Paper Example on Poverty as a Social Problem

Introduction

A social problem is a condition or behavior that has negative consequences for a group of people or a large number of people. The problem influences a considerable number of people or individuals. Poverty has been categorized as one of the main social problem facing different groups of people all over the world; the word provokes strong emotional shared by many and many questions at the same time (Biddle, 2014). Poverty can be defined as the scarcity or the lack of a certain amount of material possessions; it is a multifaceted concept that varies from place to place which mainly includes, social, economic and political element. Poverty has affected different parts of the world with many countries having recorded a particular percentage of poverty levels. Despite all the different definitions of poverty the most basic definition of poverty would be no having the ability to meet one's basic needs such as clothing, food, and shelter. Basically, a person's income which is less than that deemed sufficient to purchase the basic needs are categorized as poor or poverty-stricken (Pare & Felson, 2014).

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Poverty has also been seen in so many ways such as not being in a position to cater for your health, not being able to afford education, or not knowing how to read. Research shows that poverty keeps changing from time to time and from place to place, but the basic nature of poverty is that everyone tries to escape it. Information shows that the poverty status to be inherent from generation to generation, this helps explain the existence of slums in most places. Research by the world bank organization shows that 88 percent of the cities in the world have slums within the cities which are always overcrowded and the population lives below the living standards where employment, food housing among other matters are problems facing these residents (Cord et al., 2015). It is essential to analyze the different types of poverty, main causes of poverty, the effect it has on the community as well as the different measures that can be taken so as to control poverty and try to eradicate it.

There are six types of poverty; generation poverty, situation poverty, absolute poverty, relative poverty, urban and rural poverty. It is crucial to understand the different types so as to identify the main causes of poverty conditions. Situation poverty is the poverty that is caused by a sudden crisis which was not anticipated such as floods, earthquakes or other natural calamities, divorce, health conditions. This type of poverty is mostly temporary as the involved individuals recover from the crisis and resume to their normal life (Pare & Felson, 2014). Absolute poverty is the category that involves the scarcity of basic necessities such as shelter, clean drinking water, and the food necessity. Generation poverty is a form of poverty that runs in the family where at least two generations of the family are born into poverty. The type of poverty is not temporary since the family lacks the required tools to get them out of the situation (Lewis, 2017). This in most cases leads to an inherent pattern of poverty within the family. Relative poverty, on the other hand, refers to the family's economic status whose income or modes of income is not enough to meet the society's average standards of living, unlike generation poverty where the family has no tools to generate any income to at least meet any basic needs of the family (Lewis, 2017).

Urban poverty occurs in the metropolitan places with a population averaging 50,000 people. This deals with the exaggerated stressors within the urban areas such as crowdedness, violence, noise and ordinarily dependent on the insufficient nature of the extensive city services. On the other hand, the rural poverty is the sort of poverty that occurs in non-metropolitan areas with a population of at least 50,000 people. In most rural areas the access to multiple services usually is a problem, access to support for the disabilities, access to quality education opportunities face the population. Access to job opportunities is also a significant problem for the population in the areas and research shows due to all the mention concepts the poverty levels in rural areas are rising at an alarming rate exceeding the urban rates. Research by international world bank shows that the difference between the two poverty rates for the past 30 years, where the rural rates between 15 to 20 percent while the urban rates at 10 to 15 percent (Cord et al., 2015).

Causes of Poverty

It is important to analyze the main causes of poverty in a nation as associated with the social problem. This helps identify the source of the problem which comes in handy when formulating the possible solutions towards the problem. One of the leading causes of poverty is the lack of education. Education is the foundation of any nation and the key towards knowledge expansion. Acquired knowledge helps individuals to learn different survival skills which enable them to provide for their families or basically enables them to meet their basic needs. Lack of education the absence of such essential skills hence increasing the poverty levels in the country (Pare & Felson, 2014). In the advanced nations different regions where education has not yet been developed, the areas are significantly affected by poverty. Lack education results to lack of employment since this is a fundamental need for most job positions. Lack of resources contributes to the poverty levels of a country. Countries with naturally occurring resources such as oil gold and other resources stand a better chance providing for its citizens, but other countries with lack of these resources find it had to provide for all its citizens. This is seen in most countries where the countries, this is to the limited job opportunities which the government is able to provide its people (Pare & Felson, 2014). The few jobs are as a result of the limited development found in the country. This also affects other sectors within the country such as the education sector. There are limited funds to help develop the education sector which revolves around back to the problem of lack of education.

