1. the process of becoming poor or being reduced to poverty; the state of being impoverished

Examples

• The pauperization of rural communities accelerated during the industrial revolution.
• Economic policies that led to pauperization sparked widespread social unrest.
• Historians studied the pauperization of the working class in 19th-century Europe.
• The war resulted in the pauperization of entire regions.
• Globalization has been blamed for the pauperization of some manufacturing towns.
• Social safety nets were designed to prevent the pauperization of vulnerable populations.