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

This guide covers Work, Poverty and Welfare for AQA A-level Sociology (7192), using the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021). The topic is section 4.2.4 of the specification (the specification-at-a-glance list also shows it as 3.2.4). It is one of the four Option 1 topics on Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, which the specification sets as a 2 hour written exam, 80 marks, 33.3% of the A-level.

Use it with the revision notes, the practice questions, the AQA A-level Sociology hub and the 7192 checklist.

Coverage table

Syllabus reference	What you must know or be able to do (from the document)	Where assessed
4.2.4, point 1	The nature, existence and persistence of poverty in contemporary society	Paper 2, Section A
4.2.4, point 2	The distribution of poverty, wealth and income between different social groups	Paper 2, Section A
4.2.4, point 3	Responses and solutions to poverty by the state and by private, voluntary and informal welfare providers in contemporary society	Paper 2, Section A
4.2.4, point 4	Organisation and control of the labour process, including the division of labour, the role of technology, skill and de-skilling	Paper 2, Section A
4.2.4, point 5	The significance of work and worklessness for people’s lives and life chances, including the effects of globalisation	Paper 2, Section A
All topics in 4.2	Relate each area to the two core themes; study both the evidence and the explanations	Paper 2

How Paper 2 is set out

The specification prints the Paper 2 rules as follows. Section A: one from option 1: 4.2.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3 or 4.2.4 (Culture and Identity, Families and Households, Health, and Work, Poverty and Welfare). Section B: one from option 2: 4.2.5, 4.2.6, 4.2.7 or 4.2.8 (Beliefs in Society, Global Development, The Media, and Stratification and Differentiation). Each section is “extended writing, 40 marks”. If your school teaches this topic, it is your Section A choice.

AO1 is knowledge and understanding, AO2 is application, and AO3 is analysis and evaluation; for Paper 2 the specification gives approximate weightings of 13%, 11% and 9% of the A-level. The question styles inside the 40 marks are not printed in the specification, so your teacher will confirm them. Poverty links to education and differential achievement and to Crime and Deviance.

1. The nature, existence and persistence of poverty

Key terms

• Absolute poverty: lacking the minimum needed for physical survival and health, such as food, shelter and warmth.
• Relative poverty: being unable to reach the living standard that is normal in your own society at a given time.
• Relative low income (UK official measure): a household income below 60% of the median household income, adjusted for household size.

Defining and measuring. Seebohm Rowntree’s survey of York in 1899 used a “primary poverty” line based on the cost of a minimum diet and essentials. This is an absolute approach. Peter Townsend’s Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979) argued instead that poverty is relative. He built a deprivation index of everyday items and activities and found an income level below which people’s participation in normal life fell sharply. Critics said his choice of items was arbitrary and ignored choice. Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley’s Poor Britain (1985) used a “consensual” approach: the public decided which items were necessities, and poverty meant being unable to afford them.

Why poverty persists: cultural explanations. Oscar Lewis, studying poor families in Mexico and Puerto Rico, described a “culture of poverty”: feelings of marginality, helplessness and dependency, and a sense that mainstream institutions do not serve the poor, passed on to children. The New Right writer Charles Murray (The Emerging British Underclass, 1990) argued that generous welfare had created an “underclass” marked by worklessness, lone parenthood and crime.

Why poverty persists: structural explanations. Townsend and other social democratic writers point to low pay, unemployment, inadequate benefits and unequal access to resources. Marxists such as John Westergaard and Henrietta Resler (Class in a Capitalist Society, 1975) see poverty as part of the class inequality built into capitalism. Marxists also argue that a pool of low-paid and unemployed workers keeps wages down.

Evaluation.

• Hyman Rodman (1963) argued that the poor share mainstream values but “stretch” them to fit their situation, which challenges the idea of a separate culture.
• Robert MacDonald and Jane Marsh (Disconnected Youth?, 2005) studied young people in a poor British neighbourhood and questioned the welfare-dependent underclass idea.
• Tracy Shildrick and colleagues (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2012), working in Glasgow and Middlesbrough, could not find any families with three generations who had never worked, and found young people committed to conventional values about work.
• Supporters reply that small local studies cannot rule out dependency elsewhere, and that the poverty trap weakens work incentives.

Worked paragraph (persistence of poverty).

