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"The Continuing Storm: Learning from Katrina, 2022" by Kai Erikson and Lori Peek is the final installment of the Katrina Bookshelf Series by the University of Texas Press. The book explores the events and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, shedding light on overlooked aspects of the disaster. The authors analyze the social factors, location decisions, and infrastructure that played a role in the devastation of New Orleans. They also critique the media's portrayal of the events and its impact on public perception. The book encourages readers to reflect on the societal implications of the Katrina story and the need for a more critical examination of our current society. It challenges traditional approaches to disasters and offers new perspectives on the long-term effects of traumatic events. The authors argue that for some survivors, a disaster may not be over, highlighting ongoing psychological and social impacts. They also discuss the displacement of poor black citizens and the failure of remedial actions in the New Orleans recovery. The book emphasizes the importance of rethinking emergency management and gaining a better understanding of the social history and conditions that contribute to vulnerability. It concludes by suggesting that lessons from events like Katrina and Covid-19 can enhance future preparedness and response efforts. [Extracted from the article]

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is the Philippine version of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program that measures human development through the provision of conditional cash grants to the poorest of the poor. This research determines the health expenditure and utilisation of the poor families in a low-income community under the CCT program. A cross-sectional research design was adopted using mixed methods of data collection from 177 households between May and June 2017. Results reveal that most families under CCT devote the largest portion of household health expenditure for inpatient health seeking. About 40% of the total expenditure is covered by the National Health Insurance Program and the cost for hospitalisation mostly comes from the out-of-pocket source. Moreover, the common problems encountered during health utilisation and spending are poor customer service of healthcare facilities and uncompensated hospital bill by health insurance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is a common challenge faced by human beings. China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) policy provides the international community with a Chinese solution to poverty governance. Based on the goal of China's TPA policy of "Two No Worries, Three Guarantees," this paper selects appropriate indicators to evaluate the implementation effect of China's TPA policy since 2013. The results show that there are significant differences between poor families and non-poor families in food consumption, clothing consumption, education, and housing. After the implementation of the TPA policy, the gap between poor families and non-poor families has been significantly reduced. However, from the perspective of per capita household consumption, there is still a certain gap between poor families and non-poor families, and it is still necessary to maintain the continuity to further improve the living standards of low-income families. JEL Classification: I32 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which the urban poor in Argentina help one another in the arduous task of making ends meet when neither the formal labor market nor state welfare policies are able to secure their subsistence. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, the article makes one substantive, one analytic, and one theoretical claim. Substantively, the article argues by way of empirical illustration that the urban poor are hardworking bricoleurs. Analytically, the article demonstrates the advantages of studying poor people's strategies in a simultaneously historic and ethnographic fashion through joint collaborative fieldwork. Theoretically, the article pushes toward replacing the notions of 'strategy of survival or subsistence' with the more encompassing notion of 'strategy of persistence'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consequences of poverty and food insecurity can indirectly contribute to obesity. Long-term effect of stunting children may be the risk factor for overweight and obesity in the poor in Indonesia. The role of parental education is also associated with overweight and obesity in children. This study aimed to observe the risk of stunted children becoming overweight and obese based on maternal education among poor people in Indonesia. This study involved three cohorts design. Cohort 1 is a 14-year cohort, and two 7-year cohorts for cohorts 2 and 3. We used secondary longitudinal data from Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) 3 (2000), IFLS 4 (2007), and IFLS 5 (2014). After stratification by high maternal education and economic status of the family, there is an increased risk of stunting children becoming overweight and obese, with a risk ratio of 2 in cohort 1 and 1.69 in cohort 2. These results showed that stunted children with high-education mothers and lived in the low-income families have a 1.69 to 2 times higher risk of becoming overweight and obese. Thus, the importance of primary education and health education for women to increase children's health in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of poverty-stricken Israeli nonresidential fathers raising their children in a disadvantaged neighborhood characterized by poverty and hardship. Using a case study design, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 nonresidential fathers living in poverty. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed, and two themes emerged. The first focuses on the challenges and barriers to the fathers' involvement in their children's lives. The second focuses on the elements that create support networks in the neighborhood context. Our findings suggest the importance of adopting an intersectional perspective on manhood and fatherhood. This could facilitate a better understanding of the complex experience of nonresidential fathers living in poverty by exploring issues of power relations and oppression while remaining sensitive to differences both within and among social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B I The Social Emergency Law recognizes popular economy workers as workers. These "workers in the popular economy" are becoming an increasingly important group in terms of size alongside the prevailing two sectors of employed workers: registered formal employees and unregistered, informal workers (or "undeclared employment"). While this is not unique to popular economy workers, it is important to point out that they are not waged workers, making them powerless to modify this situation in the absence of an employer and a collective bargaining process to guarantee an increase in their income. Keywords: popular economy; labor market; universal basic wage; poverty; social security EN popular economy labor market universal basic wage poverty social security 64 72 9 06/07/23 20230501 NES 230501 Graph: Annual march by popular economy organizations in Argentina, on August 7, the day of San Cayetano, patron of bread and work, demanding "Peace, Bread, Land, Roof, and Work."Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos, facebook.com/mteargentina Latin America is a region where high levels of inequality exist in many countries. [Extracted from the article]

