Children and Absolute Poverty

Question:

Discuss about the Global Poverty for Politics and Policy Making.

Poverty prevents people from accessing their needs and wants. There are many types of poverty, which are still prevalent in the society. Among them is the absolute poverty, which tends to deprive people from their needs such as shelter and food. Although it has been believed that to eradicate the absolute poverty, which still has its existence in the modern world of today and it, has become quite relevant among women, children, elderly and refugees (Kendall, 2012). Therefore, in this context, it is important to take into account why children and women of the society incorporating refugees, elderly as well as the refugees still suffering from the impact of the absolute poverty? This relevant question would be discussed in the following essay in order to examine why the absolute poverty impacts and influences women, refugees, children and elderly people more than the other population.

Children are regarded as the worst victims of the absolute poverty and it is quite hard for them to coup up with the battle of poverty at a very tender age. However, Children in the developing world are regarded as the ones who are suffering from the absolute poverty. The number of children who are suffering from such poverty even in the developed countries is still staggering (James & Prout, 2015).  According to the council of social services of Australia, there are three million people who are living in the poverty even in the developed countries living in the poverty of Australia where there are 731,000 are the children (Macionis, Plummer & Plummer, 2012). However, with time, the aspect and framework of the traditional nuclear families have transformed which resulted in the children who are living with the mother who are unmarried or widowed. With the families who failed to provide the children along with their basic needs of the food shelter and clothing. Children often run away in order to live in the streets from home and start dreaming about leading a new life and look forward to survive with a renewal hope. The different organizations, which are tackling the child poverty, have estimated there are existences of 100 million children of city who still exist all over the world stealing and begging for food. In the other countries around the world, due to the traditional and religious beliefs, people do not believe in using contraceptives or believe in framing family plan. This results in family having lower levels of lower income and the resources that is having a higher number of children and finally failing to meet the basic wants of the children. This resulted in the increasing rates of the mortality among the children in the developing nations as the children were suffering from malnutrition and the deficiency of the health resources at a younger age (James & Prout, 2015).

Women and Absolute Poverty

It does not matter whether it is the India’s paddy fields or New York’s Multinational Company, the working women are always undervalued unrecognized and not paid. However, in today’s 21^st century, the wider gap between men and women is still prevalent. It has gone much worse in the developing countries where the roles of the women are to conceive and involve doing their duties of household. Women were not allowed to take education from the younger age and instead of this, the women are forced to do the jobs of household like cleaning and cooking. The women of the developing countries, along with women of the developed countries, like United States of America and Australia face poverty. Almost one fourth of black and Hispanic women exist in poverty and one third of women who runs their family are needy. As the mother is the chief source of care for her children, in case of divorce and separation, mother is in the responsible position to bring up her kids (Mohammadpur, Karimi & Alizadeh, 2014). Thus, in scenarios like where women are less paid than the men are, the women who have to bring up their children are bound to fall in poverty. In some of these cases, women face absolute poverty as it became difficult to raise the children along with satisfy own needs with low income. Feminizing poverty arises with the notion of unfair share of rights and property and the number of women are in the poverty line. The percentage of poor women is 60-70% of the total poor population (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2014). The factors that situate women in the feminizing poverty are payment inequality, dissimilar opportunities and the results of readjustment policies. The factors like different economic support to individual women and remuneration, war and migration, disappearing family and supporting structure of the ethnic group, the women face feminization of poverty and it aids to create a particular section of women who are the caretaker women who are the poorest group in the poor women.

