AQA A-level Sociology (7192): Paper 2 – Work, poverty and welfare – Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, for revision and practice on this content. They are not reproduced past-paper questions, and they do not replicate the exam’s exact structure, question count or mark tariffs – examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers from your board or school.

This set gives practice on Work, Poverty and Welfare for AQA A-level Sociology (7192), based on the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021). The topic is section 4.2.4 (the specification-at-a-glance list also shows it as 3.2.4). The specification assesses it in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, Section A, which is “one from option 1: 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3 or 4.2.4”; Section B is “one from option 2: 4.2.5, 4.2.6, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8”.

Revise first with the study guide and revision notes; see also the AQA A-level Sociology hub and 7192 checklist. All towns, firms and figures below are fictional.

Questions

1. Define absolute poverty and give one example of how it could be measured. [2]

2. Outline two differences between universal and means-tested benefits. [4]

3. Identify two latent functions of employment described by Jahoda. [2]

4. Read the item about the fictional town of Easterby.

A researcher records weekly household income after tax for nine households in Easterby, already adjusted for household size: A £220, B £310, C £380, D £450, E £520, F £600, G £690, H £820, I £1,150. The researcher uses the official approach of counting households below 60% of the median income as being in relative low income.

(a) Calculate the median income and the 60% line, and name the households below the line. [3] (b) Every household’s income rises by 10%. Explain what happens to the number of households in relative low income, and compare this with a fixed absolute line of £320 a week. [4] (c) Using the item, outline one limitation of measuring poverty by income alone. [2]

5. Read the scenario.

Dana is a lone parent in a fictional city. She receives Universal Credit. Her mother looks after Dana’s son after school without pay. Twice this winter Dana collected food from a church-run food bank. Her employer offers a private health insurance scheme.

(a) Classify each of the four sources of support as state, private, voluntary or informal welfare. [4] (b) Explain one criticism of relying on voluntary provision to respond to poverty. [2]

6. Outline and explain two ways in which gender inequality, inside and outside the home, can raise women’s risk of poverty. [6]

7. Read the item about the fictional firm Brackley Logistics.

In 2020 Brackley Logistics’ warehouse employed 180 permanent full-time staff and 60 agency or zero-hours staff. In 2025 it employed 120 permanent full-time staff and 150 agency or zero-hours staff. Handheld scanners now tell each picker which item to collect next and record their pick rate.

(a) Calculate the percentage of staff on agency or zero-hours terms in 2020 and in 2025. [2] (b) Using the item and Atkinson’s flexible firm model, explain how the firm’s labour process has changed. [4] (c) Outline one way this change could affect the life chances of the agency and zero-hours workers. [2]

8. Analyse two ways in which new technology may affect the skill levels and control of workers. [10]

9. Evaluate New Right views of the role of the welfare state in responding to poverty. [16]

10. To what extent has globalisation changed the significance of work for people’s identities and life chances? [12]

11. Explain what is meant by the “low-pay, no-pay” cycle and why it challenges the idea of a fixed underclass. [3]

Answers

Extended answers (questions 8 to 10) are marked in the real exam with levels of response, not point by point. The [1] points below show the kind of creditworthy content a strong answer contains.

1. Absolute poverty is lacking the minimum needed for physical survival and health, such as food, shelter and warmth [1]. It could be measured by costing a basket of essential goods and counting households whose income falls below that cost, as Rowntree did with his primary poverty line [1]. [2] Examiner insight: the example must be a measurement method, not just another description of hardship, to gain the second mark.

2. Universal benefits are paid to everyone in a category regardless of income, while means-tested benefits are paid only to people below an income or savings limit [1]; for example, a benefit for every family with children versus one paid only to low-income families [1]. Universal benefits carry little stigma and have high take-up [1], whereas means-tested benefits can carry stigma and lower take-up, and may create a poverty trap as support is withdrawn when earnings rise [1]. [4] Examiner insight: each difference needs both sides stated; saying only what a means-tested benefit is gives half the credit.

3. Any two of: time structure [1]; social contact outside the family [1]; collective purpose; status and identity; regular activity. [2] Examiner insight: the wage is a manifest function, so naming income here earns nothing.