This study explores how ethical food consumption is framed in the accounts of ordinary people living in affluent societies, with a particular focus on income differences. Research on ethical consumption often associates 'ethical' with the consumption of certain predefined products. This study leaves the question of the content of ethical consumption open for empirical investigation. Further, instead of focusing only on the moment of purchasing, this study considers how people with different income levels relate to both food consumption and waste. The analysis draws from qualitative interviews with 60 people living in Canada and Finland. The analysis identified the techniques, subjects and norms through which the question ethical food consumption is posed by the informants and how they framed these issues with regard to income. The findings underline that ethical consumption is a socially constructed, contested and even internally contradictory discourse. Differences in income do not only mean differences in the role that money plays in food choices but also in what kind of consumption people consider worth pursuing. Further, differences in income dictate differences in how people are morally positioned vis-à-vis abundance. For people with a higher level of income, moral blame is asserted on wasteful consumption habits. For the people with a low income, in turn, it is ethically condemnable to refuse to rejoice at the abundance around us. The findings indicate that even in a society where the rhetoric of choice is prominent both as a right and as an obligation by which people ought to display ethical agency, the ethics of choice is tied to the resources available for consumption. People with a severely low income occasionally enjoy the trickling down of abundant treats and surprises. However, for them, occasional indulgence causes not only pleasure but also trouble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) business models aim to achieve profitability and poverty reduction by including poor people into corporate value chains. This goal duality creates tensions. Actors' responses to these tensions are influenced by their cognitive frames of the phenomena building the tension. Applying a cognitive perspective, I investigate how corporate actors with different frames of poverty respond proactively or defensively to the poverty–profitability tension by adapting business model elements. I find that proactive and defensive responses differ for actors holding different cognitive frames of poverty. The responses have consequences for the poverty impact potential of BOP business models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the field of regional poverty literature by using linked tax data to examine poverty in a large district in Switzerland with one million inhabitants and rural and urban parts. We measure poverty using income and asset-based approaches. Our regional comparison of the social structure of the poor shows that poor people in rural areas are more likely to be of retirement age. Among the workforce, the share of poor is larger for those who work in agriculture compared to those working in industry or the service sector. In urban areas, the poor are more often freelancers and people of foreign origin. Despite where they live, people with little education, single parents, and people working in gastronomy/tourism are disproportionately often poor. We then use a random forest based variable importance assessment to clarify whether the importance of poverty risks factors differs in urban and rural locations. It shows little regional differences among the major poverty risk factors, and it demonstrates that the opportunity structure, like density of workplaces or aggravated access in mountain areas, seem to be of minor importance compared to risk factors that relate to the immediate social situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functioning of the U.S. social safety net as a support for low-income families depends on various means-tested programs and a system of both public agencies and nonprofit organizations. Using in-depth interviews (n = 5) and a survey of nonprofit employees (n = 73), we seek to understand the role of nonprofits in promoting equitable access to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Our findings reveal that public assistance programs are a necessary support for families, but that access is not always easy or equitable, and nonprofits form a protective layer of support providing resources and guidance for those most in need. Implications for policy and partnerships between the various components of the social safety net are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing research has explored the effects of growth mindset intervention on individuals in Western culture. This study sought to determine whether growth mindset intervention has a positive impact on adolescents in economically disadvantaged areas of China. Participants in this study were 324 junior high school students who were randomly divided into the intervention group and the control group. The intervention group received six weeks of intervention classes designed to help students learn, internalize, and reinforce the concept of growth mindset. The aims of intervention were to build students' beliefs that the brain is plastic and that individuals can change by their efforts and help students acquire the strategies to cope with the difficulties. The control group was given six classes on mental health, including time management, habit formation, and memory strategies, which were unrelated to growth mindset. All participants' implicit theory of intelligence, fixed-trait attributions, grit, and state anxiety were assessed in the pre-test and post-test. The results showed that compared with the control group, the intervention group had a significant increase in growth mindset, the level of grit, and decrease in fixed-trait attributions. That is, for students in the intervention group, strengthening of growth mindset was accompanied by more frequent use of process-focused attribution styles, more perseverance, and greater efforts when faced with challenges and setbacks. Collectively, the results suggested that having a strong growth mindset of intelligence may help students adopt more proactive coping strategies and protect them from the deleterious effects of poverty on student development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The popular view of students reared in poverty is that they fall short across a wide range of domains relative to their more advantaged peers. In this ongoing longitudinal study, we