The author contends that the EU is primarily based on economic integration and as a result social policy issues have remained secondary considerations. The question of whether or not there is a role for the EU to play in social policy is answered in Didier Fouarge's investigation of the constructive and restrictive characteristics of subsidiarity.Using long-running panel data from three distinctive EU welfare states (the Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain), as well as data from the European Community Household Panel, the author analyses the determinants of long-term poverty and the processes underlying poverty transitions. At the individual level, labour market participation and human capital turn out to be important determinants. However, even in the long run most redistribution results from social protection transfers. The book demonstrates that social protection, far from being just a financial burden to the economy, can be seen as a productive factor. The findings endorse active policies aimed at human capital formation as a way to meet Europe's future economic and social challenges. Providing an economic framework in which to understand the productive effects of social protection, this book will be invaluable to researchers, academics and students with an interest in economics, sociology and political science. Its analysis of the performance of national and European policies will also ensure the book's appeal to governmental institutions and policymakers.

"Your child can achieve great things." A few years ago, pregnant women in four corners of the world heard those words and hoped they could be true. Among them were Esther Okwir in rural Uganda, where the infant mortality rate is among the highest in the world; Jessica Saldana, a high school student in a violence-scarred Chicago neighborhood; Shyamkali, the mother of four girls in a low-caste village in India; and Maria Estella, in Guatemala's western highlands, where most people are riddled with parasites and moms can rarely afford the fresh vegetables they farm. Greatness? It was an audacious thought, given their circumstances. But they had new cause to be hopeful: they were participating in an unprecedented international initiative designed to transform their lives, the lives of their children, and ultimately the world. The 1,000 Days movement, a response to recent, devastating food crises and new research on the economic and social costs of childhood hunger and stunting, is focused on providing proper nutrition during the first 1,000 days of children's lives, beginning with their mother's pregnancy. Proper nutrition during these days can profoundly influence an individual's ability to grow, learn, and work-and determine a society's long-term health and prosperity. In this inspiring, sometimes heartbreaking book, Roger Thurow takes us into the lives of families on the forefront of the movement to illuminate the science, economics, and politics of malnutrition, charting the exciting progress of this global effort and the formidable challenges it still faces: economic injustice, disease, lack of education and sanitation, misogyny, and corruption.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. The motivations of migrants for travelling to Europe vary, and the quality of the processes involved in their settlement and contribution to social and economic development are inextricably linked to their prospects of finding and sustaining good-quality work. This book explores the labour market integration of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers across seven European countries: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK. Using empirical data from the Horizon2020 SIRIUS Project, it investigates how legal, political, social and personal circumstances combine to determine the work trajectory for migrants who choose Europe as their home.

Globalization is characterised by persistent poverty and growing inequality. Conventional wisdom has it that this global poverty is residual - as globalization deepens, the poor will be lifted out of destitution. The policies of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO echo this belief and push developing countries ever deeper into the global economy.
Globalization, Poverty and Inequality provides an alternative viewpoint. It argues that for many - particularly for those living in Latin America, Asia and Central Europe - poverty and globalization are relational. It is the very workings of the global system which condemn many to poverty. In particular the mobility of investment, and the large pool of increasingly skilled workers in China and other parts of Asia, are driving down global wages.
This poses challenges for policy makers in firms and countries throughout the world. It also challenges the very sustainability of globalisation itself. Are we about to witness the implosion of globalisation, as occurred between 1913 and 1950?
Using a variety of theoretical frameworks and drawing on a vast amount of original research, this book will be an invaluable resource for all students of globalization and its effects.

