This original account of the impact of growing economic inequality upon the poorest segments of Australian society lets those most harshly affected by poverty reveal their fears, hopes and dilemmas. It is largely based on the author's conversations with hundreds of individuals living in three areas commonly described as "disadvantaged" in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

This thought-provoking and challenging book is about sex and profits. It is not a book about Women's Lib, but it is a book that will lead to the recognition of women carried along by the wholehearted support of men; it is not another call for charitable donations, but it is a book about investment. It is not about improving the education of women. It is all about income generation. The poorest women of the Indian sub-continent and Africa represent a vast untapped resource which, if harnessed, could bring about a huge improvement in the worst-affected parts of the world. Women could feed the whole of Africa since they look after 80% of the agriculture. They are hard-working and eager to learn - the perfect workforce. But they have no sense of self-worth and too often are regarded as little more than beasts of burden or are hidden away, deprived of education and position. And yet a mother will not squander money, she will nourish her children rather than drinking herself into oblivion and she will remain loyal to her family. Shreela Flather cogently and powerfully argues that women must be central to every initiative, business project and political goal rather than being merely after-thoughts or decoration. She believes this is just as applicable to many countries in the West where the glass ceiling still constitutes an impenetrable barrier for women. She challenges politicians to turn talking shops into practical action; the much-vaunted United Nations' Millennium Development Goals' (MDGs) dream cannot be fulfilled by the target date of 2015. Its only hope is to shift the focus to women. While the UN rightly identifies the private sector as the engine of innovation and growthA" it fails itself by not targeting that effort at women. As part and parcel of that re-focusing it should start talking about family planning. As we continue to struggle in global economic depression this above all is a hopeful book offering a practical, affordable way forward. It requires no new energy source, it demands no vast capital investment and it will have no destructive impact on the environment. The workforce is vast, willing and able ...with no vices. Woman - Acceptable Exploitation for Profit is a solution for a world in trouble, a roadmap to greater opportunities, profit, prosperity, health and happiness for all, regardless of gender. We live in a world struggling to feed itself, fund itself, preserve itself so why reject the only asset and talent we have failed to consider?

Time and Poverty in Western Welfare States is the English language adaptation of one of the most important contributions to welfare economics published in recent years. Professors Leibfried and Leisering offer a time-based (dynamic) analysis of the study of poverty, and suggest the need for a radical rethinking of conventional theoretical and policy approaches. Its methodology will make it of great interest to students and researchers in the social sciences, with particular importance for social policy and welfare economics.

"Nobody who works hard should be poor in America, " writes Pulitzer Prize winner David Shipler. Clear-headed, rigorous, and compassionate, he journeys deeply into the lives of individual store clerks and factory workers, farm laborers and sweat-shop seamstresses, illegal immigrants in menial jobs and Americans saddled with immense student loans and paltry wages. They are known as the working poor.
They perform labor essential to America's comfort. They are white and black, Latino and Asian--men and women in small towns and city slums trapped near the poverty line, where the margins are so tight that even minor setbacks can cause devastating chain reactions. Shipler shows how liberals and conservatives are both partly right-that practically every life story contains failure by both the society and the individual. Braced by hard fact and personal testimony, he unravels the forces that confine people in the quagmire of low wages. And unlike most works on poverty, this book also offers compelling portraits of employers struggling against razor-thin profits and competition from abroad. With pointed recommendations for change that challenge Republicans and Democrats alike, The Working Poor stands to make a difference.

