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Thursday, September 3, 2015

Effects of poverty on society





Consequences of poverty on people
The vicious cycles of poverty mentioned before mean that lifelong handicaps and troubles that are passed on from one generation to another. To name just a few of these hereditary plagues: no school or education, child labor to help the parents, lack of basic hygiene, transmission of diseases. Unemployment and very low incomes create an environment where kids can't simply go to school. As for those who can actually go to school, they simply don't see how hard work can improve their life as they see their parents fail at the task every day.

Other plagues associated with poverty:
  • Alcohol & substance abuse, from kids in African slums to adults in the US, this is a very common self-destructing habit often taken as a way to cope with huge amounts of stress and... well, despair;
  • Crippling accidents due to unsafe working environments (machinery in factories or agriculture) as well as other work hazards such as lead poisoning, pesticide poisoning, bites from wild animals due to lack of proper protection;
  • Poor housing & living conditions, a classic cause of diseases;
  • Water and food-related diseases, simply because the poor can't always afford "safe" foods.
Effects of poverty on society as a whole

In the end, poverty is a major cause of social tensions and threatens to divide a nation because of the issue of inequalities, in particular income inequality. This happens when wealth in a country is poorly distributed among its citizens. In other words, when a tiny minority has all the money.

The feature of a rich or developed country for example is the presence of a middle class, but recently we've seen even Western countries gradually losing their middle class, hence the increasing number of riots and clashes. In a society, poverty is a very dangerous factor that can destabilize and entire country. The Arab Spring is another good example, in all of the countries concerned, the revolts started because of the lack of jobs and high poverty levels. This has led to most governments being overthrown).

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