Find out howand whylegislation has made economic rights more important than human rights Since 1996, politicians and public officials in the United States have celebrated the success of welfare reform legislation despite little, if any, evidence to support their claims. The Promise of Welfare Reform: Political Rhetoric and the Reality of Poverty in the Twenty-First Century presents articles from 23 community practitioners and researchers who challenge the reform that has turned public aid from a right to a privilege. The authors transcend conventional academic writing, offering careful and thoughtful analysis that examines the history of welfare reform, its connection to poverty, family issues, and the impact of racism on poverty and on the treatment of the poor. The Promise of Welfare Reform analyzes the consequences over the past ten years of legislative changes made to the public assistance program formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC). This powerful book examines the social, political, and economic context of welfare reform, including the elimination of poverty as a societal goal, how racial and ethic groups have been targeted, popular stereotypes about the poor and their work ethic, anti-immigrant hostility, the struggles of single mothers with children, domestic violence, and marriage as a realistic escape from poverty. The book's authors address the need for empathy and understanding to change public sentiments about welfare and poverty. Contributors to The Promise of Welfare Reform include: Elizabeth A. Segal and Keith M. Kilty, co-founding editors of the Journal of Poverty (Haworth) Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare Ann Withorn, co-editor of For Crying Out Loud: Women's Poverty in the United States Mimi Abramovitz, author of Under Attack, Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the United States Joel Blau, co-author with Mimi Abramovitz of The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy Margaret K. Nelson, author of The Social Economy of Single Mothers: Raising Children in Rural America Gwendolyn Mink, co-editor of Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics Kenneth J. Neubeck, co-author of Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor Lynn Fujiwara, author of Sanctioning Immigrants: Asian Immigrant Women and the Racial Politics of Welfare Reform Nancy C. Jurik, author of Bootstrap Dreams: U.S. Microenterprise Developments in an Era of Welfare Reform and much more! The Promise of Welfare Reform challenges current views on welfare reform and promotes alternative methods to alleviate poverty. It is an essential resource for sociologists, political scientists, economists, public policy and management specialists, social welfare and human services workers, and anyone else concerned about changes made to public assistance by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

In this brilliant, breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi's "most-everything girl," might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers, "based on years of uncompromising reporting, ""carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds--and into the hearts of families impossible to forget.
Winner of the National Book Award - The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award - The Los Angeles Times Book Prize - The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award - The New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
"The New York Times - The Washington Post - O: The Oprah Magazine - USA Today - New York - The Miami Herald - San Francisco Chronicle - Newsday"
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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
"The New Yorker - People - Entertainment Weekly - The Wall Street Journal - The Boston Globe - The Economist - Financial Times - Newsweek"/The Daily Beast" - Foreign Policy - The Seattle Times - The Nation - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - The Denver Post - "Minneapolis" Star Tribune - "Salon" - The Plain Dealer - The Week - Kansas City Star - "Slate" - Time Out New York - Publishers Weekly"
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"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER
"A book of extraordinary intelligence and] humanity . . . beyond groundbreaking."--Junot Diaz, "The New York Times Book Review"
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"Reported like Watergate, written like "Great Expectations, "and handily the best international nonfiction in years."--"New York"
"This book is both a tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece."--Judges' Citation for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award
" A] landmark book."--"The Wall Street Journal"
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"A triumph of a book."--Amartya Sen
"There are books that change the way you feel and see; this is one of them."--Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
" A] stunning piece of narrative nonfiction . . . Katherine] Boo's prose is electric.""--O: The Oprah Magazine"
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"Inspiring, and irresistible . . . Boo's extraordinary achievement is twofold. She shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.""--People"

"From the Hardcover edition."

Persistant poverty has long been one of America's most pressing and intractable problems. According to some estimates, by 2003, almost twenty-five percent of the America's countries had per-capita incomes below one half the national average, high unemployment, low labour force participation rates, and a high dependency on government transfer payments - all measures of economic distress. An Atlas of Poverty in America shows how and where America's regional development patterns have become more uneven, and graphically illustrates the increasing number of communities falling behind the national economic average. Readers will be able to use this Atlas to see how major events and trends have impacted the scope and extent of American poverty in the past half-century: economic globalization, the rise of the sunbelt, decline of the welfare state, and the civil rights movement. Also includes 195 colour maps.

Persistant poverty has long been one of America's most pressing and intractable problems. According to some estimates, by 2003, almost twenty-five percent of the America's countries had per-capita incomes below one half the national average, high unemployment, low labour force participation rates, and a high dependency on government transfer payments - all measures of economic distress. An Atlas of Poverty in America shows how and where America's regional development patterns have become more uneven, and graphically illustrates the increasing number of communities falling behind the national economic average. Readers will be able to use this Atlas to see how major events and trends have impacted the scope and extent of American poverty in the past half-century: economic globalization, the rise of the sunbelt, decline of the welfare state, and the civil rights movement. Also includes 195 colour maps.

