|
A 2003 study found that people living in poverty are less likely to participate in a wide range of activities than people not living in poverty.
This is not simply due to a lack of interest.
As this graph shows, when people were asked if there were activities they would like to participate in, but could not due to financial issues, people living in poverty identified a much wider range of activities than those not in poverty.
These results clearly show that social, family, work, and leisure activities were especially problematic for people in poverty.
What this says to me is that poverty is more than just having a hard time paying the rent or meeting other basic needs. Poverty also puts people at a greater risk of social exclusion. Meeting friends for a coffee, or inviting them for dinner, for example, may not be options once your paycheque is used up. And if you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet, you might not have time to take in a summer festival, or join a community sports team. So many things that many of us take for granted may be out of reach for people living in poverty.
So poverty isn’t just about a lack of money. It is about quality of life. It is about restrictions on people’s ability to choose the lifestyle and activities that they want to participate in.
Graph from Poverty and Policy in Canada, by D. Raphael – Original source:
Stewart, et al. (2003). Left Out: Perspectives on social exclusion and social isolation in low-income populations: Final Report. (pp. 32, 26)
Poverty and Policy in Canada is part of the ESPC’s Resource Library collection.
|
Thursday, 17 May 2012 
The ESPC is a member of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (ECOHH). ECOHH sent out a three question survey related to housing security to each political party competing in the 2012 Alberta election. So far, the Progressive Conservatives (PC), the New Democratic Party (NDP), and the Alberta Party responded to ECOHH's questions. Below are their respective answers.
