Rescuing the Vulnerable

Poverty, Welfare and Social Ties in Modern Europe

Beate Althammer, Lutz Raphael, Tamara Stazic-Wendt, Beate Althammer, Lutz Raphael, Tamara Stazic-Wendt

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781785331374
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica sociale

In many ways, the European welfare state constituted a response to the new forms of social fracture and economic turbulence that were born out of industrialization—challenges that were particularly acute for groups whose integration into society seemed the most tenuous. Covering a range of national cases, this volume explores the relationship of weak social ties to poverty and how ideas about this relationship informed welfare policies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By focusing on three representative populations—neglected children, the homeless, and the unemployed—it provides a rich, comparative consideration of the shifting perceptions, representations, and lived experiences of social vulnerability in modern Europe.

CHAPTER 1

POVERTY AND SOCIAL BONDS

Towards a Theory of Attachment Regimes

Serge Paugam

In Europe, the concept of poverty has been defined as a process of cumulative disadvantage in which labour market marginalization, lack of money and increased social isolation become mutually reinforcing. It has been frequently demonstrated that unemployment, especially longer-term unemployment, is a factor leading to poverty and social exclusion.¹ In other words, if long-term unemployment means the breakdown of participation in the labour market and if this breakdown has a snowball effect on the other ties that attach individuals to society, we can explain the process of falling into poverty and social exclusion as a cumulative breakdown of social bonds. The unemployed can lose contact with their parents or their children, go through the experience of a conjugal break-up, and reduce their social participation and their civic commitment in the organization of public life.

But empirical research comparing European countries has shown that this process has taken different forms in different countries. The chances of experiencing such multiple deprivations are not the result of some general process resulting from unemployment, but rather reflect the difficulties of becoming unemployed in specific social environments. This has led to major differences between countries in people’s experiences of unemployment: for instance the unemployed in Denmark and the Netherlands have tended to be better protected from poverty as a result of the more generous systems of social security there, while those in the Southern European societies have been relatively well protected against social isolation by the strong patterns of sociability around them. It has been in countries with neither very generalized systems of social protection nor strong family structures that the unemployed have been most likely to be exposed to the cumulative deprivation of poverty and social isolation.²

In my book Les formes élémentaires de la pauvreté,³ I argued that we cannot study poverty without understanding the relationship between the poor and society. My analysis was based on the sociological definition of poverty given by Simmel in 1908 in his study on ‘The Poor’.⁴ Following this perspective, I have proposed that two dimensions be considered to define elementary forms of poverty. The first dimension is of a macro-sociological type, using a collective and social representation of the poverty phenomenon and a social explanation of the ‘poor’ and the ‘excluded’. It can be employed, at least partially, in analysis of the institutional forms of social intervention that aim to help the members of these groups. Such forms of social intervention are responsible for shaping the social perception of poverty and exclusion, the importance given to these questions, and the ways in which societies aim to address the problems. The second dimension derives more from micro-sociology and considers the importance of poor people’s own experiences, the attitudes they have towards those who give them particular labels and the way they adapt to different situations. ‘The poor’ and ‘the excluded’ are not defined and treated in the same way within different European countries, let alone cross-nationally. At similar standards of living, social assistance during a person’s active life will not necessarily have the same meaning or evoke the same attitudes in a nation of limited unemployment and heavily anti-marginal attitudes as it does in a society experiencing structural unemployment and widespread economic change. In the former case, the individuals concerned are in a minority and face stigmatization by not conforming with general social norms; in the latter, they are less marginalized and have a greater chance of recovering their previous social status through the material and symbolic resources available to them as members of the economic underclass.

Following this conceptual framework, three elementary forms of poverty have been put forward: integrated poverty, marginal poverty, and disqualifying poverty. These terms link the concept of poverty to its social context. They do not take their point of reference from fixed population groups, but instead from relatively stable groupings, which, whilst having a social basis, evolve as they draw members labelled ‘poor’ or ‘excluded’ from different social categories.