The stakes of the poor in trade policy are large: Free trade can help 500 million people escape poverty and inject $200 billion annually into the economies of developing countries, according to author William R. Cline. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the potential for trade liberalization to spur growth and reduce poverty in developing countries. It quantifies the impact on global poverty of industrial-country liberalization, as well as liberalization by the developing countries. Half or more of the annual gains from trade would come from the removal of industrial-country protection against developing-country exports. By removing their trade barriers, industrial countries could convey economic benefits to developing countries worth about twice the amount of their annual development assistance. By helping developing countries grow through trade, moreover, industrial countries could lower costs to consumers for imports and realize other economic efficiencies. The study estimates that free trade could reduce the number of people earning less than $2 per day by about 500 million over 15 years. This would cut the world poverty level by 25 percent. Cline judges that the developing countries were right to risk collapse of the Doha Round at the Cancun ministerial meeting in September 2003 by insisting on much deeper liberalization of agriculture than the industrial countries were then willing to offer. The study calls for a two-track strategy: first, deep multilateral liberalization involving phased but complete elimination of industrial-county protection and deep reduction of protection by at least the middle-income developing countries, albeit on a more gradual schedule; and second, immediate free entry for imports from "high risk" low-income countries (heavily indebted poor countries, least developed countries, and sub-Saharan Africa), coupled with a 10-year tax holiday for direct investment in these countries.

"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "THE GUARDIAN "AND" PUBLISHERS WEEKLY"
"Succinct, humane, and politically astute . . . Sachs lays out a detailed path to reform, regulation, and recovery."--"The American Prospect"
In this forceful and impassioned book, Jeffrey D. Sachs offers a searing and incisive diagnosis of our country's economic ills, and an urgent call for Americans to restore the core virtues of fairness, honesty, and foresight as the foundations of national prosperity. Sachs finds that both political parties--and many leading economists--have missed the big picture, profoundly underestimating globalization's long-term effects and offering shortsighted solutions. He describes a political system that is beholden to big donors and influential lobbyists and a consumption-driven culture that suffers shortfalls of social trust and compassion. He bids readers to reclaim the virtues of good citizenship and mindfulness toward the economy and each one another. Most important, he urges each of us to accept the price of civilization, so that together we restore America to its great promise. "The Price of Civilization" is a masterly road map for prosperity, founded on America's deepest values and on a rigorous understanding of the twenty-first-century world economy.
With a new Preface by the author
"Half a century ago J. K. Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" changed the political consciousness of a generation. . . . Jeffrey Sachs's new book is a landmark in this great and essentially American tradition. . . . Sachs by his life and his writing goes far to restore one's wavering faith in the informing inspiration of the post-1945 new dawn, faith in economics, faith in America and faith in humanity.""--The Spectator"
"Stimulating . . . a must-read for every concerned citizen . . . a] hard-hitting brief for a humane economy."--"Publishers Weekly "(starred review)
"Sachs's book is loaded with information and anecdotes and] proposals that would make it harder for the powerful to rig the system for their benefit.""--Scientific American"
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"An eloquent call for American civic renewal based on moderation, compassion, and cooperation across the lines of class, ethnicity, and ideology."--CNN Money
"Compelling . . . This is an important book."--"Financial Times"

Quelles realites recouvre l'image, souvent uniformisante, des transformations recentes des conditions de vie des retraites ? Certes, la pauvrete a recule chez les personnes agees, leur etat de sante s'est ameliore et la retraite ne rime plus avec exclusion sociale. Pourtant, dans les coulisses des tendances generales, d'anciennes vulnerabilites persistent et de nouvelles inegalites emergent. Melant contributions theoriques et empiriques, cet ouvrage porte sur un aspect largement occulte en sociologie de la vieillesse, celui des inegalites sociales dans la derniere etape du parcours de vie. Il interroge notamment les nouveaux modeles du bien vieillir et du vieillissement actif en portant l'attention sur les conditions de realisation socialement situees de ces modeles. Il propose egalement un regard reflexif sur les travaux sociologiques dans le domaine du vieillissement en questionnant, du point de vue historique, leur role dans le processus d'invisibilisation des effets de classe dans ce champ d'etude et en montrant comment les perspectives issues des etudes de genre ouvrent la voie a un renouveau des analyses en terme de classes dans le cadre des approches intersectionnelles.

