The Daily Life of Poverty

If you’ve been following me, you’ve probably heard me mention more than once how global poverty is the root of most, if not all, global issues. In this blog, I’ll finally back it up with facts that will illustrate how far-reaching poverty can go. Poverty has the capability to branch out to other problems such as: health, education, economy, crime, gender,

Health

This problem is also closely tied with hunger and malnutrition. As impoverished citizens don’t have enough money to purchase nutritional food or lack the access of nutritional food as most impoverished nations do, their state of health decreases. Without nutrition, the impoverished are more susceptible to diseases, lowering life expectancy and also survivability rates of young children that are in dire need of the nutrition. Also besides physical health, mental health is also deteriorated by poverty since poverty destroys social cohesion and inclusion.

Education

Education is one of the most effective ways of enhancing socioeconomic status, however poverty also takes away education from people. Many impoverished families lack the funds to send their children to school. The price of supplies, tuition, and/or a method of transportation of school is often too much for a family. And even if poor families are able to send their children to school, studies have proven that their children have performed more slowly than their more affluent peers.

Economy

When people are stricken by poverty, as shown above, they usually lack education. This leads to unemployment which hurts the economy. In terms of the product possibilities curve for productivity, unemployment drags curve down, hurting all members of the economy.

Crime

As impoverished people are usually homeless and, as shown above, unemployed, there is much social unrest as to when they need the objects needed to survive. This leads to an increased amount of crime in a society, which in turn, by broken window theory, creates more crime. Thus poverty also plays a role in destroying not only the economy, but also society.

Gender

As much suffering males do go through, women take more of the brunt of poverty. As many impoverished countries have social restraints on women, making it harder for them to receive an education and become employed, they are more likely to be impoverished, making it easier for others to trample upon women’s rights.

As you read through this, a major point I hope you derived was how interlinked all of these problems are. Along with poverty being the root of most problems, it is often the case that it is vice versa as well. If you empower women, you see poverty being alleviated. If you bring education to more impoverished people, you can see economic benefits of them now being employed, reducing crime rates, and getting rid of poverty as well. Solving poverty may be the key to saving the world, however, by tackling other global issues as well, one may help in solving poverty, thus contributing to saving the world.