Free Paper Example: Impacts of Poverty on the Society

Introduction

The literature has no shortage of poverty definitions. The definitions are significant as they help in setting standards of determining whether the living conditions and the incomes of the poorest in society are acceptable or not. Similarly, the definitions influence how policies and interventions addressing poverty are streamlined. Nevertheless, there are some disparities in how the term "poverty" is used, resulting in a wide range of definitions influenced by varying disciplinary perspectives, ideologies, and world views. Historically, scholars have defined poverty in monetary terms using consumption or income levels hence, making it possible to compare the poverty levels of different countries over some time (Braveman, & Gruskin, 2003). The Census Bureau of the United States of America defines poverty using a statistical approach. The approach entails subjecting a dollar to certain aspects such as family structure and size to determine the minimum amount of money required to provide enough necessities. Hence, any family scoring below the number is considered living in poverty.

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The Federal Definitions of Poverty

Rigorously measuring poverty is difficult as every country has set its standards for what constitutes a basic living. For instance, climatic disparities where a person needs to survive in Asia for clothing, caloric intake, and heat are different from the requirements in the tropical regions. Similarly, the standards tend to vary with the state of development of the country, i.e., the poverty line in developed countries is much higher as compared to that of developing countries. Hence, the World Bank introduced a common international Poverty Line, which is $ 1.90 per person per day (Braveman, & Gruskin, 2003). Any person who lives below the set poverty line is termed as a poor person. The international poverty line is based on the value of goods that a person needs for survival per day.

Poverty Demographics

Poverty does not strike all demographics equally. For instance, considering the United States of America, the Black American community has the highest poverty rate of 22%, followed by Hispanics with a poverty rate of 19.4% (Neville, 2011). The increased poverty rate for minority groups is associated with their low education and working experience, chronic health problems, and lower wages. Similarly, research has shown that children are the most affected demographic group by poverty. In 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau found that approximately 16.2% of the U.S. kids lived in poverty. Israel ranks the highest (27.2%) of the children living in poverty (Minghao, 2018). Family economic conditions impact social resources and material available to children. The neighborhood environment, quality of education, and exposure to environmental contaminants widen the gap between poorer and more affluent adults and children (Lee et al., 2010). In some regions, the high poverty rates result from a disproportionately higher population of demographic groups associated with high poverty rates, i.e., ethnic minority groups, low-skilled workers, and females as the family heads. Some places specific factors that might promote poverty in a region include; increased unemployment, the region's economic performance, the cost of living, and the overall industrial structure. Poverty being a global catastrophe, many scholars, Nonprofit Organizations, and Government agencies have researched and documented the implications of poverty on the poor (Neville, 2011). The studies have mainly focused on childhood poverty and a direct relationship between childhood poverty and adulthood poverty. Research has shown that only 1% of poor children never end up being poor as young adults, and 32% of the poor children become poor adults in a long life (Neville, 2011).

Sociological Perspectives on Poverty

Sociologists have had different perspectives on social phenomena depending on their analysis of the phenomena. Based on how some people prosper while others remain grounded by poverty or how poverty has persisted in some families than others, a sociologist has had different view perspectives on class inequality.

Functionalist Perspective

According to the functionalist perspective, inequality is an important factor in uniting the society together and ensuring efficiency is achieved. Functionalists believe that differences in reward, power, and wealth within as social structure are necessary because they encourage the most qualified people to work at their full potential in the most critical duties for society. This means that a medical surgeon will be more valued and highly rewarded than a grocery cashier. Poverty is a result of social stratification, which is a hierarchical arrangement of social classes within a society. Technological advancements and rapid economic changes across the globe have eliminated low-skilled labor opportunities due to automation. This has created an unemployed population comprising unskilled workers hence leaving them unable to cater to their living expenses (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). Other functionalists like Herbert Gans maintained that poverty is basic for a smooth society because it creates a boundary between the rich and the poor and also it provides the society with a labor force that can do the lowest valued duties "dirty work" that no one else is willing to do (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). The social stratification approach received some criticism. The approach does not explain how a primary teacher in the United States can be paid $29,000 per annum, whereas a basketball player pockets more than $21 million (Theories of Social Inequality 2016). Between the two, who plays an essential role in society? The fact is that if bus drivers, teachers, cleaners, or garbage collectors downed their tools, society would close down (Theories of Social Inequality 2016). Therefore, it is very clear there is little connectivity between functional importance and income.