In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, an active political movement emerged on the streets of Iran's largest cities. Poor people began to construct their own communities on unused urban lands, creating an infrastructure----roads, electricity, running water, garbage collection, and shelters----all their own. As the Iranian government attempted to evict these illegal settlers, they resisted----fiercely and ultimately successfully. This is the story of their economic and political strategies.

The poverty rate for children in the United States exceeds that of all other Western, industrialised nations except Australia. Moreover, poverty among children has increased substantially since 1970, affecting more than one-fifth of US children. These persistent high rates require new ideas in both research and public policy. Escape from Poverty presents such ideas. Four modes of possible change are addressed: mothers' employment, child care, father involvement, and access to health care. It examines the implications of these new policy-driven changes for children. The editors have developed an interdisciplinary perspective, involving demographers, developmental psychologists, economists, health experts, historians, and sociologists - a framework essential for addressing the complexities inherent in the links between the lives of poor adults and children in our society.

This study of English policies toward the poor from the seventeenth century to the present combines individual stories with official actions. Lynn Lees shows how clients as well as officials negotiated welfare settlements--cultural definitions of entitlement, rather than available resources, determined amounts and beneficiaries. The English poor laws went through cycles of generosity and meanness that affected men and women unequally. The long term history of welfare in England and Wales was not one of continued progress and improvement but one determined by continually changing attitudes toward poverty.

Addresses a neglected element of English welfare history, examining the role and significance of English almshouses in the period 1550 - 1725 and the contribution they made within the developing welfare systems of the time Almshouses providing accommodation for poor people are a common feature of the towns and villages of England, visible representations of historic attitudes towards the poor. The period after the Reformation saw not only the survival of many medieval institutions but also a remarkable number of new foundations, as people from many different backgrounds used their wealth to revive and remodel this ancient form of provision to meet new needs. This book addresses a neglected element of English welfare history, examining the role and significance of English almshouses in the period 1550 - 1725 and the contribution they made within the developing welfare systems of the time. Drawing on archival evidence, the book analyses why almshouses were founded and the reasons for the continuing popularity of this particular form of charity; who the occupants were; what benefits they received; and how residents wereexpected to live their lives. It challenges the assumption that Post-Reformation almshouses were places of privilege for the respectable deserving poor and reveals a surprising variation in the socio-economic status of almspeopleand their experience of almshouse life. The book places these findings in the context of the contemporary national and local debates about poverty and poor relief and argues that early modern almshouses took on a distinct and newidentity within the changed landscape of relief provision in post-Reformation England. Many almshouses played an integral role in the early welfare provision of their local communities, yet, ultimately, their significance was affected by the emergence of harsher public provision in the new workhouses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ANGELA NICHOLLS is Associate Fellow at the University of Warwick

This book offers a critical, sociological analysis of the domino effect of neoliberalism and austerity politics on the role of social work and wider welfare provision. It argues that social work should move away from the resultant emphasis on risk management and bureaucracy, and return to a focus on relational and community approaches as the cornerstone of practice. Applying theoretical frameworks to practice, including those of Bourdieu and the recent work of Wacquant, the book examines the development of neoliberal ideas and their impact on social welfare. It explores the implications of this across a range of areas of social work practice, including work with children and families, working with asylum seekers and refugees and mental health social work.

Wastelands is an exploration of trash, the scavengers who collect it, and the precarious communities it sustains. After enduring war and persecution in Kosovo, many Ashkali refugees fled to Belgrade, Serbia, where they were stigmatized as Gypsies, consigned to slums, sidelined from the economy, and subjected to violence. To survive, Ashkali collect the only resource available to them: garbage. Vividly recounting everyday life in an illegal Romani settlement, Eirik Saethre follows Ashkali as they scavenge through dumpsters, build shacks, siphon electricity, negotiate the recycling trade, and migrate between Belgrade, Kosovo, and the European Union. He argues that trash is not just a means of survival: it reinforces the status of Ashkali and Roma as polluted Others, creates indissoluble bonds to transnational capitalism, enfeebles bodies, and establishes a localized sovereignty.

