The idea of 'Cultural Poverty' was given by
- (a)Oscar Lewis
- (b)Gunnar Myrdal
- (c)Aashish Bose
- (d)Amartya Sen
Correct — A, Oscar Lewis. The American anthropologist Oscar Lewis coined the idea of the 'culture of poverty' (rendered here as 'cultural poverty') in works such as Five Families (1959) and La Vida (1966). He argued, from fieldwork among poor Mexican and Puerto Rican families, that the very poor develop a distinctive sub-culture — marked by fatalism, present-time orientation and a sense of marginality — which is transmitted across generations and helps perpetuate their poverty.
- (b)Gunnar Myrdal — Wrong — the Swedish economist is known for Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations (1968), the concept of the 'soft state' and 'circular cumulative causation', not the culture of poverty.
- (c)Aashish Bose — Wrong — the Indian demographer Ashish Bose is remembered for coining the acronym 'BIMARU' (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh) for demographically lagging states, not for a theory of poverty culture.
- (d)Amartya Sen — Wrong — Sen is associated with the capability approach, the entitlement theory of famines (Poverty and Famines, 1981) and human-development thinking, not the culture-of-poverty thesis.
The 'culture of poverty' is an anthropological thesis holding that persistent poverty produces its own set of values and behaviours that, once internalised, are passed to the next generation and make escape harder. It is a much-debated idea — critics argue it risks 'blaming the poor' for structural deprivation — but the phrase itself is firmly Oscar Lewis's.
The trap is that Myrdal and Sen are both towering poverty scholars, so a student who reasons only by association may pick them. The discriminator is the exact phrase: 'culture of poverty' is an anthropology term (Lewis), whereas Myrdal and Sen worked in development economics with quite different signature concepts.
- 'Culture of poverty' coined by anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1959, Five Families)
- Gunnar Myrdal — 'soft state', 'circular cumulative causation', Asian Drama (1968)
- Ashish Bose — coined the acronym 'BIMARU' in the 1980s
- Amartya Sen — capability approach and entitlement theory of famines
Match the exact phrase to its author — only Oscar Lewis is tied to the 'culture of poverty'.
- Picking Sen or Myrdal by association with 'poverty' rather than the exact phrase
- Confusing 'culture of poverty' (Lewis) with the 'cycle of poverty' or 'poverty trap'
UPPSC/UPSC ask 'who propounded/coined X concept' — build a thinker↔coined-term flashcard set so the exact author is instant.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The acronym 'BIMARU', describing four demographically lagging Indian states, was coined by
- (a)Amartya Sen
- (b)Ashish Bose
- (c)Oscar Lewis
- (d)Gunnar Myrdal
Answer(b) Ashish Bose — the demographer who coined 'BIMARU' (Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, UP).
- practice — not a real PYQ
The 'culture of poverty' thesis argues chiefly that
- (a)poverty is caused solely by a shortage of national income
- (b)the poor develop a self-perpetuating sub-culture transmitted across generations
- (c)poverty can be measured only by calorie intake
- (d)poverty disappears automatically with economic growth
Answer(b) the poor develop a self-perpetuating sub-culture transmitted across generations — Lewis's core claim.