Focus of social policy: low income or low resource groups?

Abstract

The issue of the condition of the lowest income groups in post-industrial economies is of much importance for the planning of social policy. The question of what groups to target for special support programmes or how to reintegrate the ‘under class’ into society are equally pressing for Russia as they are for countries in the West. The key question in formulating social policy remains to trace how people end up in lowest income groups as this provides valuable information in the battle against poverty. This article is based on research data is analysed from throughout Russia in the years 2009 and 2010, with the author seeking to outline the key structures involved in poverty and the varieties of resource availability. This data is used to analyse the specific development features of resource groups in a population various income levels. This is achieved though the use of a structural rather than cultural approach, which entails identifying limits of lower income groups and how the structures that define them are interlinked. This offers a set of ideas on how to lift people out of these low-income groups and overcome these structural limitations. The results show that the least privileged groups are deprived of key resources; be they other people around them, qualifications or cultural factors. As such this is a poverty that cannot be seen as temporary or passing. A picture emerges that helps towards a definition of poverty in Russia today and this is in spite of serious geographical diversity in the country. The poor of Russia are faced with deficits in the levels of support to help them and their formulation as a distinct social group in Russia is continuing unabated. The author underlines that it is precisely these low-income groups that must be the target of future social policy.