Economic Disparity
What is Poverty?
Poverty is the situation in which people lack the basic needs and necessities for survival. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty and Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. Absolute or extreme poverty is when people lack the basic necessities for survival. For example these people may be starving, lack clean water, actual housing, clothing or medicine and they are most likely struggling to survive. This is most common in developing countries but there are still groups of people in Europe who still continue to experience this absolute situation of poverty.
Causes of Poverty
Poverty could happen for a variety of reasons. Several issues like hunger, illness and thirst are both causes and effects - for instance: not having water means you're poor, but being poor also means you can't afford water or food. Poverty is one of the most complicated social issues in our current day society, and trying to discover its root causes happens to be difficult as well. The real trouble has to do with such problems as minimum wages and lack of access to the education necessary for obtaining better‐paying jobs, or perhaps you are living in a country where the government is corrupted and does not provide its citizens with proper health care and such. There is no simple one cause to poverty but some other possible reasons for poverty include:
- Unemployment or having a low paying job
- Low levels of education and skills- More than 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world do not attend school, 57 per cent of these children being girls.
- Gender - Women are generally at a higher risk of living in poverty than men as they are less likely to be in paid employment in developing countries
- Disability or other major Illnesses- This limits an individuals ability to access employment along with increasing the amount of money they have to pay to take care of themselves and their disability or illness. For example, AIDS and HIV is a major cause of poverty and has become a very important cause of poverty especially for developing countries. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS around the world and Sub-Saharan countries account for 67% of all people living with HIV worldwide and for 72% of AIDS-related deaths in 2008.
- Living in a very disadvantaged community where access to services is scarce.
Effects of Poverty
Poverty and crime
Crime rates are seen to be higher in areas where there is poverty because when people lack basic necessities, they are not in the right state of mind and they would probably more willing to act out in illegal ways in order to obtain these necessities in order to survive. Crime does not only mean stealing but families in Southern India and also parts of Bangladesh (and other developing nations) are so impoverished that they feel the need to sell their children to do labour work or put them into the sex trade so that they can make enough money to feed themselves as well as their children. It’s unquestionable that crime levels are high among the effects of poverty, and that many problems arise in impoverished neighborhoods.
Unemployment and very low incomes create an environment where children and their families simply cannot afford to have sufficient health care as well as an opportunity for education . Consequences for people in society who are experiencing poverty can include the following;
- Alcohol & substance abuse is seen from the children in Africa living in slums to children and older people in more developed countries. This effect is not common as it is a way that people choose to deal and cope with their large amounts of stress, depression and despair.
- Unsafe working environments cause people to have accidents and sometimes even major injuries and death. (machinery in factories or agriculture, children doing labour work that is not appropriate for their physical capacity). There are also other working hazards such as lead poisoning, pesticide poisoning .etc.., due to the lack of proper protection and workers rights.
- Poor housing & living conditions, which is an obvious cause of many diseases.
Impact of Poverty on health
Poverty increases hygiene related diseases, such as: cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis .etc.., because of poor sanitation in impoverished areas, and food-related diseases, simply because the poor can't always afford "safe" foods. It’s no surprise that anywhere on earth, poorer communities are more disease ridden than richer ones. The fact that people are so poor contributes to their ability to access free healthcare. This is major problem in developing countries where people cannot receive vaccines and medications for diseases such as HIV-AIDS and others. The result of this is that they get counterfeit drugs which do not cure them and sometimes can even make them worse. As we can see, human health is not only affected by matters of an unsanitary living area and material poverty but also by social exclusion.
Political Impacts of Poverty
Increased risk of war
Nations that are unable and that cannot keep up with the world's growing economy lack many resources and goods, and they tend to acquire these raw materials from other countries. This is not a viable option forever, however, because it often leads to conflict between peacekeeping forces and the nation itself. People in developing countries literally fight over food sources and over clean drinking water because they do not have a sufficient amount.
Effects of poverty on terrorism
Poverty too is a major factor in explaining the increase in terrorism in recent years. In between the years 1933-1973 Afghanistan had experienced both political and economic stability and it was only after the end of the Soviet-Afghan War that the country became ravaged and terrorism began to flourish.
Terrorism seems to be a reaction of disapproval of the extreme poverty taking place, but not a very good one. Many newspapers seen today blame poverty for causing terrorism as it creates such a state of misery and frustration that people are encouraged to join terrorist organizations and groups. It is also an important note that many terrorists tend to come from the poorer countries of the world with high unemployment rates. Terrorist organizations provide higher salaries than probably any of the jobs they are currently working at and that may strongly impact their decisions on becoming.
Opinion-
In the end, poverty is a major cause of social tensions and threatens to divide a nation because of the issue of inequalities. This is what happens when wealth in a country is poorly distributed among its citizens as well as resources. Poverty is an extremely dangerous situation and it had already succeeded in destabilizing entire countries. No matter if poverty is affecting one's mental or physical health, the end result is the same. PEOPLE ARE DYING FOR NOT GOOD ENOUGH REASONS and on average the poor live shorter than the rich, which implies that the impact of poverty is not only a physical one but
also very much so a psychological one. Poverty isn't only happening because of lack of resources and sanitation in certain areas, it's because we aren't distributing these basic human needs to everyone fairly and people need to wake up and realize this. On top of that, education, as discussed, is a major factor that can help people get out of poverty. Yet, there is nothing being done in poor countries to break the cycle of poverty. In many poor countries, government systems are corrupt and are satisfied with the situation that their people are in as long as they are benefiting from it. For example, illiteracy means availability of cheap labor. They will get richer and richer, while the uneducated poorer and poorer. We need to stand up for our rights and for each other now before the government systems in poor countries get even worse.