Breaking down the question
This is an analytical question phrased as a query — "can we equate...?" — and "elaborate" invites you to argue a reasoned position rather than merely describe. The heart of the task is to distinguish two ideas that everyday language runs together: "poverty" as a social scientific concept, and "poor living" as a description of a low material standard of life.
The defensible answer is that the two overlap but cannot be simply equated. Poor living — inadequate food, housing or income — is one visible aspect of poverty, but poverty as sociologists understand it is broader, encompassing relative deprivation, social exclusion and the deprivation of capabilities, not merely a low standard of consumption. Our notes on the concepts of stratification locate poverty within the wider study of inequality.
At 10 marks, state a clear thesis and support it with the main conceptions of poverty.
How to approach it
Open by acknowledging the intuitive appeal of the equation — that poverty obviously means living poorly — and then signal that the answer will qualify it.
Distinguish absolute poverty, which does correspond closely to "poor living" as a lack of the basic necessities of subsistence, from relative poverty, which defines the poor by reference to the prevailing standards of their own society. Bring in Townsend on relative deprivation and Sen on capabilities to show that poverty is about exclusion and the inability to function, not only about a low material level.
Conclude that poor living is a symptom and a component of poverty but not its equivalent, since one can be deprived in ways that go beyond a visibly low standard of living.
Model answer
At first sight the two expressions seem interchangeable: to be in poverty is surely to live poorly, in want of adequate food, clothing, shelter and income. There is real truth in this, and the two ideas overlap substantially. Yet on closer analysis poverty cannot simply be equated with poor living, because sociologists understand poverty as a broader and more relational condition than a merely low material standard of life.
The equation holds most closely for absolute poverty. This conception, associated with early studies such as those of Rowntree, defines poverty as a lack of the minimum resources needed for physical subsistence — sufficient nutrition, clean water, basic shelter and health. Where people fall below this subsistence line, poverty and poor living do indeed coincide, and the idea underlies measures such as the poverty line. On this narrow view, to measure poor living is to measure poverty.
The equation breaks down, however, once we adopt a relative conception. Peter Townsend argued that poverty must be understood in relation to the customary standards of a particular society at a particular time. People are in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the diet, amenities, activities and living conditions that are widely expected in their community, so that they are effectively excluded from ordinary patterns of life. On this view a family might not be starving, and so not be "poor living" in any dramatic sense, yet still be poor because they cannot participate in the normal life of their society. Poverty here is relative deprivation and social exclusion, a matter of one's position relative to others, not an absolute level of consumption. A standard of life adequate in one society may count as poverty in a richer one.
Amartya Sen's capability approach widens the gap further. For Sen, poverty is best understood not as low income or consumption but as the deprivation of basic capabilities — the real freedoms a person has to be and to do things they have reason to value, such as being adequately nourished, healthy, educated and able to take part in community life. Two people with the same low income may differ greatly in their capabilities depending on health, gender, social discrimination or local conditions. Poverty, on this account, is capability deprivation, which "poor living" as a description of consumption fails to capture. Related work distinguishes further dimensions — a "culture of poverty", the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage, and forms of social exclusion — none of which reduces to a simple lack of material goods.
We may therefore conclude that poor living is a central manifestation and a component of poverty, but not its full equivalent. Poverty includes the visible fact of a low material standard, yet also embraces relative deprivation, exclusion from the life of one's society, and the loss of capabilities and dignity. To equate the two is to mistake one symptom for the whole condition and to reduce a rich relational concept to a bare measure of consumption.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner rewards a candidate who reads the question as an invitation to argue, not merely to define. A clear thesis — that the two overlap but are not identical — stated early and sustained, is what distinguishes a strong script from a list of poverty definitions.
The higher band goes to answers that deploy the absolute–relative distinction and then push beyond it with Townsend on relative deprivation and Sen on capabilities, showing that poverty involves exclusion and unfreedom, not just low consumption. A crisp conclusion that names poor living as a symptom rather than the whole of poverty demonstrates the conceptual discrimination the question is testing.