Cultural theorists such as Murray argue that poverty persists because welfare dependency creates an underclass with different values (knowledge). Applied to an estate where several generations of a family have claimed benefits, this view would explain the pattern by values learned at home rather than by a lack of jobs (application). However, it rests on the assumption that values cause behaviour, when behaviour may be a response to blocked opportunities (analysis). Shildrick et al.’s research found no three-generation workless families and found that young people held conventional attitudes to work, which suggests that structural barriers such as poor local labour markets may matter more (evaluation).

2. The distribution of poverty, wealth and income

Key terms

• Income: a flow of money over time, such as wages, benefits, pensions or interest.
• Wealth: a stock of assets at one point, such as property, pensions, shares and savings.

Patterns. Wealth is far more unequally spread than income, because wealth builds up and is inherited. Groups more likely to be in poverty include children, lone-parent families (most of them headed by women), disabled people, people in low-paid or insecure work, and some minority ethnic groups, notably people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage. Check current Households Below Average Income figures before quoting numbers.

Explanations by group.

• Gender: feminists link women’s higher risk to unpaid caring, part-time and low-paid work, and longer lives on lower pensions. Jan Pahl’s research on household money (Money and Marriage, 1989) showed that income is not always shared equally inside households, so some women experience “hidden” poverty.
• Ethnicity: explanations include discrimination in hiring and concentration in low-paid sectors.
• Class and wealth: Marxists argue that the concentration of wealth at the top reflects ownership of capital. Thomas Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century) argued that when the return on capital is higher than economic growth, wealth inequality tends to widen; critics dispute how well the evidence supports this.

Evaluation. Poverty rates change depending on whether housing costs are counted, and groups overlap (intersectionality). New Right writers argue that wealth inequality rewards risk-taking; Marxists and feminists see it as a sign of unequal power.

Worked paragraph (distribution).

Feminists argue that poverty is gendered because women do most unpaid care (knowledge). For a lone mother working part-time around school hours, this means lower earnings and fewer pension contributions (application). This shows that poverty is shaped by the division of labour in the home as well as by the labour market (analysis). However, treating “women” as one group hides big differences by class and ethnicity, so an intersectional approach gives a fuller picture (evaluation).

3. Responses and solutions to poverty

Key terms

• Welfare state: state provision of benefits and services to protect people from social risks.
• Universal vs means-tested benefits: universal benefits go to everyone in a category; means-tested ones only to those below an income and savings limit.
• Welfare pluralism (mixed economy of welfare): welfare provided by the state, private, voluntary and informal sectors together.

The four providers named in the specification.

• State: the 1942 Beveridge Report named five “giants” (Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness) and shaped the post-war welfare state. A recent example is Universal Credit, introduced under the Welfare Reform Act 2012 to merge several means-tested benefits.
• Private: private pensions and insurance. Voluntary: charities such as food banks. Informal: care by family and neighbours, much of it by women.

Perspectives.

• Social democratic: poverty needs redistribution through progressive taxation and generous, preferably universal, benefits.
• New Right: Murray and others argue welfare creates dependency; the state should be smaller, with more private and voluntary provision and stronger work requirements.
• Marxist: welfare keeps capitalism stable by maintaining a healthy workforce and reducing protest, without removing the inequality behind poverty.
• Feminist: welfare has often assumed a male breadwinner and relied on women’s unpaid care.
• Comparative: Gøsta Esping-Andersen (The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, 1990) grouped welfare states into liberal, conservative and social democratic types. He placed the UK closest to the liberal model.

Evaluation. John Hills (Good Times, Bad Times, 2014) challenged the “them and us” view of welfare, arguing that most people both pay into and draw from the welfare state over their lifetimes. Supporters of welfare pluralism stress choice and local knowledge; critics say voluntary help is patchy and informal care burdens women.

Worked paragraph (welfare pluralism).

Welfare pluralism means the state shares responsibility with private, voluntary and informal providers (knowledge). A town where food banks and church groups now provide emergency food shows the voluntary sector filling gaps left by benefit delays (application). New Right thinkers see this as healthy, because communities take responsibility rather than relying on the state (analysis). However, social democrats argue that voluntary help is uneven and depends on donations, so it cannot guarantee a minimum standard in the way a legal entitlement can (evaluation).

4. Organisation and control of the labour process

Key terms

• Labour process: the way work is organised, directed and controlled to produce goods and services.
• Division of labour: splitting production into separate tasks done by different people.
• Taylorism (scientific management): breaking work into simple timed tasks and moving planning to managers.
• Deskilling: reducing the knowledge and judgement a job needs.