How does the home experience of children from poor and ethnic minority communities influence their adaptation to school? How does the traditional "child-centred" and progressive pedagogy of early years classrooms meet the needs of children from culturally diverse backgrounds? This title seeks to address these key questions by tracing the learning experiences of individual children from a poor inner-urban neighbourhood - half of them from Bangladeshi families - as they acquire the knowledge appropriate to their home culture and then take this knowledge to their reception class. The book highlights the small differences in family life - in parenting practices, in perspectives on childhood, and in beliefs about work and play - which make a big difference to children's adaptations to school. In other words, it shows how children succeed and fail from their early days at school.; It shows too how the "good intentions" of good teachers can sometimes allow children from certain backgrounds to become disaffected, and learn to fail; and it suggests ways of working with children from working class and multicultural families which may help both children and parents to gain a better understandi

The book draws on public choice theory for its analysis of collective action of all kinds, from households and clubs to communities and politics, and shows how the strategies of individuals and group affect collective outcomes. Although the methods are primarily derived from this economic perspective, historical and comparative dimensions are extensively reviewed, with special reference to the feminization of poverty and the racialization of social exclusion.

The primary theme of this collection of essays is that the cities' basic problems are poverty and racism and until these concerns are addressed by bringing about racial equality, creating jobs, and instituting other reforms, the generally low quality of urban life will persist. Gans argues that the individual must work to alter society. He believes that not only must parents have jobs to improve their children's school performance, but that the country needs a modernized 'New Deal', a more labor-intensive economy, and a thirty-two hour work week to achieve full employment. Other controversial ideas presented in this book include Gans's opposition to the whole notion of an underclass, which he feels is the latest way for the nonpoor to unjustly label the poor as undeserving. He also believes that poverty continues to plague society because it is often useful to the nonpoor. He is critical of architecture that aims above all to be aesthetic or to make philosophical statements(, ) is doubtful that planners can or should try to reform our social or personal lives(, ) and thinks we should concentrate on achieving individual public policies until we learn how to properly plan as a society.

'This book flips your world upside down. Daniel Markovits argues that meritocracy isn't a virtuous, efficient system that rewards the best and brightest. Instead it rewards middle-class families who can afford huge investments in their children's education ... Frightening, eye-opening stuff' The Times, Books of the Year Even in the midst of runaway economic inequality and dangerous social division, it remains an axiom of modern life that meritocracy reigns supreme and promises to open opportunity to all. The idea that reward should follow ability and effort is so entrenched in our psyche that, even as society divides itself at almost every turn, all sides can be heard repeating meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we think we are. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy's successes. This is the radical argument that The Meritocracy Trap prosecutes with rare force, comprehensive research, and devastating persuasion. Daniel Markovits, a law professor trained in philosophy and economics, is better placed than most to puncture one of the dominant ideas of our age. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within, as well as how we can take the first steps towards a world that might afford us both prosperity and dignity.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. In our society, a wealthy minority flourish, while around one-fifth experience chronic poverty and many people on middle incomes fear for their futures. Social policy has failed to find answers to these problems and there is now a demand for a new narrative to enable us to escape from the crisis in our society. With the aim of ending poverty, this book argues that we need to start with the society we want, rather than framing poverty as a problem to be solved. It calls for a bold forward-looking social policy that addresses continuing austerity, under-resourced organisations and a lack of social solidarity. Based on a research programme carried out by the Webb Memorial Trust involving leading organisations, academics, community activists, children, and surveys of more than 12,000 people living in poverty, a key theme is power which shows that the way forward is to increase people's sense of agency in building the society that they want.

This book brings forth debates on the production and eradication of poverty from experiences in the global South. It collects a set of innovative articles concentrating on the way in which poverty, as a social process, has been tackled by popular movements and the governments of various states across the globe. Providing new insights into the limitations of traditional strategies to confront poverty, it highlights how social organizations are working to transform the livelihoods of people through bottom-up struggle and more participatory approaches rather than passively waiting for top-down solutions.

