Which sociologist is associated with the idea that poverty results from structural processes like globalization and deindustrialization rather than welfare?

• A. Karl Marx
• B. Emile Durkheim
• C. William Julius Wilson
• D. Pierre Bourdieu

Answer: (C)

The idea being tested is that poverty arises from large-scale economic changes rather than from welfare policies. William Julius Wilson argued that structural shifts like globalization and deindustrialization stripped urban areas of well-paying factory jobs, creating long-term unemployment and concentrated poverty. He also notes how these changes interact with factors like within-city segregation and mismatches between people’s skills and available jobs, so poverty is driven by the economy’s structure, not by welfare per se.

The other thinkers move in different directions. Karl Marx focuses on capitalism and exploitation at the systemic level, but the question zeroes in on specifically globalization and deindustrialization as drivers. Emile Durkheim centers on social solidarity and norms, not the recent macroeconomic shifts. Pierre Bourdieu emphasizes different forms of capital and how they reproduce inequality, which is related but not the core structural explanation given here.