[IIPPE 2014] Poverty Working Group

The economic crisis that started in 2007 has become the deepest global contraction since the Great Depression, and the economic recovery has been the slowest and weakest on record. The costs of the crisis include a wave of unemployment and poverty that has only built on top on already existing pauperised working people. A whole generation, especially the youth, has been blighted by the crisis, which has had devastating consequences for hundreds of millions of people across the world. Austerity policies of unprecedented depth and severity have contributed decively to this grim picture, with Greek governments leading the way. The necessary destruction of capital for getting over the crisis has been burdened on the shoulders of working people, self-employed people, small business and small farmers.

Nevertheless, while absolute poverty is the most telling aspect of poverty, research in approaching this aspect is left aside, as well as the effect of the crisis in the pauperisation of people. The Poverty Working Group encourages contributions which shed light on the theoretical approach of absolute poverty, on social needs and the relative level of their satisfaction and the construction of a poverty threshold based on this level. Additionally, the WG welcomes contributions that examine the effects of the crisis on the level of poverty and the satisfaction of needs. Finally, critique of mainstream relative poverty approaches from radical perspective is necessary.

The panel is calling for papers which treat issues in the following topics:

• Comparative analysis of contrasting definitions and approaches concerning the poverty threshold.
• Theory of needs
• Definition and measurement of needs (“basic” and social)
• Structure of households’ expenses
• The relationship between the value of labour power and absolute poverty –the “reserve army of labor” and the “working poor”.
• Poverty threshold as the necessary income covering needs.
• Methodological issues concerning the estimation of all necessary household expenses – food, shelter, clothing, health, transportation, education, childcare, recreation, telecommunications etc.
• Poverty and immigrants
• Over-indebtedness in the EU and Greece. The impact of crisis on households’ budgets.
• Causes and consequences of over-indebtedness
• Recent Institutional developments on personal bankruptcy

Abstracts of individual papers (max. 500 words) should be submitted to aris.oikonomou@gmail.com by 1st April 2014.

• Deadline for abstracts of individual papers: 1 April , 2014
• Authors will be notified concerning acceptance 1 May , 2014
• Deadline for submission of the full paper: 1 September, 2014