Integrated poverty refers more to traditional forms of poverty than to social exclusion. Those labelled ‘poor’ are, from this perspective, extensive in number and relatively indistinguishable from other social strata. Their situation is of such immediacy that it is more likely to be treated as a regional or local problem rather than one affecting a particular social group. Social debate is organized around issues of socio-economic and cultural development in their broadest sense, and focuses especially on the territorial dimension of social inequality. Poverty in the national population and the entire social system is linked, via collective representation, to that found at the regional level. Because ‘the poor’ form a broad social class, rather than a strictly defined ‘underclass’, they are not heavily stigmatized. Their standard of living is low, but they remain part of the social networks that stem from family and the immediate neighbourhood. Moreover, although unemployment may also impinge upon this group, it does not lead to a concomitant loss of status. In fact, its effects are usually compensated by resources available from the underground economy, and furthermore, such activities play an integrating role for those who participate. This type of social orientation towards poverty is more likely to develop in traditional, ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘underindustrialized’ societies than in their advanced, modern counterparts. It is often linked to the economic backwardness of pre-industrial societies as against those with more advanced production and social welfare protection.

Marginal poverty also refers more to traditional forms of poverty than to social exclusion as such. As opposed to the victims of integrated poverty, those who are referred to as ‘the poor’ or ‘the excluded’ in this case constitute only a minor part of the population. In the collective consciousness, the group is made up of those who cannot adapt to the progress of modern civilization or conform to the norms of economic development. Even though they are only a residual minority, their existence is disruptive because it demonstrates the presence of ‘system dropouts’ and may foster ‘disillusionment with progress’. It is for this reason that social welfare institutions ensure that they cater for those who, without the influence of outside pressure, are socially and professionally unable to integrate with society. This social orientation towards poverty is based on the idea that this peripheral minority is unlikely to challenge the economic and social functioning of the system in its entirety. Measures should be taken, but they should not monopolize the efforts of economic, political and trade union actors. In any case, the social debate is organized not so much around this residual group, but rather around the sharing of benefits amongst socio-professional groups. The social status of those judged unable to integrate is thus badly compromised. Social intervention reinforces the feeling that these people are on the margins of society, and, once stigmatized, are unable to escape fully from the protection of the social organizations that look after them. This social orientation towards poverty is more likely to manifest itself in advanced and developing industrial societies, where unemployment can be controlled to a certain degree, and revenues are sufficiently high to guarantee everyone a high level of social protection – often the result of union demands. Without automatically sweeping away the protection afforded by close ties (such as the family, for example), the welfare state, which provides more general security, may in the long term eventually replace them in their role as social stabilizers.

Disqualifying poverty is concerned more with the question of exclusion than with actual poverty, although social actors continue to employ both terms. Those they refer to as ‘the poor’ or ‘the excluded’ are becoming steadily more numerous. They exist outside the productive sphere and become more dependent on social welfare institutions as they encounter greater and greater problems. It is not so much a question of abject destitution, spreading more widely every year, but rather a process that can produce sudden changes in daily life. Although, as noted above, we should not generalize, it is nevertheless true that progressively more and more people are being confronted with precarious situations in employment liable to increase their burdens: low revenue, unsatisfactory housing and health care, weak familial ties and social networks and unstable positions in institutionalized social networks. For those in such a situation, material decline, even if only relative, and dependence upon social benefits – especially financial aid – result in a feeling of going into an inevitable descent into social hopelessness. These people’s self-devaluation is accentuated by the fact that many of them have not experienced any sort of childhood deprivation. In contrast to marginal poverty, this phenomenon affects society as a whole and has been turning into the so-called ‘new social question’, which threatens social order and cohesion. ‘Disqualifying poverty’ is a social orientation towards ‘the poor’ and ‘the excluded’ that generates collective anxiety as the membership of this stratum grows, and the number of its potential members increases correspondingly. This specific form of poverty is most likely to develop in societies faced with high unemployment and an unstable job market, linked to changes in the productive sphere and the globalization of economies. Normally in this type of society, the role of family ties, although not completely absent, has diminished: far from balancing economic and social inequalities, they may in fact exacerbate them. Furthermore, the parallel, or underground, economy is too regulated by public institutions to offer any stable support for the most disadvantaged. The processes that help soften the effects of unemployment under what we have termed ‘integrated poverty’ are less effective, and certainly less organized under ‘disqualifying poverty’.