Pastor Mike Mather arrived in Indianapolis thinking that he was going to serve the poor. But after his church's community lost nine young men to violence in a few short months, Mather came to see that the poor didn't need his help-he needed theirs. This is the story of how one church found abundance in a com-munity of material poverty. Viewing people-not programs, finances, or service models-as their most valuable resource moved church members beyond their own walls and out into the streets, where they discovered folks rich in strength, talents, determination, and love. Mather's Having Nothing, Possessing Everything will inspire readers to seek justice in their own local communities and to find abundance and hope all around them.

Poverty & Development in the 21st Century provides a fully updated, interdisciplinary overview of one of the world's most complex and pressing social problems. The book analyses and assesses key questions faced by practitioners and policy makers, ranging from what potential solutions to world poverty are open to us to what form development should take and whether it is compatible with environmental sustainability. The third edition considers the complex causes of global poverty and inequality, introducing major development issues that include hunger, disease, the threat of authoritarian populism, the refugee crisis and environmental degradation. Three new chapters illustrate the impact of climate, refugee and health crises on development by drawing on accounts of lived experience to explore the real-world implications of theory. Refreshed student-centred learning features include boxes outlining key concepts, definitions and cases that explore contested issues in greater depth. These case studies encourage critical reflection on key issues, from refugees' personal accounts of containment to the Ebola epidemic to indigenous perspectives on climate change. Questions posed at the start of each chapter provide a framework for critical reflection on key assumptions and theories within the field of development. Each chapter also clearly unpacks figures and tables, supporting students to develop a nuanced understanding of economic arguments and key skills of data interpretation Digital formats and resources The third edition is available for students and institutions to purchase in a variety of formats, and is supported by online resources. - The e-book offers a mobile experience and convenient access along with functionality tools, navigation features, and links that offer extra learning support: www.oxfordtextbooks.co.uk/ebooks - Students and lecturers are further supported by online resources to encourage deeper engagement with content. For students: Web links organised by chapter to deepen students' understanding of key topics and explore their research interests For lecturers: Customisable PowerPoint slides support effective teaching preparation Figures and tables from the book allow clear presentation of key data and support students' data analysis

This book highlights current debates about concepts, methods, and policies related to poverty in Latin America. It focuses on child and adolescent well-being and the issue of inclusive societies. Its goal is to promote new and critical thinking about these issues globally and in Latin America. The authors clearly emphasise the need to develop new conceptual and practical avenues that can address the issues of poverty, marginalisation, exclusion, and old and new inequalities in post-neoliberal times. The objective is to advance the rights of all children and adolescents in the region. This urgent book represents a unique opportunity for practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and students to get access to the most up-to-date key knowledge on child poverty and inequality from a conceptual and practical point of view.

World leaders have given the reduction of global poverty top priority. And yet it persists. Indeed, in many countries whose governments lack either the desire or the ability to act, poverty has worsened. This book, a joint venture of a Harvard professor and an economist with the International Finance Corporation, argues that the solution lies in the creation of a new institution, the World Development Corporation (WDC), a partnership of multinational corporations (MNCs), international development agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty, George Lodge and Craig Wilson assert that MNCs have the critical combination of capabilities required to build investment, grow economies, and create jobs in poor countries, and thus to reduce poverty. Furthermore, they can do so profitably and thus sustainably. But they lack legitimacy and risk can be high, and so a collective approach is better than one in which an individual company proceeds alone. Thus a UN-sponsored WDC, owned and managed by a dozen or so MNCs with NGO support, will make a marked difference. At a time when big business has been demonized for destroying the environment, enjoying one-sided benefits from globalization, and deceiving investors, the book argues, MNCs have much to gain from becoming more effective in reducing global poverty. This is not a call for philanthropy. Lodge and Wilson believe that corporate support for the World Development Corporation will benefit not only the world's poor but also company shareholders as a result of improved MNC legitimacy and stronger markets and profitability.