Why am I poor? Hundreds of thousands of people around the world ask themselves this question every day. They try to buy the minimum of things they need, but even they often lack a meager salary or pension. Poverty is a web from which it is difficult to escape. But absolutely real. The main thing is to gather the will into a fist and act. Do not sit still, do not cry and do not put up with the sad state of affairs. Any life changes give at least a chance to end an unenviable social position, as opposed to complete apathy, lack of initiative and passivity.
Poverty as a social phenomenon
This is an extreme lack of funds and resources necessary for existence, which satisfy the urgent needs of the individual, the whole family, society and the state. For example, in the modern world, it is customary for each individual to have elementary things in his house: a TV, a stove, a table, a bed, and so on. Their absence or inability to buy makes a person a beggar in the eyes of others. Of course, he is not yet on the porch, becausethat earns and tries to lead a normal life. But the money that a person receives at an enterprise or factory is sorely lacking, and he can barely make ends meet.
Poverty is the insufficiency of property values, financial opportunities, goods for a full existence. If you look at a more global scale, then this is the inability to live, to continue the race, to develop. Extremely poor people do not even have the means to buy their own bread, so they go out into the streets to beg.
Absolute poverty
This concept means the impossibility of a person to lead a normal life. Absolute poverty is the inability to satisfy even the basic needs for food and food, clothing and warmth. Such an individual buys only the minimum of products that can support his life. He usually does not pay utility bills and refuses to purchase personal items. This type of poverty can be determined by comparing the subsistence minimum and the ability to provide oneself with everything necessary with its help. If the gap is very significant, then economists talk about such a phenomenon as the poverty threshold - this is the lack of a decent lifestyle for society, the inability to maintain the stereotypes imposed by the era and the departure from the usual standards.
The World Bank has calculated where such a boundary is. According to experts, the poverty line is the existence of less than 1.25 US dollars a day. However, this does not take into account households locatedquite a bit above this limit. Therefore, a situation arises when inequality and need in the country are growing, while the number of people below the poverty line is decreasing.
Relative poverty
Sometimes people consider themselves poor, not because they lack something, but because their income is much lower than that of friends, neighbors, relatives. Relative poverty is a measure of how far you don't fit into the boundaries set by the people around you. For example, your circle of acquaintances is quite we althy: your sister and her husband are resting in the Canary Islands, a friend goes shopping in Paris. Instead, you can spend your holidays only in the native Crimea. Of course, comparing yourself to your friends, you call your family poor. But if you think about it, other people can't even afford a trip to a sanatorium outside the city, so it's unfair to consider yourself a beggar in such a situation.
In a word, relative poverty is not meeting the standards of decent living that surround you. Often she tries on the incomes of the population: if they grow, and the distribution of funds remains the same, then this type of need is a constant.
Townsend Concept
He viewed poverty as a state in which the joys of life familiar to a person fade into the background or become inaccessible. Due to circumstances (loss of job, lack of financial resources), he experiences hardships that change his usual way of life. For example, an entrepreneur travels tooffice in your own car. But the country was hit by an economic crisis, gasoline prices skyrocketed, and the population's wages remained the same. Because of this, a person has to give up the car in favor of cheaper travel on the subway. This does not mean that he became a beggar - rather, temporarily constrained in cash.
Townsend argues that relative poverty is income below the level at which most of society continues to be. The analyst in his writings often used the concept of multidimensional deprivation, by which he meant the disadvantageous position of an individual or his family against the background of the general mass of people. It can be material, which is characterized by such indicators as clothing, food, living and working conditions, as well as social - this is the essence of employment, level of education, ways of spending leisure time.
Two directions concept
The level of poverty is a rather abstract concept, which has no clear framework or boundaries. Therefore, the concept of Townsend defines it in a narrower and broader sense. First, according to the analyst, when assessing the level of need, one should focus on the analysis of the availability of funds for the purchase of goods for a normal life. In this case, the indicator of personal (median) income that a person has is taken into account. Thus, in Scandinavia, the threshold of relative poverty corresponds to 60% of material resources, in Europe - 50%, in the USA - 40%.
Secondly, relative need is viewed on a more global scale. In this casetake into account the opportunity to fully participate in the life of society, relying on available resources. Interestingly, absolute poverty is a deeper concept. Its range does not match the relative one. The first can be eliminated, while the second will always be present, since inequality in society is an ineradicable and eternal phenomenon. You can talk about relative poverty even when all the citizens of the country suddenly become millionaires.
Deprivation approach
It is based not on the amount of money, resources and income, but on the level of human consumption of certain goods and services. In this case, the poverty line is a position in society when an individual does not have access to certain things, so in the end he buys their cheaper counterparts. For example, the girl Anya wants a mobile phone. She has no money for a brand new fashionable sensory device, but the stock that she keeps in her personal piggy bank allows her to become the owner of a fairly good push-button device.
