What is poverty?
Poverty is
the inadequacy or deprivation of basic human needs which
Commonly
include food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, health care and education.
As such,
Poverty is a multi-dimensional since it also means going short materially, socially
and emotionally. It includes spending less on food, clothing, and shelter and
on other social needs than someone on an average income.
Types of Poverty
·
Absolute and Relative poverty
This refers
to subsistence below the minimum socially acceptable living conditions. These conditions
or standards are established by factoring in basic human needs like food and
shelter among other factors.
People are absolutely impoverished if the
minimum amounts of food, clothing and shelter necessary for survival absorb all
of their income, and they live a razor’s edge existence.
Relative
poverty is defined contextually as economic inequality in the location or
society in which people live.
People are relatively impoverished if the
customary or the average standard of living in their society requires more
spending than the income they have available.
·
Generational and Situational poverty
Generational
poverty can be defined as individuals
or households who have lived in poverty for at least two generations, meaning
children of parents in poverty grow up to live in poverty themselves.
Situational poverty,
on the other hand, refers to when families fall to poverty because of a
traumatic event such as illness, accidents or divorce.
·
Objective
and Subjective Poverty
Objective poverty is determined based on normative judgments
as to what constitutes poverty and what is required to move people out of their
impoverished state.
Subjective poverty places a premium on people’s preferences
on how much they value goods and services. It therefore, emphasizes on
individual utility.
General
Characteristics of Poverty
·
Low income earnings
·
Poor health and high rates of infant mortality
rates
·
Lack of proper education and training skills.
·
Poor living conditions and low consumption
levels
·
Food shortages and sometimes malnutrition
·
No protection from the weather. Most poor people
live in slums where the housing conditions are dire or non-existent.
·
Poor infrastructural development where hospitals
and roads are either non-existent or in poor conditions.
Relationships between Poverty and other Socio-economic factors
a. Poverty and gender
More women than men live in poverty and the disparity has
increased over the past decade, particularly in developing countries. There are
inequality in intra-households allocations.
As such, there may be women who are poor although they live
in non-poor households.
b. Poverty and education
There is an inverse relationship between poverty and education.
The educated have relatively better living standards than the uneducated
members of the society.
This is because educated people are easier to find better
paying jobs than their non-educated counterparts.
c. Poverty and health
Poverty is both a cause and consequence of poor health. Poverty
increases the chances of poor health. Poor health in turn traps communities in
poverty. Infectious and neglected tropical diseases kill and weaken millions of
the poorest and most vulnerable people each year.
d. Poverty and levels of Employment
Poverty and unemployment
are closely linked. The larger proportion of the poor population in less
developed countries is unemployed. Also,
majority of those employed work in the informal sector where the wages are
subsistent.
e. Poverty and access to services
Access to services like clean water, energy and sanitation
has direct impact on quality of life of families. The poor people in the
society have little or no access to these services since they spend large
proportions of their income on basic needs like food. Due to lack of these needs and services lead
to poor health, high mortality rates and low productive capacity hence leading
to a cycle of poverty.
f.
Poverty
and crime
Poverty and crime have a very "intimate"
relationship that has been described by experts from all fields, from
sociologists to economists. Crime prevents businesses from thriving by generating
instability and uncertainty at micro and macroeconomic levels and hence income
is lost. As such, crime and poverty must
be tackled simultaneously since eradicating one with the existence of the other
is near impossibility.
Causes of poverty
The following are either direct or indirect causes of
poverty
·
Rapid
population growth - that exceed the
economic growth rate
·
Famine
and draught – famine can wipe out livestock and crops hence causing a
lasting poverty to the affected families and the community in general.
·
War and
political instability in most developing countries especially in Africa
have compounded the poverty problem.
·
Diseases
such as TB and HIV/AIDS have wiped out many productive members of the society
hence leaving behind orphans and widows who are unable to fend for themselves.
·
Lack of
education and relevant training skills have reduced the productivity of
many people in less developed countries
·
Gender
inequality – in most developing countries, women are denied the opportunity
to work or own property and hence they are denied the opportunity to alleviate
themselves from poverty.
·
Teenage
pregnancy and school dropouts leave many girls vulnerable and unable to
find jobs
·
Domestic
abuse and divorce – when couples separate or divorce, the children are
affected immensely since they may not receive the appropriate care and
education.
·
Employment
abuse and low wages – most Multinational Corporation in less developed
countries break labor ethics by employing underage children and also paying
minimal wages that are barely able to sustain the workers.
·
Natural Disasters
like wild Fires and Flood may destroy property rendering the community poverty stricken.
·
Lack of
or inability to afford adequate health and life insurances leave many
vulnerable to poverty when the breadwinner of the family falls sick or passes
away.
·
Foreign invasion
·
Greed ,
fraud, corruption and abuse of power- when
government officials indulge in vices like corruption , they neglect the
society whom they serve and important services like health and education may be
affected adversely.
Poverty Alleviation
Solutions
Eradicating poverty should start with an all-out effort to
provide every man, woman and child with that which is essential for human
well-being and development. These include:
·
Improve
the education system. Quality and
subsidized education is essential so as to empower the youth and increase their
productivity
·
Provision
of social amenities like hospital and sanitation improves the mental
wellbeing of the society and hence boosting their productivity.
·
Good government and effective aid. Since
setting up and maintaining adequate educational and health care systems require
a well-functioning government and civil service
·
Job creation and access to means of production.
Governments need to expand the economy at a
faster rate than the population growth rate so to increase the job
opportunities and the wealth of the nation.
·
Boosting food security- the government should invest and
modernize the agricultural sector so as to meet the vast demand and also to
stabilize the prices of agricultural products so as to make them affordable to
the citizens.
·
Ensuring even distribution of
resources by
implementing progressive taxation and subsidizing basic commodities so as to
make them affordable to the poor people in the society.
