Issues Related to Poverty

Poverty is one of the persistent problems in most societies today, especially the developed nations. Policy makers have been focusing on ending or eliminating poverty throughout. Elimination or reduction of poverty levels has also been a key interest of the public in all countries (Kabeer 2011). Irrespective of presence of numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate it, no significant achievement has been attained in most developing nations. Also, the problem seems to be far from being solved in some of the developed nations such as the US. One of the key reasons why the problem is not solved effectively is the failure by policy makers and the public to address the key or the fundamental causes of poverty. One of the fundamental causes of poverty is institutionalized inequality (Kabeer 2011). The public and policy makers hardly focus on solving institutionalized inequality as a way of addressing the problem of poverty. The issue of persistence of poverty is compounded by difficulties that are encountered in defining and measuring poverty (Kabeer 2011). In this regard, this paper examines the reasons why policy makers and the public fail to solve the problem of poverty through focusing on institutionalized inequality and instead, focus on poverty. In addition, the paper explains the difficulties that are encountered in poverty measurement and definition

DISCUSSION

One of the key reasons why policy makers and the public have been focusing on ending poverty rather than institutionalized inequality is the fact that people do not want to change their cultural values and nature of the institutions that contribute to an increase in inequality. As such, they find it better to address poverty instead of changing their values and institutions. For instance, the nature of family institutions in societies where patriarchal family structures are dominant is a major cause of poverty (Unterhalte 2012). This is due to the fact that the role of undertaking paid jobs and feeding the family is given to men. On the other hand, women are required to focus on feeding the children and the husband and carry out household chores. In such societies, women have limited opportunities to undertake jobs that can enhance their economic prowess (Unterhalte 2012). Such patriarchal systems are embedded in cultural values and are common in most developing nations where poverty is rampant. If women were given opportunities to undertake paid jobs without limitations in such societies, poverty at household levels would definitely reduce (Kabeer 2011). However, changing the patriarchal structure of family institutions is difficult since people in such societies may not be willing to embrace the change, given that they still focus on maintaining their cultural values. The notion affects leaders as well, who are also the policy makers. Instead of interfering with culture and family institutions, both the policy makers and the public would rather focus on other ways of ending or reducing poverty (Kabeer 2011).

Another reason is that policy makers and some members of the public would like inequality to persist since it is functional to them. For instance, most employers would like to maintain their statuses as employers and thus, they hardly support strategies that would empower all people in the society economically (Lawson 2012). In the same vein, policy makers in most societies wield their political power from their economic prowess. In order to gain support from citizens, they promise to solve the problem of poverty as one of their key objectives. However, their real intention is not to establish ways of ending poverty since such a move is likely to affect their political prowess (Lawson 2012). This is common in societies where the gap between the rich and the poor is quite big and the minimum wage is not high enough to raise economic statuses of citizens above poverty line. Also, the problem is persistent in some of the developed nations. For instance, evidence from statistics indicates that the level of inequality in the US has been rising constantly since 1970s (Lawson 2012). Between 1979 and 2007, the level of income received by 1% of the highest earning households in the US increased by 275% (Stelzner 2015). On the other hand, the level of income received by 5% lowest earning households increased by only 18%. In 1982, 1% highest earning households received around 10% of the total pre-tax income, while 90% of households from the bottom earned around 64%. By 2012, estimates indicated that the amount received by the 1% highest earning households had risen to around 22%, while that for the bottom 90% had fallen to around 50% (Stelzner 2015). In addition, the difference between the median income received by blacks and that of whites has persisted. Estimates indicate that the gap between the two medians increased from around $19,000 to approximately $27,000 between 1967 and 2011 (Kanbur & Sumner 2012). Numerous scholars have shown that lower levels of poverty would be attained in the US if the level of inequality was not rising. The issue is that the policy makers and the rich would like to maintain their statuses through maintaining their economic gap with other people in the society (Lawson 2012).. They achieve this through maintaining institutionalized inequality.

It has been difficult to come up with a standard definition of poverty nationally and internationally. It has been even more problematic to establish a standard way of measuring it. Firstly, the concept of poverty is applied in the description of lack of ability to afford basic needs such as food, clothing, water and medical care. At the same time, the concept is applied in a relative manner; to describe inability of an individual to afford what everyone else around him or her can afford (Cook, and Pincus 2014). The two views of poverty are the key sources of the problem associated with defining it. In some societies, for instance, there are instances where all people have ample access to the key basic needs needed to support life. However, a person who does not have ability to purchase a car in such society is perceived by those who can afford as being poor. At the same time, the perception changes from one society to another. For instance, a person who is perceived as poor in the US may not be perceived as such in developing African nations. Thus, it is difficult to establish whether poverty should be defined in relative terms or in absolute terms (Kabeer 2011).

Further, there is no single standard of measuring poverty. In some societies, poverty is measured through assessing the material properties that an individual has. For instance, a Maasai man in Kenya who does not have a herd of cattle is perceived as being poor. On the other hand, poverty in societies such as the US and UK is defined in terms of level of income (Kabeer 2011). In addition, the item used for measuring poverty may not give an appropriate picture. For instance, the fact that a person earns low income does not imply that the person has permanent low income. As well, purchasing power differs from one location to another. Depending on purchasing power, a person who earns a low income in a particular location can use it to purchase more goods than what another person staying in the city can purchase using higher income (Kabeer 2011).

CONCLUSION

Overall, the public and policy makers play a major role in enhancing the persistence of poverty in most societies. They do so through supporting institutions that lead poverty to thrive. Family institutions enhance poverty in cases where family values limit women from engaging in valuable economic activities. Even though people in societies where such values are propagated may understand the economic benefit associated with allowing women to engage in valuable economic activities, they may not be willing to relinquish their cultural values. In addition, private and public organizations enhance poverty through limiting some people from accessing economic opportunities that are accessed by others. Employers and policy makers in some societies support inequality since they would like to maintain their high political, social and economic statuses. The lack of standard definition and standard way of measuring poverty makes it difficult to address it.

References

Cook, Sarah, and Jonathan Pincus. 2014. “Poverty, Inequality and Social Protection in

Southeast Asia: An Introduction” Journal of Southeast Asian Economies 32(1): 1-17

Kabeer, Naila. 2011. “Gendered Poverty Traps: Inequality and Care in a Globalised

World.” European Journal of Development Research 23: 527–530.

Kanbur^, Ravi, and Andy Sumner. 2012. “Poor Countries or Poor People? Development

Assistance and the New Geography of Global Poverty.” Journal of International Development 24(6): 686-695

Lawson, Victoria. 2012. “Decentring poverty studies: Middle class alliances and the

social construction of poverty.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 33(1): 1-19

Stelzner, Mark. 2015. Economic Inequality and Policy Control in the United States.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Unterhalte, Elaine. 2012. “Inequality, capabilities and poverty in four African countries:

girls’ voice, schooling, and strategies for institutional change.” Cambridge Journal of Education 3(2): 307-325

CLICK BUTTON TO ORDER NOW