Three Influences of Poverty - The Borgen Project (2024)

FAQs

What are the three perspectives of poverty? ›

This article proposes that most theories of poverty can be productively categorized into three broader families of theories: behavioral, structural, and political.

Poverty has many causes. While some factors exacerbate poverty, there are five predominant causes of poverty: social inequality, conflict and political instabilities, education, debt and environmental conditions.

Poverty is associated with substandard housing, hunger, homelessness, inadequate childcare, unsafe neighborhoods, and under-resourced schools.

Reduces productivity and economic output by about 1.3 percent of GDP. Raises the costs of crime by 1.3 percent of GDP. Raises health expenditures and reduces the value of health by 1.2 percent of GDP.

Issues like hunger, illness, and poor sanitation are all causes and effects of poverty. That is to say, that not having food means being poor, but being poor also means being unable to afford food or clean water. The effects of poverty are often interrelated so that one problem rarely occurs alone.

Sociologists today employ three primary theoretical perspectives: the symbolic interactionist perspective, the functionalist perspective, and the conflict perspective.

The 3 basic characteristics of the economic perspective are a) supply, demand, and equilibrium.

The United Nations Social Policy and Development Division identifies “inequalities in income distribution and access to productive resources, basic social services, opportunities” and more as a cause for poverty. Groups like women, religious minorities, and racial minorities are the most vulnerable.

Poverty stunts physical growth and development. Poverty hinders social and emotional development. Poverty shortens life expectancy. Poverty inflates infant and child mortality rates.

Why is poverty a social problem? ›

First, a high rate of poverty impairs our nation's economic progress: When a large number of people cannot afford to purchase goods and services, economic growth is more difficult to achieve. Second, poverty produces crime and other social problems that affect people across the socioeconomic ladder.

Poverty also affects the amygdala, which produces emotions and helps us respond to others' social cues. When the prefrontal cortex's control is compromised, the amygdala frequently overrides the "rational brain," producing a loss of emotional control and inappropriate behavior.

Those living in poor conditions face emotional and physical stresses that impact the entire family and community. Those affected have fewer resources and opportunities to benefit from educational opportunities, social services, and employment opportunities.

While this is good news, when we look ahead, three major challenges stand out for development: the depth of remaining poverty, the unevenness in shared prosperity, and the persistent disparities in the non-income dimensions of development.

Absolute Poverty and Relative Poverty are two terms used to measure this poverty level.

Poverty rarely has a single cause. A range of factors including rising living costs, low pay, lack of work, and inadequate social security benefits together mean some people do not have enough resources.

The two ways poverty can be measured are as absolute poverty or relative poverty. Absolute poverty has specific fiscal outlines. Relative poverty, on the other hand, is established in relation to the economic climate in which one resides.

Some examples of sociology include studying racial issues, gender dynamics, phenomena and feelings around entertainment, the structure of different social institutions, and the development of different social movements.

Three paradigms have come to dominate sociological thinking because they provide useful explanations: structural functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.

What are the 3 basic economic answers? ›

In order to meet the needs of its people, every society must answer three basic economic questions: What should we produce? How should we produce it? For whom should we produce it?

Traditional systems focus on the basics of goods, services, and work, and they are influenced by traditions and beliefs. A centralized authority influences command systems, while a market system is under the control of forces of demand and supply. Lastly, mixed economies are a combination of command and market systems.

The most commonly used economic models can be given as visual economic models, mathematical economic models, and economic simulations.

In addition to a lack of money, poverty is about not being able to participate in recreational activities; not being able to send children on a day trip with their schoolmates or to a birthday party; not being able to pay for medications for an illness. These are all costs of being poor.

These functions include the following: (1) poor people do the work that other people do not want to do; (2) the programs that help poor people provide a lot of jobs for the people employed by the programs; (3) the poor purchase goods, such as day-old bread and used clothing, that other people do not wish to purchase, ...

Meanwhile, the characteristics of poverty are: (1) most of them are living in rural areas; (2) their family size are bigger than the average; (3) their main source of income is agricultural sector; (4) lack of resources; (5) low quality of human resource; (6) low income; (7) most of income is used for basic needs; (8) ...

Primary poverty: This is when people cannot afford basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing.

The big five factors of poverty (as a social problem) include: ignorance, disease, apathy, dishonesty and dependency.

What is the main problem of poverty? ›

Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making.

Official Poverty Measure

The official poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6 percent, with 37.9 million people in poverty. Neither the rate nor the number in poverty was significantly different from 2020 (Figure 1 and Table A-1).

Poverty is associated with a host of health risks, including elevated rates of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, infant mortality, mental illness, undernutrition, lead poisoning, asthma, and dental problems.

Thinking about driving routines, they had trouble suppressing thoughts about transportation costs. The research collectively suggests that poverty shifts a person's focus and attention. And once thoughts about money emerge, they're difficult to suppress. Anuj K.

Less Cognitive Stimulation

Further, studies have shown that parents from low-SES tend to speak less often, use less complex words, and speak in a less encouraging way to their children than parents in higher-SES families.

Poverty affects health by limiting access to proper nutrition and healthy foods; shelter; safe neighborhoods to learn, live, and work; clean air and water; utilities; and other elements that define an individual's standard of living.

Poverty is both a cause of mental health problems and a consequence. Poverty in childhood and among adults can cause poor mental health through social stresses, stigma and trauma.

There is growing recognition that social risk factors – such as poverty, minority race and/or ethnicity, social isolation, and limited community resources – play a major role in health, and significant gaps remain in health and in life expectancy based on poverty, race, ethnicity, and community environment.

Some of the many causes include income inequality, inflation, unemployment, debt traps and poor education. The vast majority of people living in poverty are less educated and end up in a state of unemployment; higher incarceration rates have also been observed.

This economic definition of poverty encompasses a standard of living filled with deprivation, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to safe drinking water, education, health care and other social services, and no survival safety net. But poverty encompasses more than this.

Why does poverty happen? ›

Poverty has multiple root causes beyond just a lack of basic necessities like food, shelter, education, or healthcare. Discrimination based on gender or ethnicity, poor governance, conflict, exploitation, and domestic violence are all factors that contribute to poverty.

The United Nations Social Policy and Development Division identifies “inequalities in income distribution and access to productive resources, basic social services, opportunities” and more as a cause for poverty. Groups like women, religious minorities, and racial minorities are the most vulnerable.

Chambers expresses the concept of 5 dimensions of poverty, namely deprivation, vulnerability to certain situations, disability, dependence, and alienation (Shandu, 2016) . ...

“We tried to identify what is missing in the literature on poverty, and measure deprivation in six dimensions: health, education, standard of living, security, social connections, and housing quality.