follow a cohort of college students who come from poverty and were awarded full financial support for four years at a large public research university. The results after two full academic years are striking for the lack of difference in dropout rate and grade point average between these economically disadvantaged students and their college peers. We suggest that it is not poverty per se that leads to poorer college academic performance in such students but rather the demand on their time and energy to meet ongoing financial needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through participant observation while grocery shopping, and 37 in-depth interviews with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, we describe the social meanings of SNAP dollars to low-income Philadelphia residents. We make three contributions to the study of food insecurity and SNAP. First, we confirm the literature showing that SNAP covers less than half of a monthly food budget. Second, we apply the "social meaning of money" theory to show that our respondents did not equate or spend SNAP dollars the same way they spent other forms of money. Spending SNAP dollars allowed for a temporary escape from the stresses of poverty. And third, we describe the cultural capital (habits and shared meanings) that is necessary to feed a family on a limited budget. In the SNAP market, the cultural capital accumulated through poverty is more valuable than the cultural capital obtained through wealth. Thus, we push for a more nuanced understanding of cultural capital among poverty scholars that keeps the focus on the contextual and interactional nature of this concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the proliferation of poverty studies, poverty in Brunei Darussalam (hereafter, Brunei) is under-researched. What poverty means in Brunei is, therefore, little understood, and there is a local belief that poverty in the country is unique and relative. Moreover, the terms 'poverty' (kemiskinan) and 'poor' (miskin) are somewhat sensitive in Brunei, but the reason(s) for this sentiment and preferred terms are not known. This study examines the language and meaning of poverty in Brunei. It also sheds light on the local belief about poverty within the country. The study used an exploratory research methodology and data were collected from poor and non-poor households and key informants. Results show that Bruneians use different terms to refer to poverty or poor people, but preferred terms are 'living in need', 'difficult life' and 'needy people'. Bruneians avoid the terms 'poverty' and 'poor' because they can erode one's self-confidence or self-esteem. Poverty in Brunei is construed in different ways, but it is mostly perceived as relative, and its nature is not unique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is one of the most significant determinants of health inequity in the United States, yet students of the health professions are more likely to come from higher rather than from lower income families, separating them economically from many of the individuals they will serve. Poverty simulations can expose health professional students to experiences of those living in poverty and provide a more holistic, structural perspective of poverty that informs their later practice. We sought to understand the current state of poverty simulations being utilized throughout the United States. Through a review of abstracts via Ovid and Google Scholar, we identified nine articles that focus directly on describing poverty simulations in university-based programs with health or social work university students and that incorporate some form of pre- and postevaluation methods. After a careful review of these articles, we describe the distinct differences in components and contexts between the simulations, including Bridging the Gaps–Pittsburgh's Experiential Poverty Exercise, and how effects on students is determined across the various simulations. Additionally, we review how unique aspects of the Bridging the Gaps–Pittsburgh's Experiential Poverty Exercise can serve as a model for providing multidisciplinary graduate students the opportunity to increase their knowledge and shift attitudes about people experiencing poverty before working with them as health professionals. In presenting the current status of these simulations, we seek to develop recommendations regarding the components and context of poverty simulations as well as approaches to assessing effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the research on the new geography of poverty by examining how low-income residents fit into the governmental patchwork that defines metropolitan America. Our analysis pays particular attention to two features of local governments: their size and their status as incorporated municipalities or unincorporated areas. Relying on Census data, we study these patterns for the five largest metropolitan areas in each of the five Census-designated regions of the country (25 metros total) from 1990 to 2012–2016. We show that the distribution of poor people across jurisdiction types, and their concentration in particular jurisdictions or places, has changed over time. In the older metros of the Northeast and Midwest, poverty grew in smaller secondary cities while it expanded in unincorporated areas in the South and in larger secondary cities in the West. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these shifts for studying local governance and poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's experiences in families, schools and neighbourhoods influence their childhoods as individuals learn to act in meaningful ways within social institutions. Many recent research works document challenges that economic and culturally disadvantaged students experience at colleges due to incongruence between their backgrounds and the culture at higher educational institutions. Rarely has early life experiences at one's home and family been the focal point of inquiry. The present article explores the accounts of early family life provided by students first in their families to pursue higher education. It discusses the ways in which socialisation impacts one's life trajectories related to education. Through emphasising on the process, the article focuses on the lived experiences of students marked by constraints due to poverty at home and its relation to the shaping of their academic decisions. In depth interviews with nine participants from Delhi studying in reputed colleges affiliated to a university at Delhi shows how one's economic and cultural position affect one's sense of belonging at home and educational spaces wherein students negotiate relationships and identity that are restructured and transformed while they navigate through them. Attempting to study student's self-constructions, the article shows how formal education continues to function as a project of western modernity creating fragmented bourgeoisie subjects out of poor children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dominant conception of poverty among many researchers is that it is a form of deprivation. There is, however, more