Sociology

There are two main ways in which we can measure poverty, used by Rowntree and Townsend, respectively. Absolute poverty refers to the idea of living on an income that is lower than the ‘poverty line’: an estimated minimum level of income needed for basic subsistence. Relative poverty refers to the inability to afford the kinds of things that reflect the normative standard of living for that particular society. 725-727

There are two main types of social policy relating to the relationship between the market and state welfare. The market model is based on the idea of giving means-tested benefits selectively to those who are in most financial need, but only as a basic ‘safety net’: the majority of the population are expected to buy welfare from the state individually, for example through health insurance. The welfare state model, by contrast, suggests that the same benefits should be available to all, regardless of income. 587

Thatcherism was a set of policies endorsed by the Conservative Party of the late 1970s and 1980s, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. This New Right approach combined neo-liberalism and neo-conservativism, which was reflected in the key objectives of the government: increasing freedom, choice and responsibility for the individual, reducing state intervention and welfare provision, and marketization, or expanding the market by privatising public services. 601-602

In the nineteenth century, the world of work was transformed by the rise of industrialism and the capitalist economy. Whereas before, people had worked in their own homes to produce crafts or maintain agricultural plots, industrial capitalism brought them together to work in factories, using power-driven machinery to manufacture goods for their employers, the capitalist factory owners. 672

Butler was critical of the idea that biological sex ’causes’ a person’s gender, and that men and women are essentially different. She suggested that gender is merely a performance of actions that usually reflect scripts, or discourses, of expected behaviour, but which could also subvert them. Butler pointed to practices like drag and transvestism as examples of the way in which, regardless of biological make up, we can perform any gender identity. 157

Since the late twentieth century, two related changes that have occurred are the increase in part-time work and the growing employment of women. Hakim suggests that there are two types of women: the career-centred and the home-centred. She argued that home-centred women make a rational choice to take part-time work because they want to combine it with childcare or other domestic responsibilities; it is not a decision that is imposed on them against their will. 705

Management techniques have shifted in emphasis from the formal and authoritarian to relatively informal and integrated. This is illustrated by the human relations school of management, which emphasised that workers’ productivity was enhanced not merely by financial incentives but by good working environments, supervision, and team working. The approach involves recognising the emotional needs of workers by making their tasks more meaningful to them. ( 559-560

We can measure the level of structural inequality in a society by examining three variables: equality of opportunity, equality of outset and equality of outcome. The first refers to the degree of openness, or social mobility, the society has. An open society is one that allows people to move up or down the hierarchy relatively easily. 722-723 and 741-743

A civil religion is formed when a religion undergoes only partial secularization; the secular world comes to be seen as sacred in itself. This might be expressed through civic rituals celebrating national identity, such as Independence Day and Thanksgiving in the USA or Remembrance Day in the UK. However, even these practices may be declining in significance, as contemporary societies become characterized by ‘common religion’. Here, levels of religious observance and practices may decline but people continue to in their faith. 422-426

Industrialized societies are sometimes said to undergo a pattern of population change over time that is called the ‘demographic transition’. This has three stages: high birth and death rates; high birth rates and decreasing death rates; and low birth and death rates. This is the trend found in contemporary industrialized societies, and is characterised by an ‘ageing population’. 286-289