Just after publishing Les formes élémentaires de la pauvreté, I started to study the different types of social bonds and to give them conceptual definitions. In the present chapter, I would like to revisit the main results of my comparative research on poverty from a social bonds perspective. I argue that we cannot study the relationship between the poor and society without a conceptual framework of social bonds. It is important to clarify the intertwining of these social links in a global system of attachment. In every society, everyone is integrated into its fabric by several bonds. These bonds have a normative definition. The social institutions regulate each of them in order to ensure control on social life and to give a normative orientation to individuals and social groups. In what follows, I will first define the different types of social bond. Then I will suggest a framework that can be built for comparative analysis of poverty.

The Social Bonds as an Analytical Framework

In this section I consider the different types of social bond. Each type can be defined on the basis of two dimensions: protection and recognition. Although the bonds are multiple and different, they all serve to bring individuals the protection and recognition necessary for social existence.⁵ Protection refers to all the resources (family, community, professional, social) on which individuals can draw when facing difficulties in life; and recognition refers to the social interaction that stimulates individuals by providing evidence of their existence and value in the eyes of others. The expression ‘to count on’ sums up quite well what individuals can expect from their relationship with others and with institutions as regards protection; while the term ‘to count for’ expresses the expectation of recognition, which is just as vital. The emotional attachment of individuals to a ‘we’ is all the stronger if the ‘we’ corresponds to an entity – concrete or abstract – on and for which they know they can count. It is in this sense that the ‘we’ completes the ‘me’. The bonds that provide an individual with protection and recognition therefore assume an affective dimension that reinforces human interdependence.

Although based on social bonds, the analytical framework that I have adopted differs substantially from the classic studies on the strength of weak ties within sociological analysis of networks. According to Granovetter, ‘the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual trust), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie’.⁶ In my opinion, the strength of a bond must be assessed differently for each named type, as each link refers to a specific normative system. Measuring the strength of a tie should not be limited to the dimensions of the interpersonal relationship, but should also consider how the tie attaches the individual to the social system, and hence either enables or hinders the development of a varied set of interpersonal relationships established within distinctive normative spheres. Our definition of the bond is hence in line with the Durkheimian conception of the individual’s attachment to society, which implies that we must both consider the normative system underlying the bond, and take into account the fact that individuals are more or less obliged to conform with that normative system in order to be integrated.⁷

For instance, when we address the relationship between parents and children, we relate this relationship to the norms surrounding this bond within a given society, given that the organization of the line of descent can take different forms from one society to another. When we analyse the relations between actors participating in working life, we assume that these relations are assessed differently, depending on whether we are dealing with an accomplished or unaccomplished wage labour society, or whether the wage labour society is in crisis or experiencing expansion. Granovetter does not raise this issue. He studies interpersonal relationships in general, without distinguishing the normative spheres in which the ties are deployed, and without distinguishing between the different types of tie. The network theory thus differs from the theory of attachment and social bonds to which we refer.

A bond can be said to be strong when it enables individuals to ensure protection against the vagaries of life and satisfies their vital need for recognition. It is always in relation to the prevailing social norms that individuals, through each bond, can ensure their protection and recognition. At the workplace for instance, the interpersonal relationships between colleagues, which Granovetter refers to as weak, can nevertheless result in a strong organic participation bond. Individuals can have perfectly instrumental, non-emotional relationships with their colleagues and yet feel highly integrated into the working group or company, and into the norms of a wage-labour society. The organic participation bond does not imply that individuals working together like each other: although a minimal degree of confidence is necessary, intimacy is not required for professional integration.

As an extension of this preliminary definition, four major types of social bond can be distinguished: the lineal bond, the elective participation bond, organic participation and the citizenship bond. The lineal bond takes two forms. The first refers to consanguinity – that is, to the ‘natural’ line of descent based on proof of sexual relations between the father and the mother, and on the recognition ...