The deprivation approach also implies the refusal of the population from certain services and purchases due to low income. Thus, a person buys fewer goods in the supermarket, refuses the services of hairdressers, walks to work. Here, based on the level of need, the main emphasis is on consumption. But it is rather difficult to determine the poverty threshold: the population may have good financial reserves, but for some time give up expensive goods, given the seasonality of one or anothershopping.
Causes of poverty
There may be many of them. Sometimes people are not able to influence the circumstances that pushed them beyond the line of need. In other cases, they themselves are to blame for the circumstances. Causes of poverty can be grouped:
- Economic - low wages, unemployment, crisis in the country, monetary devaluation.
- Political - war, forced migration.
- Social and medical - old age, disability, high incidence in the state.
- Demographic - incomplete family, having children, dependents.
- Qualification - limited knowledge and skills, inaccessibility of education and its low level.
- Geographic - the presence of depressed regions, their uneven development.
- Personal - alcoholism, addiction to drugs, gambling addiction.
Whatever the causes of poverty, the main thing to remember is that you can get out of a difficult situation. The one who says: "Poverty is a vice" is mistaken. No, this is nothing to be ashamed of. Need is a temporary phenomenon, you can always influence it with a great desire.
Explaining the causes of poverty
There are two approaches that compare poverty with a social phenomenon in society:
- Cultural explanations. Adherents of this theory say that a certain behavior is formed in the society of the poor: fatalism, discouragement, humility, disappointment. Instead of acting, people consider themselves doomed, startsleep or beg. In this case, poverty is a kind of hereditary disease transmitted at the gene level. Experts advise abolishing state benefits, pensions and benefits for such a population in order to push them to look for work and show the slightest initiative.
- Structural explanations. Based on this theory, analysts say that poverty occurs when a state experiences an economic downturn. The uneven distribution of material we alth among the population during these periods is felt especially acutely. They also draw attention to changes in the structure of the international labor market. For example, a country often keeps wages artificially low to attract more investment.
In addition to the above reasons, poverty can also arise due to other circumstances specific to a particular person, his way of life and the policy of the state in which he lives.
What does poverty lead to?
Here there are also two interesting theories, whose adherents look at this social problem in different ways and offer diametrically opposite ways to eliminate it. Representatives of the first view poverty as a positive phenomenon. Analysts say that it becomes a factor that pushes a person to action, makes him improve himself and his skills, and bring new ideas to the surface. As a result, society develops, works, and the economic situation of the state improves. This theory, called Darwinist, is supported by liberals.
Another current is called equalizing. His followers believe that poverty is evil. In their opinion, poverty will not force a person to work more to provide himself with everything he needs. On the contrary, it will lead to the fact that he will simply gradually slide to the very bottom of society. Analysts are sure that in order to avoid the complete degradation of an individual who becomes desperate and lack of initiative because of the need that binds him, it is necessary to divide the resources and funds existing in the country as equally as possible among all citizens.
Negative Consequences
The level of poverty is the catalyst that determines the atmosphere throughout the state. Agree, if people suffer from poverty, tension arises in society, the number of crimes grows. Having dropped his hands from hopelessness, a person steals from the state, begins to earn money illegally, evades taxes, takes bribes to feed his family. Sometimes he even goes for a more serious crime: murder for profit, robbery, theft. A society suffering from poverty is often sick due to unsanitary conditions. It is characterized by a very high mortality rate and the risk of spreading epidemics.
Hereditary poverty is especially tragic. After all, among the poor, gifted kids are often born who can in the future create a cure for cancer, invent a flying car, or come up with a way to combat global warming. But this will never happen: the lack of finances and resources leads to the fact that the child cannot get a normal education and become the new Einstein. Alsosince childhood, he has been sure that all his attempts to change his life are equal to zero, therefore he is forced to silently put up with circumstances and ruin his talents.
Poverty
Citizens of African republics, Asian states, some powers of Eastern Europe suffer the most from the need. In 2014, experts ranked the poorest countries, taking into account the poverty gap - this is the difference in income between different segments of the population, their ratio. They also paid attention to such criteria as the degree of economic development, the standard of living and freedom, and sovereignty. As a result, Egypt, Zambia, India, Senegal, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana, Algeria, Nepal, Bosnia, Honduras, Guatemala were the poorest.
At the same time, people in Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, Finland and Luxembourg live as well as possible. The United States in the ranking of the most successful powers took only 11th place, Russia - 32nd, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia - 45th, 48th and 49th, Belarus - 56th, Ukraine - 68th. This list shows how badly or well the population of a particular state lives. But it will always change when other indicators such as the level of education, the quality of he alth care, and employment opportunities are also evaluated.