International sanctions have been some of the leading causes of poverty in most of the developed or developing countries. The sanctions are as a result of the countries' poor government which violates the international laws, and in return, the countries face economic sanctions. This entails the excluding of the country from exports and foreign investment which cripples the country's economy. Some good examples being Iraq, North Korea, Russia among many others. This significantly impacts the local people within the country since employment opportunities go down and increase the number of unemployment hence raising the poverty levels of the country. Iraq has been one of the substantially affected countries in the world. The country has high poverty levels.

Other causes of poverty include internal governance of the country, riots, and protest. This has been categorized as poor governance which has been experienced mostly in the third-world countries as well as the developed countries. Poor policy formulations have resulted in the mismanagement of public funds hence affecting the development of the country. This has resulted due to the corrupt nature of the leaders in most parts of the world. The corrupt nature of the governments ends up affecting the lives of the people in the country (Hagenaars, 2017). Corruption causes misuse of funds meant for better purposes such as education development or the health sector development. The poor policy formulations result in few jobs for the people since the government fails to make the appropriate strategies that increase the availability of jobs for the people. With all this happening in the country poverty levels rise since the people are not in apposition to meet the basic needs since there are no jobs, their education levels are also affected by the poor state of the education sector in the country.

Poor leadership leads to internal riots which affect the economy of the country, property gets destroyed in the process, businesses are interrupted and lives lost in the riots. This greatly impacts the economic state of the country. The destroyed property takes back the people to poverty. Also, the internal riots affect foreign investment in the country since many foreign investors fear the country's unstable state. This results in reduced job opportunities also this affects the country's exports due to the governance instabilities. Libya is one of the main countries that has been greatly affected by the internal rots and conflicts.

Effects of Poverty

Poverty has a devastating impact on the people affected by it. The results can either be emotional or physical. It is important to analyze these effects starting with the effect on education. Children who come from low-income families are likely to perform poorly as compared to the other children from able parents. The children are constantly worried about matters such as feeding problems, family problems where the parents may be unable to cater for their education among other challenges hence their minds are preoccupied with different matters apart from the education they should be focusing on (Claro, Paunesku & Dweck, 2016). According to the Department of Education statistics, children from poverty-stricken communities end up dropping out of school so as to find means to provide for their families or due to family conflicts which are normally due to the poverty condition the family encounters. The department of education also has provided records showing that students from the poverty affected communities perform poorly as compared to the schools with students from the well-off communities. This shows the extent to which a child education is affected by poverty.

Poverty also affects the health of the community in low-income conditions. In the health department, the population is referred to as the vulnerable population. This is because due to the poverty levels of the community members accessing health care services may become impossible. The results to the spread of diseases among the communities as well as increasing the chances of dying as a result of the widespread of the health problems with less attention provided to the problem (Ebersohn, 2017). Due to other factors such as cleanliness, poor feeding habits, consumption of unhealthy food if any is available, lack of shelter or stress from the difficulties experienced as a result of the hardships encountered by the population. This makes the body vulnerable to disease such as depression among another disease. For the children, this affects the development of the child, the cognitive development of the child as compared to the child growing in a well-off society is entirely different. This is due to the different exposure the children receive.

Poverty also increases the social evils within the community such as the misuse of drugs, prostitution and gang-related crimes among others. This is due to the desperate need for survival, for instance, young girls from poverty afflicted communities end up engaging into prostitution so as to provide for their families or try to meet the basic needs such as feeding clothing and sheltering. WHO research on social evils researched prostitution and realized that most of the places with the lowest source of income has a high level of prostitution. Also, research by (Cord et al., 2015) gathered information from multiple unrevealed sources that claimed to have engaged in prostitution due to the increase in poverty levels. For the young boys especially from these communities join gangs which terrorize the community by stealing from them. These gangs end up engaging into drugs among other activit...