4. (a) The median is the fifth of nine values, £520 [1]. The 60% line is 0.6 x £520 = £312 [1]. Households A (£220) and B (£310) are below the line [1]. [3] (b) The median rises to £572 and the 60% line to £343.20 [1], so A and B are still below it and the number in relative low income stays at two [1]. Against a fixed absolute line of £320, A and B were both below before the rise; afterwards A (£242) is still below but B (£341) is above, so the count falls from two to one [1]. So a relative measure falls only if low incomes rise faster than the median, while an absolute measure falls whenever low incomes pass a fixed standard [1]. [4] (c) Income alone ignores costs: household D may be above the line but have high rent or debt repayments, leaving less to live on than A [1]. It also ignores wealth or savings and how money is shared within the household, so it can misclassify who is deprived [1]. [2] Examiner insight: show your working with the item’s figures; a correct conclusion with no calculation, or a general point not tied to Easterby, limits the marks.

5. (a) Universal Credit is state welfare [1]. Unpaid childcare by Dana’s mother is informal welfare [1]. The church-run food bank is voluntary welfare [1]. The employer’s health insurance is private welfare [1]. [4] (b) Voluntary help depends on donations and volunteers, so it is uneven between areas and cannot guarantee a minimum standard [1]; social democrats argue that it treats poverty as charity rather than as a right, and that food banks deal with the symptoms of low income without changing its causes [1]. [2] Examiner insight: classification marks are lost when two sources are put in the same category; check each provider type is used once.

6. First reason: women do most unpaid care [1]. This limits paid hours and pushes many into part-time, lower-paid work, which reduces both income and pension contributions [1]. Lone parents, mostly women, rely on one income [1]. Second reason: inequality within households [1]. Pahl’s research showed that money is not always shared equally between partners [1], so a woman can experience hidden poverty in a household that looks above the poverty line, and women’s longer life expectancy also means more years on lower pensions [1]. [6] Examiner insight: each reason needs a development step that explains how it leads to poverty, not just a statement of the cause.

7. (a) 2020: 60 of 240 staff, which is 25% [1]. 2025: 150 of 270 staff, about 55.6% [1]. [2] (b) Atkinson’s model splits a firm into a secure, skilled core and a periphery on temporary or flexible terms [1]. At Brackley the core of permanent staff fell from 180 to 120 while the periphery rose from 60 to 150 [1]. This gives the firm numerical flexibility: it can change the number of hours and workers to match demand without long-term costs [1]. The scanners also show technical control, as software sets the pace and records performance rather than workers deciding how to organise their tasks, which links to Braverman’s view of management control [1]. [4] (c) Agency and zero-hours workers have unpredictable hours and income, making it harder to budget, get a mortgage or plan family life [1]; they may also have weaker access to training and promotion, which limits their chances of moving into the core [1]. [2] Examiner insight: in application parts the marks come from using the item’s numbers and details, not from describing the flexible firm in general.

8. Indicative content for a strong answer:

• First way, deskilling: Braverman argued that managers use technology to take knowledge out of jobs, turning skilled work into routine tasks [1]. Software that scripts a call-centre conversation, or a scanner that directs each pick, is an example [1]. This cheapens labour and increases management control, because workers become easier to replace [1]. Ritzer’s McDonaldization supports this, stressing predictability and control through technology [1]. However, Braverman ignored worker resistance and assumed a past “golden age” of craft skill [1].
• Second way, upskilling or reduced alienation: Blauner argued that as technology develops, tasks become more complex and need more skill, giving workers more discretion [1]. Gallie’s survey evidence found little sign of widespread deskilling [1]. This suggests technology can raise skill levels for some workers rather than degrade all work [1]. However, Gallie also found a marked polarisation of skills, so the gains were uneven [1].
• Analysis linking both: the effect of technology depends on management choices and the type of work, so it is not determined by the technology itself [1]. [10] Examiner insight: “analyse two ways” rewards developing each way in depth with a chain of reasoning; a list of five brief effects scores less than two well-developed ones.

