POVERTY AND SOCIAL LIFE
What is poverty?
Poverty is the state
of not having enough material possessions or income for a person's
basic needs. Poverty may include social, economical, and political elements.
Absolute
poverty is the complete lack
of the means necessary to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter. The floor at
which absolute poverty is defined is always about the same,
independent of the person's permanent location or era.
Relative poverty occurs when a person
cannot meet a minimum level of living
standards, compared to others in the same time and
place. Therefore, the floor at which relative poverty is defined
varies from one country to another or from one society to another.
Effects of poverty-
Issues like hunger, illness, and poor sanitation are all causes
and effects of poverty. That is to say, that not having
food means being poor, but being poor also means being unable to afford
food or clean water. The effects of poverty are often interrelated so that
one problem rarely occurs alone. Bad sanitation makes one susceptible to
diseases, and hunger and lack of clean water makes one even more vulnerable to
diseases. Impoverished countries and communities often suffer from
discrimination and end up caught in a cycle of poverty.
Effects of
poverty on health-
Over
10,000 children die every day because they live in poor housing.
Without effective
sanitation in their home, children are especially vulnerable to
life-threatening diarrhea and intestinal infections. And in houses where
there’s insufficient ventilation, people are especially vulnerable to
respiratory diseases.
Clean, warm homes provide
protection from the elements and help improve a family’s health by preventing
illness and diseases such as tuberculosis, diarrhea, and malaria. Families
who live in a properly constructed home are less likely to fall prey to such
diseases and are better equipped to recover from any illnesses they may
contract. It goes without saying that the mental health of individuals and
families is greatly improved when physical health concerns are taken away.
Effects of poverty on education and
schooling
Home gives children opportunity for the future by providing a
stable foundation where they can study and do as well as they can at school.
Children are also able to develop into responsible adults as they
experience security and see their own parents taking care of the home. For
adults, home is key to maintaining employment and provides opportunities for
income generation by the creation of home-based small businesses.
Effects of poverty on children and families
Home is indeed where the
heart is and a stable, well constructed home is at the center of family life.
When families have a home
where they feel safe and secure they will draw together as a family unit to
love and support one another. There is also an added sense of pride and dignity
that comes with a decent home which translates to a hopefulness for the future
well being and success of the family.
There is plenty enough
research showing that growing up in an unsafe environment not only affects
children’s health seriously but also as a result of this the attendance at
school (and ability to get a degree or diploma).
Perspectives-
Economic theories-
Causes of poverty
are a highly ideologically charged subject, as different causes point to different
remedies. Very broadly speaking, the socialist tradition
locates the roots of poverty in problems of distribution and the use of the means
of production as capital
benefiting individuals, and calls for redistribution
of health as the solution, whereas the neoliberal school of
thought is dedicated the idea that creating conditions for profitable private
investment is the solution. Neoliberal think
tanks have received
extensive funding, and the ability to apply many of their ideas in highly
indebted countries in the global south as a condition
for receiving emergency loans from the International
Monetary Fund.
Environmentalism-
A report published
in 2013 by the world bank, with support from
the climate
and development knowledge network, found that climate change was likely to
hinder future attempts to reduce poverty. The report presented the likely
impacts of present day, 2 °C and 4 °C warming on agricultural
production, water resources, coastal ecosystems and cities across Sub-Saharan
Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. The impacts of a temperature rise of
2 °C included: regular food shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa; shifting rain
patterns in South Asia leaving some parts under water and others without enough
water for power generation, irrigation or drinking; degradation and loss of
reefs in South East Asia, resulting in reduced fish stocks; and coastal
communities and cities more vulnerable to increasingly violent storms. In 2016, a UN report claimed that by 2030, an
additional 122 million more people could be driven to extreme poverty because
of climate change.
Spirituality-
Among some individuals, poverty is
considered a necessary or desirable condition, which must be embraced to reach
certain spiritual, moral, or intellectual states. Poverty is often understood
to be an essential element of renunciation in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism (only
for monks, not for lay persons) and Jainism, whilst in Roman Catholicism
it is one of the evangelical counsels. The main aim of giving up things of
the materialistic world is to withdraw oneself from sensual pleasures (as they
are considered illusionary and only temporary in some religions – such as the
concept of dunia in Islam). This self-invited poverty (or giving
up pleasures) is different from the one caused by economic imbalance.
Some Christian communities, such as
the Simple Way, the Bruderhof, and the Amish value
voluntary poverty; some even take a vow of poverty, similar to that
of the traditional Catholic orders,
in order to live a more complete life of discipleship.