Theories.

• Durkheim (The Division of Labour in Society, 1893) saw specialisation as a basis for “organic solidarity”, but warned of anomie without shared rules.
• Marx argued that capitalist work is alienating because workers lack control over the product and the process.
• Harry Braverman (Labor and Monopoly Capital, 1974) argued that managers use Taylorism and machinery to take knowledge away from workers, deskilling work so that it is cheaper and easier to control.
• Robert Blauner (Alienation and Freedom, 1964) compared industries using different technologies and argued that alienation depends on technology. He took an optimistic view: as technology develops, tasks become more complex, need more skill and give workers more discretion.
• Post-Fordism: Michael Piore and Charles Sabel (The Second Industrial Divide, 1984) described “flexible specialisation”, with skilled workers using adaptable technology. John Atkinson’s “flexible firm” model splits staff into a skilled, secure core and a peripheral group on temporary or part-time terms.
• Emotional labour: Arlie Hochschild (The Managed Heart, 1983) showed that service workers such as flight attendants are trained to manage their feelings for profit.

Evaluation. Duncan Gallie’s analysis of national survey data (1991) found little evidence of widespread deskilling in the 1980s, but a marked tendency towards polarisation of skills. Critics also say Braverman ignored worker resistance. Critics of post-Fordism argue that flexibility for employers often means insecurity for workers.

Worked paragraph (technology and skill).

Braverman argued that capitalists use technology to deskill work and increase control (knowledge). In a call centre where scripts and software dictate each step of a call, workers have little room to use their own judgement (application). This supports the view that technology is used to cut labour costs rather than to raise skill (analysis). However, Gallie’s survey evidence found little widespread deskilling, and Blauner argued that more advanced technology can raise skill and discretion, so the effect of technology depends on how it is used and on the type of work (evaluation).

5. The significance of work and worklessness, including globalisation

Key terms

• Worklessness: living in a household where no adult is in paid work.
• Latent functions of employment: the hidden benefits of a job beyond the wage.
• Precarious work: insecure work such as zero-hours contracts and agency or gig work.

Work and identity. Marie Jahoda, with Paul Lazarsfeld and Hans Zeisel, studied mass unemployment in the Austrian industrial community of Marienthal in the early 1930s. She later argued (Employment and Unemployment, 1982) that jobs give people a time structure, social contact, a sense of shared purpose, status and identity, and regular activity. Losing these explains much of the harm of unemployment. Zygmunt Bauman (Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, 1998) argued that identity now comes more from consumption.

Life chances. Shildrick et al. (Poverty and Insecurity, 2012) described a “low-pay, no-pay” cycle in which people move between short-term jobs and benefits. Guy Standing (The Precariat, 2011) argued that a growing group lacks job security and suffers insecurity of identity.

Globalisation. Deindustrialisation and offshoring removed many manual jobs from older industrial areas in the UK. Richard Sennett (The Corrosion of Character, 1998) argued that short-term, flexible work makes it harder to build a stable life story. Supporters reply that globalisation has also created service and knowledge jobs.

Evaluation. Jahoda assumes paid work is the main source of structure and identity, but caring, volunteering and education can also provide these. The effects of globalisation vary by region, class, gender and ethnicity.

Worked paragraph (worklessness).

Jahoda argued that employment meets hidden needs such as time structure and social contact (knowledge). A factory worker made redundant after a plant moves overseas loses not only wages but also daily routine and workplace friendships (application). This explains why unemployment is linked to poorer mental health even when benefits cover basic needs (analysis). However, people with strong family or community roles may find other sources of structure, so the effect of worklessness varies with social networks and class (evaluation).

Common errors

• Treating relative poverty as “being poorer than average”. It means falling below a living standard that is normal in a society, often measured against a share of the median.
• Confusing income with wealth. Income is a flow; wealth is a stock.
• Presenting the underclass idea as fact. It is a contested claim, and studies such as Shildrick et al. challenge it.
• Writing only about the state in welfare answers. The specification names private, voluntary and informal providers too.
• Assuming Braverman’s deskilling thesis is the only view of the labour process. Bring in Blauner, Gallie and post-Fordism.

Next, try the practice questions. See also the A-level Sociology course structure and Methods in Context for evaluating research.

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.