focus on the idea of poverty as physical deprivation than there is on psychological deprivation. I argue that poverty is as much a psychological deprivation as it is a physical deprivation and propose a new index that explicitly takes the psychological into account in poverty measurement. I show that most extant literature tends to focus more on physical deprivations which poverty causes. I discuss some poverty indices which are employed to measure levels of poverty and highlight their inadequacy. Employing the conversational method, I tap into Odera Oruka's ideas to offer the Human Minimum Measure (HMM) as a model that might also be desirable if the reality of psychological deprivation is taken seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the associations between the achievement of economically disadvantaged students and the presence of state policies that include student achievement in teacher evaluations. We looked at student achievement across all 50 states from 2007 through 2013. A simple comparison of states with and without the policy suggested that economically disadvantaged students had similar or slightly lower reading and lower math achievement in those states with the policy than in states without it. Once state context was considered, we found that states that included student achievement in teacher assessment policies had slightly higher reading achievement among economically disadvantaged students than they would have had otherwise. We found no similar impact on math achievement. This policy did not reduce the gaps in achievement between economically disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers. Combined, these findings indicate that including student achievement in teacher assessment models did not eliminate poverty-induced educational disparities in the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades of federal economic policies that have concentrated poverty into isolated communities have devastated urban education, and expose youth and families to high stress and trauma. Disproportionately negative outcomes for students of color and those who are economically disadvantaged can be understood as manifestations of negative racial school climate and inadequate responsiveness to students' trauma. As part of a school–university partnership to inform culturally responsive trauma-informed pedagogy, this study assessed the climate of a racially diverse high-poverty elementary school. Findings explored the application of the trauma-informed Sanctuary Model to address students' trauma and a social justice response for urban education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is much research on adolescent poverty, research related to youth living in communities characterized by extreme poverty who are also identified as academically gifted is lacking. This study explores the development of hopelessness in these youths, compared with peers not identified as gifted, using data from the Mobile Youth and Poverty Study. Specifically, trajectories of hopelessness as a function of gifted status and gender are explored. Results indicate that boys experience greater feelings of hopelessness than girls, regardless of their gifted status, and students identified as gifted have lower levels of hopelessness than their peers not identified as gifted. These latter differences are particularly pronounced during early adolescence (age 10 years) but decline over time and largely disappear by later adolescence (age 18 years). Results suggest that boys may be particularly vulnerable to declining effects of gifted classification as a protector against hopelessness across age and that disadvantaged students who are identified as gifted may benefit from gifted programs that continue at an intense level through their high school years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eventually, she and I started a welfare rights group in Milwaukee among professionals working in anti-poverty jobs. The Reagan administration had just destroyed all work incentives: the $30 plus one third of our work income was no longer allowed to remain clear of the deductions to the welfare check resulting from earned income. In the job search class, I would sneak to the blackboard and use it as an opportunity to teach moms why part-time and/or low-paid employment was a waste of time since all income earned reduced the welfare check dollar for dollar, leaving mothers with a welfare income despite being employed. [Extracted from the article]

Poverty remains pervasive in Kenya despite efforts to reduce it. This may be attributed to poor understanding of its predictors. Using Afrobarometer Round 7 data and employing multivariate logistic regression, the study found that age, religion and political affiliation were risk factors associated with poverty while education was a protective factor. The study recommends that investing more in all levels of education is key to reducing poverty in Kenya. Further, social protection policies and programmes for the elderly, as well as initiatives to enhance savings for those in the informal economy, are important for poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a number of microfinance initiatives have improved financial inclusion in various regions of developing countries, the transferability of their foundations from one context to another is still a challenge. This study proposes an innovative process-based model targeting the initial stages of the transfer process that links three interconnected categories: local contextual conditions, transferring practices, and initial developmental consequences. The results were produced through a longitudinal study of the implementation of three community development banks on the periphery of Sao Paulo based on a highly successful Brazilian model known as Banco Palmas. In addition to the process-based model, our findings contribute to the microfinance and bottom of the pyramid (BOP) literatures, showing a cross-fertilization that has been insufficiently explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest members of society is a pressing social concern regularly invoked in discussions surrounding taxation, the minimum wage, and the social safety net. Advocates of particular positions at times reference various biblical passages. This essay examines several relevant themes and passages within the Hebrew Bible in order to explore ways the Bible might be brought into productive conversation with these contemporary issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the sub-minimum characteristics of ragpickers in Ants' Villa in the waterfront of Tokyo Bay, Japan. A ragpicker is a person who picks up garbage for a living. The Villa was a former antiaircraft artillery base during World War II. The area was covered by tall grasses after the war which provided hiding places for ragpickers. A lumber mill was erected in the area but was destroyed by a typhoon. The wrecked building then became a shelter for the ragpickers. The article then examines the implications of the plight of the ragpickers to the antipoverty measures being implemented in developed countries.