The numbers of people are huge who are dislocated from their own land. The reason for this relocation might be environmental disaster or civil war and for this reason, the refugees have to leave their own land and property. The other reasons might be economic or political and the fleeing people wanted to avoid tyranny or war (Yoshikawa et al. 2012; Macionis & Plummer, 2012). They have to leave all the possession when relocating, which result in leaving with nothing but only the dress what they are wearing and carrying. They have fear as they could be accused for illegal entry in the new country. The controversial arguments of the refugees are that they get attention from humanitarian side as they have no land however, they face problems related to racism and crossing of symbolic border in the new country. It depends on the host nation whether to accept or reject them (Chatzitheochari & Arber 2012).Suppose if the hosting country accepts the refugees who want to cross the border and arrive at the new nation, the chance of success is very low as hosting nation shares different language, education and recruiting system. After losing almost everything and coming to the hosting country, most of the refugees naturally face poverty and more appropriately say absolute poverty, as they are incapable of earn their living in the new country for language and cultural difference (Chatzitheochari & Arber 2012).

Refugees and Absolute Poverty

 The number of aging population is higher in the modern world and this is the most important feature of this world. According to the statistics of the United Nation, the number of aging population is higher in the modern world and this is one of the noticeable features of the contemporary world (Wang, Shang & Xu, 2012; Biddle, 2014). It is almost double by the middle of the century. Most of the elderly people have worked throughout the whole life, however, after the retirement they face poverty or absolute poverty. Most of retired people performs job, which takes most of their lifetime, however, after retirement, the retired person have no source of income, thus, they are unable to survive in the condition with increasing price of food, housing and healthcare. They have no source of income and their health condition is declining, in this situation, they face absolute poverty. However, with the increasing rise of the aging population, the well-being of the elderly people is becoming a social issue. The Government should look into the matter and give chances where they can live in pleasurable condition. The problem with the elderly people is that they spent most of their income in rearing their children and educating them, thus, they are left with almost no money in their hand. After maturing, the children are more focused on their own well-being than their elderly parents because of the individualistic society in the modern world. This could be one of the causes for elderly people experiencing poverty in the old age after incoming lifelong (Ball, 2012).

One who lacks income and resources is suffering from poverty. The children, refugees, women and elderly suffer more in poverty than the other victims do. The women, elderly, refuges and children face much poverty due to drawbacks facing by them. It is true that poverty damages young people and men (Biddle, 2014). However, the disadvantages draw them in much poverty. One has to work hard enough to contribute to the society to eradicate poverty. Poverty does not differentiate among the old, young, men or women. Even the groups, which face absolute poverty, suffer more as they face most of the disadvantages. The reasons of poverty might be unequal wage gap between two sexes or war. It is still in conflict to identify the reasons behind leaving everything and continuing the lives. It can be said when the absolute poverty will end as it is there in the society from the beginning of the time. This rises to the creation of the vital gap between the rich and the poor.

References

Ball, S. J. (2012). Politics and policy making in education: Explorations in sociology. Routledge.

Biddle, B. (2014). Social class, poverty and education. Routledge.

Chatzitheochari, S., & Arber, S. (2012). Class, gender and time poverty: a time?use analysis of British workers’ free time resources. The British journal of sociology, 63(3), 451-471.

Cunningham, J., & Cunningham, S. (2014). Sociology and social work. Learning Matters.

Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., & Carr, D. S. (2016). Introduction to sociology. WW Norton.

James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.). (2015). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood. Routledge.

Kendall, D. (2012). Sociology in our times. Cengage Learning.

Macionis & Plummer. (2012). Sociology: A global introduction (5th ed.). Pearson Education, Essex, UK 

Macionis, Plummer, & Plummer, Kenneth. (2012). Sociology: A global introduction (5th Ed.). Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Mohammadpur, A., Karimi, J., & Alizadeh, M. (2014). Women and culture of poverty (a qualitative study of the culture of poverty among the Iranian caretaker women). Quality & Quantity, 48(1), 1-14.

Wang, X., Shang, X., & Xu, L. (2012). Subjective Well?being Poverty of the Elderly Population in China. Social Policy & Administration, 45(6), 714-731.

Yoshikawa, Hirokazu, Aber, J. Lawrence, & Beardslee, William R. (2012). The Effects of Poverty on the Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health of Children and Youth: Implications for Prevention. American Psychologist, 67(4), 272-284.