ABSTRACT

This chapter explores aspects of international debates on poverty and inequality and social exclusion and disadvantage. It discusses the relationship between these conceptual debates on poverty and exclusion and the forms of welfare states or welfare systems existing in a range of societies, to the outcomes of those welfare systems. The objective of the discussion is to identify alternative conceptualisations of poverty and disadvantage that appear to be associated with different approaches to social policy (broadly defined). The chapter determines the lessons these national and international debates offer for Australian social policy in the context of emerging social and economic forces impacting on inequality in Australia. It concludes that there are strong intellectual connections between the ways in which different welfare states organise their social policies and how they debate issues of poverty and inequality.