In this paper, I examine the relationship between poverty, mobility, and higher education in the contemporary United States. In contrast to quantitative analyses, which have found robust and positive outcomes associated with college attainment, I use ethnographic methods to tell a more complicated story about what college offers the poor. This story centers on a low-income woman of color named Angelica. Angelica’s story of drug-addict-turned college graduate suggests that college might be just as much a regulatory institution as a poverty solution. To this extent, it critically assesses my role as Angelica’s former professor, professional mentor, and life narrator. The article situates the expansion of higher education and Angelica’s pathway into college in late twentieth-century efforts to reform the welfare system and reduce state-sponsored social safety nets. It concludes by suggesting that college is no lifeline but a mechanism by which Angelica and others are brought into the fold of a “respectable” but often miserable middle-class life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that neighborhood safety is strongly associated with the health and well-being of adolescents. However, few studies examine what shapes these perceptions of safety, especially for adolescents who grow up in more dangerous neighborhoods. The present study explores what factors shape the neighborhood safety perceptions of a sample of low-income, African American adolescents aged 15 to 19 years (n = 46) from Baltimore who lived in public housing as children. The study reveals the complexity in how adolescents perceive safety, especially among those living in dangerous neighborhoods. The results highlight the importance of the type of danger (e.g., drug activity vs. gun-related violence) and social connections in shaping neighborhood safety perceptions. Sample youth are more likely to report feeling safe when there is little perceived danger. In more dangerous neighborhoods, youth feel safe where there is low violence, they have protective social ties, and they can avoid perceived danger. However, social connections can also tie youth to violence and victimization, which threatens their perception of safety. This more nuanced understanding of youth perceptions of safety has implications for the ways in which neighborhoods affect adolescents and the role of housing policy in improving the well-being of low-income youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Thomas Pogge, rich people do not simply violate a positive duty of assistance to help the global poor; rather, they violate a negative duty not to harm them. They do so by imposing an unjust global economic structure on poor people. Assuming that these claims are correct, it follows that, ceteris paribus, wars waged by the poor against the rich to resist this imposition are morally equivalent to wars waged in self-defense against military aggression. Hence, if self-defense against military aggression is just, then, ceteris paribus, so are defensive wars against the imposition of economic injustice. While I do not think Pogge’s analysis of the causes of global poverty is correct, I defend these inferences against various challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing literature has remained mostly silent on the issue of conceptualization of poverty, relying instead on the available definitions of the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) “poor” from economics and sociology. Consequently, in marketing theory, the analytic bases and the practical implications of poverty-centered discourses sometimes remain ambiguous. This study provides a broader, culture-linked conceptualization of poverty and BOP from a consumer research perspective, initiating a dialogue on bottom-up approaches to understanding what poverty means through the lenses of the poor. Via qualitative methods such as semistructured individual in-depth interviews, observations, and fieldnotes, deeper insights were sought on how poverty can be defined from the perspectives of the poor. Transcending the economic-only approach, this study contributes to the literature by extending the contours of “felt poverty” and of the “poverty line” beyond the biogenic and stark utilitarian needs and incorporates the sociocultural dimensions of consumption. Our contribution comes from including the effects of the global consumer culture as a major source of social deprivation. Furthermore—while supporting the positions that the definitions of BOP are relative to contexts, cultures, and times—we also situate the discussion of BOP within the broader discourse on globalization of markets and consumption practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Population exposed to chronic undernutrition in early life seems to be more susceptible to obesity in adulthood due to the development of mechanisms that improve the efficiency of energy use. Therefore, these individuals have relatively reduced energy requirements (thrifty phenotype).Objective: To investigate, among women living on severe socioeconomic vulnerability, whether short stature, a marker for undernutrition in early life, is associated with excess body weight but not with a high energy intake.Methods: This cross-sectional study, carried out between July and November 2008, evaluated 1308 women from all (N = 39) Quilombola communities of Alagoas. Adequacy of energy intake was estimated by the ratio between energetic ingestion and the estimated energy requirement (EER).Results: The prevalence of short stature (≤ 154.8 cm) was 43.0% and 52.4% had excess body weight (body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m2), being that 33.1% were overweight and 19.3% obese. Excess body weight was higher among women with short stature (56.6% vs 49.2%; P = .008), even after adjusting for age, energy intake, and per capita income (prevalence ratio = 1.16; 95% confidence interval = 1.04; 1.28). The ratio of energy intake/EER was independent of women's stature.Conclusion: Excess body weight among Quilombola women represents a serious health problem. Short stature was significantly associated with excess body weight but not with