Human beings have different desires when it comes to life. However different these desires are, being wealthy is one of those desires. This is because everyone knows that poverty is not a pleasant state. The world today has become crippled by poverty. poverty refers to the state of being tremendously poor; it also means the condition whereby people’s basic needs such as food, shelter and water are not provided for. This paper focuses on the phenomenon of global poverty, types of poverty, its causes, its effects on the individuals affected and methods of how to prevent poverty. This is in view of dissecting it as a social issue.
Poverty is categorized into various types. Absolute poverty refers to the extreme kind of poverty whereby individuals lack basic needs such as food, water and shelter. These people suffering from this type of poverty usually experience numerous problems such as suffering from diseases like malaria, cholera and typhoid. Notably these diseases would have been prevented if their economic status was better. There is also relative poverty. This is in relation to other people’s standards e.g. family members, peers or even workmates this occurs when a certain individual is not able to afford to buy certain items or is not able to afford to go to certain vacations which their friends are able to afford. Even though the individual has access to good food, healthcare, housing and water, he is deemed as poor. Situational poverty arises because of certain situations that have rendered them poor. This can be illustrated by earthquakes, floods or a grave sickness that have occurred in a certain area leading people to lose their belongings, houses and businesses, resulting in poverty. These people if given some assistance can be able to get to their feet and support themselves again. Lastly, there is generational or chronic poverty. This occurs when individuals become poor because of the generations that were there before them. This makes it hard for them to get out of that poverty.
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Poverty is caused by several factors one of which is income inequality, this means when the country’s income is not distributed equally in the country, poorer communities will continue becoming poor and the few rich individuals will continue to become rich (Lynch & Boggess, 2016). According to current research a country that is developing economically is characterized by low poverty rates. Another reason is conflicts and unrests. This refers to countries that are experiencing political unrest which causes their development to come to a halt. Countries like Srilanka, Afghanistan and Iraq are war-torn countries. In these countries, a huge number of people are killed, a lot of property is destroyed; violence is the normal occurrences. This makes it difficult for countries to focus on creating wealth; even individuals cannot bring in money. Locality and hostile ecology is yet another factor creating poverty. Countries and communities located in areas that have geographical features like swamps, mountains and deserts make it difficult for people to exist in such areas. People in those areas also suffer from harsh weather conditions, making economic activities such as farming impossible. Such areas are characterized with poverty because life in such places is unbearable. An example is the Sahara Desert, Mount Everest and the Australian Desert; they are non-habitable areas. Natural disasters like droughts, floods, hurricane and tsunamis lead to deaths, sicknesses and loss of wealth. These disasters lead to displacing of people and also destruction of property this leads to poverty. Other causes of poverty include, corruption – this issue has really crippled third world governments sucking them dry of the little they have and finally gender discrimination (Tanzi, 2016).
Poverty can be explained further by the vicious cycle of poverty which explains the phenomenon. It shows how a very poor family with very many children has no means to survive and have no access to healthcare. this leads to malnourished children, who are unhealthy and have no education. Their parents eventually die of preventable diseases due to lack of healthcare. The children eventually become adults while still in poverty, they marry spouses who are also in the same stage of poverty as them. They get children who suffer the same fate and the cycle repeats itself (Swanepoel & De Beer, 2012).
Poverty has brought about gruesome effects to people all around the world. These effects are classified into three; hunger, health and deaths come first. absolute poverty causes extreme hunger in the poor areas this eventually causes malnourishment and undernourishment in children and adults. These people become more vulnerable to preventable diseases like cholera, tuberculosis and malaria because they cannot access proper medical care. This leads to increased deaths. According to current research more than 750 million humans lack access to clean water, this causes diarrhea which kills 842000 people each year across the globe (Lynch & Boggess, 2016). Social and political effects, poverty may cause people to involve themselves in social morally-questionable activities like drug trafficking and prostitution in order to take care of their daily needs. In developing countries, the leaders coax young individuals to work for them as goons, and convince them that they will get paid. the youth comply and agree because they lack money and meaningful employment. Economic effects are also experienced as a result of poverty. Poverty leads to lack of basic needs, which include education. The children do not go to school which leads to lack of skills as they become adults. This leads to an economic breakdown of the area in which they reside and affects the country as a whole. The country cannot develop due to the lack of skills.
Poverty can, however, be dealt with through the following measures: education. Here, each child is properly educated in order to get the skills he/she requires to change their lives. Better health care is very crucial in ensuring good health in the people. Water and sanitation and finally financial security in countries, once a country is experiencing economic growth the rate of poverty begins to reduce as the state is able to provide for the families in the country.
In conclusion, poverty is a menace that is affecting every government in the world no matter how powerful. As stated above poverty is of various types and it affects the day to day lives of very many people. In order to uproot poverty, proper healthcare, education and water and sanitation must be provided to the people.
References
Lynch, M. J., & Boggess, L. N. (2016). A Radical Grounding for Social Disorganization Theory: A Political Economic Investigation of the Causes of Poverty, Inequality and Crime in Urban Areas. Radical Criminology, (6) , 11-69.
Swanepoel, H., & De Beer, F. (2012). Community development: Breaking the cycle of poverty. Juta and Company Ltd.
Tanzi, V. (2016). Public Finance in Developing Countries: An Introduction. Handbook of Research on Public Finance in Europe and the MENA Region , 1.