Conflict Perspective

The conflict perspective emphasizes that inequality is detrimental to society since it creates a fixed system of losers and winners (Cummins, 2018). This is because social stratification makes the rich richer at the expense of the poor, who do not have a rational opportunity to compete hence leaving them stuck on the bottom of the societal classes. For example, most nannies, gardeners, or maids are paid low wages by rich families leaving them with a means to move ahead and hence live a paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle. Conflict theory argues that capitalism, a free-market-based economy, only benefits the rich, assuming that wealth benefits will flow from the rich to the poor. Manning Marable (2000) argues that capitalism is a fraud (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). Nations that encourage capitalism mostly initiate corporate Welfare through tax breaks and direct subsidies, which benefit large enterprises. The nations assume that these benefits will make their way back to ordinary people through competition, which is rarely the case. For example, Wal-Mart owners benefit from enormous tax breaks and subsidies, but whether these benefits trickle to the employees is a questionable affair (Theories of Social Inequality 2016). According to some Functionalists, not all people will use economic benefits for their own economic interest, giving examples of how Bill Gates has donated 58% of his wealth to charities (Braveman, & Gruskin, 2003).

Feminist Perspective

Feminist scholars have also argued their perspective on social class, inequality, and poverty. The welfare state has been referred to as an arena of political struggle. According to Mimi Abramovitz, Welfare has been differentiating between the widows with children (deserving poor) and the single divorced mothers (undeserving poor) (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). Politicians and media, in the 1970s and 1980s, created an image that accused women of having many children to avoid work and increase their welfare allocations (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). These damaging stereotypes of poor women lead to their stigmatization, which has made it depend on the welfare policies to date. The bias stereotype against women has been systematically reproduced in our society with inadequate income, training, and support from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). Also, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which is the existing welfare system, created programs and tough eligibility guidelines that force women to work in low-skill and low-pay jobs in order to avoid penalties and generate some income for family upkeep.

Interactionist Perspective

The last perspective is the interactionist perspective, which focuses on how unequal power dynamics are reflected or generated by micro-interactions. Interactionist considers how power is distributed across certain social roles with some roles having more power than others (Theories of Social Inequality 2016). These different roles are represented using symbols, and close attention is paid to how these symbols recreate social inequality. Very few people have been accessing Welfare because most people shy away due to the image created by the media on undeserving poor, nonworking recipients and dependent parents. Also, poverty has been made as black people's matter, with most people believing that 50% of black people are poor, yet according to the existing data, it is only 25% (Leon-Guerrero, 2018). Blacks have been perceived to be lazy and depending majorly on Welfare, and therefore this brings racism symbol (Cummins, 2018). This "black people are poor” has made it hard for antipoverty programs to succeed.

Consequences of Poverty on the Society

Poverty subjects an individual or a family to a string of health-related problems, i.e., mental illness, infant and early childhood mortality, and substandard medical care. Poor people are prone to inadequate nutrition, resulting in behavioral, health, and cognitive problems. In many countries, the poor are uninsured or underinsured and thus have higher chances of receiving substandard medical attention.

Food insecurity and hunger: Food insecurity in this paper refers to the inability of an individual or a family to have access to enough food for sustenance to enjoy and lead active and healthy lives (Wagstaff, 2001). Research by the International Journal of Food and Agricultural Economics (IJFAEC) has shown that approximately 800 million individuals globally are experiencing food insecurity (Wagstaff, 2001).

The interaction between poverty and health is multidimensional because poverty can lend itself to ill health, whereas ill health poses a high risk of people becoming poor (Wagstaff, 2001). The double-edged relationship between poverty and health has resulted in many scholars and researchers narrowing their attention on the significant relationship between health and poverty. Similarly, according to the literature, there are significant discrepancies in morbidity and mortality outcomes between demographic groups of divergent economic status (Lachaud, 2004). Hence, economic and social determinants play a great role in addressing the issue of poverty. Following Roberts's remarks, the elements of health disparities, both in less developed and developed countries, are economic and social, which calls for a remedial action that should be social or economic.

Regarding this, efforts are being enacted to differentiate health inequities from health inequalities and social iniquities from social inequalities to bring forth to the prejudices that play an important role in disseminating the situation of ill health and poverty for the highly disadvantaged demographic groups in the world (Wagstaff, 2002).