a high energy intake. "Thrifty phenotype" may be one of the plausible explanations for this finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the meanings and repertoires of action associated with money in low-income and poverty circumstances. Based on interviews with 51 people, the analysis reveals how people on a low income actively engage with money as a way of situating themselves in their complex worlds. Money is investigated at two levels: praxis and orientation regarding spending, and as part of self-identity. In regard to spending, people displayed two main repertoires: one was functional (viewing money as a way of meeting material need) and the second relational (with money interpreted in regard to relationships and upholding of personal and familial values). These repertoires in turn link into self-understanding and world view. For people in poverty and low income, money can be a disabler, detracting from a valued identity and sense of future but a counter, more positive, orientation normalises lack of money, by reference to skills and character development and core values and relationships. The research as a whole underlines the complexity of money in low-income or poverty settings, the agency and creativity which people bring to its use and the diverse meanings they invest it with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The poorest and most marginalized people in cities are often understood to be those living in the worst forms of shelter or with none at all. They are labelled the “homeless”, the “destitute” and the “extreme poor”. Based on ethnographic research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, this article challenges this association, arguing that living in the worst conditions can enable people to earn, save, and invest in lives and livelihoods elsewhere. Their capacity to do so is generally related to the urban potential for creating “defiled surpluses”, resources that can be productively exploited but at the cost of an association with the defiled. These costs and opportunities are not however equally distributed, and recognizing this helps us to understand the nature of micro-inequalities. In Dhaka the presence of people living on pavements and in markets, parks and transport terminals can represent destitution, but also the astute negotiation of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic research in Harpurhey, Manchester, in the northwest of England, this article addresses the emergence of a moral economy of personhood amongst some of the poorest people in Britain today. Specifically, the article studies how new conceptions of the viable and worthy person emerge in the practice of borrowing and lending money between neighbours, as a sort of ‘safety net’ in times of financial precarity and social stigma. The humiliation experienced regularly by people who need state support to make ends meet is responded to in the local prioritization of what it means to ‘be fair’ and to express and recognize the worthy self in negotiating the terms of a loan. It is in the process of negotiation that we can see in a new light what is being responded to and fought for in the face of stigma and precarity. Despite experiencing an ever-increasing threat of poverty and destitution, we see worthy selves, fair persons, and the creation of an alternative space of hope in which social and personal worth can be expressed and recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the occasion of the publication of the 3rd edition, one of the authors of Place Matters reflects on the tensions in the arguments of the book and how it has been variously received by scholars. After addressing the question of whether we know enough about place effects to use them to guide public policy, he responds to the criticism that efforts to reduce concentrated poverty actually harm the poor, reflects on the interplay of race and class, and examines the political obstacles in the way of regional reforms. We know what needs to be done, he argues; what is missing is the political will to do it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the alarming numbers of workers living in poverty in developed countries, work is still commonly seen as a way out of poverty. From a social constructivist perspective and based on qualitative research of the working poor in Israel, the article explores low-income Arab and Jewish working men’s views of poverty. It addresses research topics such as the meaning of work, the perception of the workplace, and the experience of poverty and coping strategies. In addition, the article examines the presence of ethnic differences in the social construction of in-work poverty. At the theoretical level, the article questions dominant views of work as the main exit from poverty, highlights the impact of gender and ethnicity in the construction of in-work poverty, and suggests the need for more context and gender-informed policies to respond to the complexity of the male working poor population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 15 years have witnessed an exponential growth in business activities aimed at serving the needs and increasing the well-being of disenfranchised individuals in low-income communities. Thousands of new business initiatives, development institution programs, and innovative investment funds focused on poverty alleviation have emerged during this time. Similarly, since the late 1990s when Prahalad and Hart first coined the term Bottom of Pyramid (BoP), and suggested a new, enterprise-based approach to poverty alleviation, there has also been a steady rise in research on business and poverty. A whole new lexicon emerged to describe this phenomenon, including phrases like “inclusive business,” “subsistence market places,” “frugal innovation,” and “impact investing.” Unfortunately, management theory and research have not advanced at the same pace with the BoP business revolution, and consequently knowledge about parameters for successfully integrating business, poverty alleviation and sustainable development still remains ambiguous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with a critique of humanitarianism, this