ABSTRACT
Poverty is inextricably interwoven with social class, unemployment, disrupted social conditions and poor housing. Deprivation itself has many facets beyond income poverty: Chambers points to weakness, social isolation, inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation and vulnerability as additional factors that, although difficult to measure, are very powerful agents in people's experience. Relative poverty in a population is usually defined as income that is below 50% of the average income level. Unemployment creates poverty. Between 1979 and 1991 the proportion of the poorest tenth of the United Kingdom population which was unemployed grew from 16% to 28%. Tuberculosis has always been associated with poverty. Three main agents are suggested to be the cause of ill-health in deprived populations: malnutrition, fuel poverty and psychosocial factors. Social scientists have been scratching their heads on the question of whether unemployment and poverty are in the process of, or in danger of, giving rise to an underclass.
