Which sociologist argued that welfare is not the primary cause of poverty and emphasized deindustrialization and structural forces?

• A. Karl Marx
• B. William Julius Wilson
• C. Émile Durkheim
• D. Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Answer: (B)

Understanding poverty as shaped by broad economic changes, such as deindustrialization, rather than welfare as the primary cause, is what this question tests. William Julius Wilson argued that welfare is not the main driver of poverty; instead, the collapse of manufacturing jobs and the shift to a service-based economy created structural barriers that place urban, especially inner-city, residents at a persistent disadvantage. He highlighted problems like joblessness, the “spatial mismatch” between where jobs are located and where poor residents live, and weakened neighborhood institutions, all of which deepen poverty beyond what welfare alone can explain. This focus on macroeconomic restructuring and its impact on opportunity helps explain why some communities remain poor even with welfare programs in place.

Karl Marx would frame poverty in terms of capitalism and class exploitation within the production system, rather than emphasizing deindustrialization as the primary driver. Émile Durkheim concentrated on social order and the functions of institutions to maintain cohesion, not specifically on deindustrialization’s impact on poverty. Daniel Patrick Moynihan emphasized family structure and cultural factors as contributors to poverty, which is a different explanatory angle from Wilson’s emphasis on structural economic forces.