essay explores alternative, theological ways of framing responses to the poverty and suffering of strangers. A particular focus is the differing kinds of neighbor-love at work in humanitarianism and democracy and how a christological and eschatological frame of reference re-configures them so as to enable the formation of a people that seeks the flourishing of the whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how urban poor community leaders in six nations (Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) worked together to define poverty, assess its causes, and suggest how best to measure it and address it. Their work drew on over a thousand detailed household expenditure surveys from different settlements in a range of cities in the six nations. Five distinct groups could be distinguished among these urban poor households, and the work suggested that two poverty lines were needed. The community leaders also reviewed national and international poverty lines and found these to be incompatible with reality, especially the US$ 1.25/person/day poverty line. The paper draws some conclusions and describes plans for the country teams to further this work, including engaging with their national governments over the definition and measurement of urban poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Money has meaning that shapes its uses and social significance, including the monies low-income families draw on for survival: wages, welfare, and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). This study, based on in-depth interviews with 115 low-wage EITC recipients, reveals the EITC is an unusual type of government transfer. Recipients of the EITC say they value the debt relief this government benefit brings. However, they also perceive it as a just reward for work, which legitimizes a temporary increase in consumption. Furthermore, unlike other means-tested government transfers, the credit is seen as a springboard for upward mobility. Thus, by conferring dignity and spurring dreams, the EITC enhances feelings of citizenship and social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An attempt has been made by this study to provide a broader view of the actual state of poverty in Haryana by measuring the extent of poverty though the multidimensional approach. This study highlights the gap between the poverty-ridden population in Haryana measured by uni-dimensional and multidimensional approach on the basis of primary data collected from six districts of the states. Further, it draws attention towards various dimensions of poverty and that the results in all the six districts are quite skewed with respect to different dimensions. This means that one district is considered poor in context of one dimension, whereas the other district is considered poor according to some other dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Characterize mobile technology ownership, use, and relationship to self-reported cancer prevention behaviors and health status in a diverse, low-income sample of callers to 2-1-1. Design. Secondary analyses of cross-sectional survey data from a larger trial collected from June 2010 to December 2012. Setting. United Way Missouri 2-1-1 serves 99 of 114 counties and received 166,000 calls in 2011. Subjects. The respondents (baseline, n = 1898; 4 month, n = 1242) were predominantly female, non-Hispanic Black, younger than 50 years, with high-school education or less and annual income <$20,000. Measures. Cell phone ownership and use and its relationship to cancer prevention services and health status were assessed via telephone-based survey, using items adapted from previous research and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Smartphone ownership and use were also assessed. Analysis. Descriptive statistics and bivariate and multivariate associations between cell phone ownership and prevention and health status are reported. Results. Three-fourths (74%) of study participants owned a cell phone and 23% owned a smartphone. Text messaging was the most popular use. Ownership was significantly associated with good to excellent health status and presence of smoke-free home policies in multivariate models. Conclusion. Cell phone ownership is growing and has potential to deliver health information to low-income populations. With 16 million calls annually, the national 2-1-1 system may be a promising model and platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents knowledge about adversity and the changing nature of families in early modern townships. It proposes that the shape of the family changed across Nantwich (Cheshire) townships with some neighborhoods presenting very high numbers of female heads of household. While stressing variations, it presents new evidence on the subject of close family relationships. It puts forward the view that the elevated numbers of women living together demonstrates commitment, resilience, and emotional investment in female-centered families. This finding challenges heteronormative definitions of intimate relationships and indicates the need for further research to achieve a better understanding of intimacy in early modern families. This study additionally examines subjects of charity, health, hardship, credit and debt, and the accompanying struggles that were played out in the social sphere. In an important observation concerning the ever-changing composition of the family, this investigation ascertains that the family configuration changed according to fluctuating socioeconomic circumstances. What is also offered here is a contribution to knowledge about the county of Cheshire from the Hearth Tax for which there are no available Hearth Tax studies. This study investigates wills, inventories, probate records, deeds, poor accounts, and parish records and provides an insight into hardship through a close study of all of the poor in one street in 1664. It finds that poor children worked hard and when apprenticed were also compulsorily separated from the family home and that child mortality was equally high among rich and poor people in early modern Nantwich townships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reviews