9. Indicative content for a strong answer:

• New Right view stated: generous welfare creates a dependency culture and weakens the incentive to work [1]. Murray argued it helped create an underclass marked by worklessness and lone parenthood [1].
• Policy implications: a smaller state, lower taxes, stronger work requirements and more private and voluntary provision [1]. Examples include tighter conditions on benefits and the benefit cap [1].
• Link to welfare pluralism: New Right writers see voluntary and family support as building responsibility [1].
• Support: the poverty trap, where means-tested support is withdrawn as earnings rise, can reduce the gain from extra work, which New Right writers use as evidence of disincentives [1].
• Evaluation, evidence: Shildrick et al. (2012) found no families with three generations who had never worked [1], and found young people strongly committed to conventional values about work [1].
• Evaluation, dynamics: the “low-pay, no-pay” cycle shows many claimants move in and out of work, so they are not a fixed dependent group [1]. Hills showed most people both pay into and draw from welfare over their lives [1].
• Social democratic critique: Townsend argued that poverty comes from low pay and inadequate benefits, so cutting welfare increases hardship [1].
• Marxist critique: welfare stabilises capitalism and New Right policy blames the poor for structural problems [1].
• Feminist critique: cutting state provision shifts unpaid care onto women [1].
• Methodological point: claims about dependency often rely on official statistics that show who claims, not why they claim [1].
• Judgement: weighs how far the evidence supports the New Right view against structural accounts [1], and reaches a conclusion that follows from the argument [1]. [16] Examiner insight: top-band answers keep evaluating the New Right view directly; describing other perspectives in separate blocks without comparing them earns little AO3 credit.

10. Indicative content for a strong answer:

• Jahoda’s latent functions show work as a source of time structure, status and identity [1].
• Globalisation has moved much manufacturing to lower-wage countries, causing deindustrialisation in older industrial areas of the UK [1]; this removed jobs that had given whole communities a shared identity [1].
• Sennett argued that short-term, flexible work makes it harder to build a stable life story and long-term commitments [1].
• Standing’s precariat suggests a growing group without job security or a secure identity, which weakens life chances such as income stability and pensions [1].
• Bauman argued that identity now comes more from consumption than production [1].
• Evaluation, continuity: many people still define themselves by their jobs, especially in professional work, so work remains significant [1].
• Evaluation, uneven effects: globalisation has also created service and knowledge jobs, and its effects vary by class, region, gender and ethnicity [1].
• Evaluation, worklessness: unemployment still harms health and income, showing work remains central to life chances [1].
• Evaluation, other causes: technology and government policy, not only globalisation, shape job insecurity [1].
• Judgement on “to what extent” [1], supported by a conclusion that follows from the evidence [1]. [12] Examiner insight: “to what extent” needs a clear weighed judgement; answers that list effects of globalisation without saying how much they have changed work’s significance stay in the middle bands.

11. The “low-pay, no-pay” cycle describes people moving repeatedly between short-term, low-paid jobs and benefits [1], as described by Shildrick and colleagues [1]. It challenges a fixed underclass because the same people are often in work, which shows commitment to work and suggests insecurity in the labour market, not a separate culture, keeps them poor [1]. [3] Examiner insight: the third mark needs the link to the underclass idea, not just a definition of the cycle.

Where marks are usually lost

• Classifying a charity as state welfare because it works with government, instead of as voluntary provision.
• Describing a theory in general when the question gives an item or scenario to apply.
• Listing many effects of technology without developing two in depth, as “analyse two ways” requires.
• Evaluating a perspective only by describing a rival one, without saying what the rival shows about its weaknesses.
• Leaving a “to what extent” answer without a clear judgement.
• Treating the underclass or dependency culture as established fact instead of a contested claim.

Next steps

• Check your weak points against the study guide and the 7192 checklist.
• Practise evaluating research methods with the Methods in Context practice set.
• Link poverty to class and life chances with Stratification and Differentiation.
• Find your gaps with a free diagnostic.
• Book a free trial class.

Official syllabus

AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021): Work, Poverty and Welfare (section 4.2.4), assessed in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, Section A.