The poor and the sick-poor have always presented a problem to the governments and churches of Europe. Whose responsibility are they? Are they a wilful burden on the honest working population, or are they a necessary presence for the true Christian to live the true Christian life? In the 18th and 19th centuries what happened to the poor and the sick-poor in the north and south of Europe was different. In the north there occurred first the Reformation in the 16th century, which changed attitudes to the poor, and then the advent of industrialisation, with its far-reaching effects of pauperisation of people both in town and countryside. In the Catholic south, where industrialisation did not appear so soon, the Catholic Church introduced a programme of reform at all levels but along traditional lines. This included the founding of new orders dedicated to the care of the poor and sick, of new institutions within which to house and care for them. At all times it was taken for granted that it was a necessary aspect of being a Christian that one should give for the care of the needy, and that this was not the duty of the state or of secular institutions. The secularising movement did however reach the southern countries by way both of the Enlightenment and - more drastically - in the form of the Napoleonic invasions. But after the defeat of Napoleon, the Church reasserted its right to administer and control the support of the poor and sick, and this situation continued until 1900 in most areas. Moreover the effects of industrialisation and the concomitant increase in population did make itself felt in the south in the course of the 19th century, which put great stress on the institutions for poor relief and health care for the poor. All this is still relevant today, since the situations that governments and the Catholic Church found themselves confronted with, and the stark choices they had to make, are being replayed to some extent today. Who is responsible for the poor, who is to blame for their being poor? How should their poverty be relieved, how should the health care of the many be funded? These are still live issues today. While complete in itself the present volume also forms the fourth and last of a four-volume survey of health care and poor relief in Europe between 1500 and 1900, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham

We Are Better Than This is a collection of essays and poetry addressing the Australian government's asylum seeker policy. The aims of the book are several: to provide some of the information about the situation in detention camps that is being withheld by the government; to correct some of the government's misrepresentations of the current situation; to clarify some of the complex legal issues surrounding the right to seek asylum, and to give some insight into the plight of those who are seeking asylum. It is hoped that this book will better inform people about the government's policies: to support those who are unsatisfied and seeking to change the situation, as well as those who are uncertain and need more easily accessible and reliable information. Contributors are drawn from several areas of expertise and engagement with asylum seekers.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, complex capital flows have ravaged everyday communities across the globe. Housing in particular has become increasingly precarious. In response, many movements now contest the long-held promises and established terms of the private ownership of housing. Immigrant activism has played an important, if understudied, role in such struggles over collective consumption. In Dispossession and Dissent, Sophie Gonick examines the intersection of homeownership and immigrant activism through an analysis of Spain's anti-evictions movement, now a hallmark for housing struggles across the globe. Madrid was the crucible for Spain's urban planning and policy, its millennial economic boom (1998-2008), and its more recent mobilizations in response to crisis. During the boom, the city also experienced rapid, unprecedented immigration. Through extensive archival and ethnographic research, Gonick uncovers the city's histories of homeownership and immigration to demonstrate the pivotal role of Andean immigrants within this movement, as the first to contest dispossession from mortgage-related foreclosures and evictions. Consequently, they forged a potent politics of dissent, which drew upon migratory experiences and indigenous traditions of activism to contest foreclosures and evictions.

This book discusses poverty reduction and inclusive development in China. The relevant research reports included here combine unique perspectives and thorough analysis, and include both comparative and empirical analyses. Although China is the first country to have achieved the UN's Millennium Development Goals, it still faces enormous problems and challenges in terms of narrowing the income gap, reducing poverty and attaining sustainable development. This book not only provides valuable theoretical material to help readers understand inclusive development and poverty reduction in today's China, but also offers relevant government authorities a solid theoretical and practical basis for informed decision-making.

The author raises some fundamental questions about the distribution of wealth. Why is it that those who produce the wealth, the workers, receive only a small portion of what they have produced? Why are there so many unemployed and so cannot provide for themselves? What is the privilege that grants some a lion's share of the product without having to work for it? A trade union organiser for many years, George Curtis came to realise that there are limits to the improvement in wages that can be achieved through collective bargaining so long as this privilege remains. In fact higher wages increase the windfall gains of those benefitting from the privilege. This book traces the cause of poverty to a widely accepted social institution, just as slavery once was, and reveals a way in which this defect could be remedied by introducing a more efficient way of funding government.

On January 20, 1949 US President Harry S. Truman officially opened the era of development. On that day, over one half of the people of the world were defined as "underdeveloped" and they have stayed that way ever since. This book explains the origins of development and underdevelopment and shows how poorly we understand these two terms. It offers a new vision for development, demystifying the statistics that international organizations use to measure development and introducing the alternative concept of buen vivir: the state of living well. The authors argue that it is possible for everyone on the planet to live well, but only if we learn to live as communities rather than as individuals and to nurture our respective commons. Scholars and students of global development studies are well-aware that development is a difficult concept. This thought-provoking book offers them advice for the future of development studies and hope for the future of humankind.