and assesses how urban poverty in Zambia is defined and measured by the government, using data from the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR). It shows the often dramatic differences in the scale and nature of urban poverty, depending on what poverty measurements are chosen and applied. Applying the government poverty line, which takes no account of differences in costs between rural and urban areas, shows the incidence of urban poverty falling from 49 per cent in 1991 to 27.5 per cent in 2010; but a food basket based on what urban households eat is twice the cost of the food basket used in the official poverty line. In addition, as the paper describes, what urban poor households pay for food is often particularly high as they cannot buy in bulk. The official poverty line’s allowance for housing costs is based on what low-income groups spend on housing, not on the costs of the cheapest reasonable quality accommodation. The JCTR estimate for the cost of essential non-food needs is twice that in the official poverty line, and the JCTR review of house prices shows that the cost of “adequate” housing in cities is far higher than the allowance for housing in poverty lines. The paper also discusses other reasons why official poverty lines understate urban poverty, including neglecting the costs low-income groups face for transport, health care and keeping their children in school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The poor are universally stigmatized. The stigma of poverty includes being perceived as incompetent and feeling shunned and disrespected. It can lead to cognitive distancing, diminish cognitive performance, and cause the poor to forego beneficial programs. In the present research, we examined how self-affirmation can mitigate the stigma of poverty through randomized field experiments involving low-income individuals at an inner-city soup kitchen. Because of low literacy levels, we used an oral rather than written affirmation procedure, in which participants verbally described a personal experience that made them feel successful or proud. Compared with nonaffirmed participants, affirmed individuals exhibited better executive control, higher fluid intelligence, and a greater willingness to avail themselves of benefits programs. The effects were not driven by elevated positive mood, and the same intervention did not affect the performance of wealthy participants. The findings suggest that self-affirmation can improve the cognitive performance and decisions of the poor, and it may have important policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scheff (2000, 2003) has argued that shame, while recognised as a social emotion, is frequently explored outside of the social matrix and with limited reference to its role in human behaviour. Drawing on empirical qualitative research with adults living in poverty in the UK, this article illuminates a) how the co-construction of shame (feeling shame and being shamed) is fundamental in framing how people living in poverty respond to the social demands on them; and b) how shame as a phenomenon may also take on a dynamic of its own, ultimately used by those feeling shame to distance themselves from the socially constructed and denigrated ‘Other’ (Lister, 2004). The article shifts the analysis beyond shame arising from a threat to the immediate ‘social bond’ (Lewis, 1971), instead presenting it as a social fact which not only undermines human dignity but risks the atomisation of modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Scholarly discussions of accessibility and spatial mismatch largely ignore transit's role in linking vulnerable populations to opportunity. Yet as the nation's low-income population has become more suburban in recent decades, transit access may become an increasingly valuable, yet scarcer link to opportunity for those with the fewest resources and housing options. This study explores differences in transit access for neighborhoods with high concentrations of heavy transit users. Using data from the 2000 Census and the 5-year 2005-2009 ACS, it compares changes in transit access levels across neighborhoods with high concentrations of blacks, Latinos, and the poor in Portland, OR. Results show that Portland's neighborhoods of Latino concentration had the poorest relative access to transit. Further, levels of transit access declined for neighborhoods of black and Latino concentration during the study period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case disrupts some of the prevalent myths about families from low-income and poor households held by educators. Recognizing the inherent tensions, this case demonstrates the importance of creating equitable and inclusive learning environments. We presented some of the challenges faced by Marcus, a progressive principal, as he attempts to challenge the myths about low-income and poor families held by his teaching staff to create a positive and inclusive learning environment where all students can learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on life history interviews with sixty men and women in north-east England who were caught up in 'the low-pay, no-pay cycle', this article describes how people living in poverty talk about poverty - in respect of themselves and others. Paradoxically, interviewees subscribed to a powerful set of ideas that denied poverty and morally condemned 'the poor'. These findings are theorized in four ways: first, informants deployed close points of comparison that diminished a sense of relative poverty and deprivation; second, dissociation from 'the poor' reflects long-running stigma and shame but is given extra force by current forms of 'scroungerphobia'; third, discourses of the 'undeserving poor' articulate with a more general contemporary prejudice against the working class, which fuels the impetus to dissociate from 'the poor' (and to disidentify with the working class); and fourth, the hegemonic orthodoxy that blames 'the poor' for their poverty can more easily dominate in contexts where more solidaristic forms of working-class life are in decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]