Poverty and its far-reaching Effects
Despite our world developing rapidly in technology and improving so much in problem solving techniques, there are numerous issues humans cannot handle. Everyday there are reports of hunger strikes and other natural disasters, these are amongst the emergent situations humanity cannot manage effectively without far reaching effects. However, on top of all these, is poverty. Poverty is a cosmopolitan problem in many societies and any government overlooking it, puts the citizens’ lives in jeopardy. Therefore,knowing and eradicating the causes and effects of poverty in the today’s world is very important.
Historically poverty was initiated mostly by colonization and cultural factors. This means that the most affected parts of the World were in Africa and other areas where rich countries drained resources and exported slaves to their countries. The continent of Africa in particular is very exposed to poverty and hunger strikes as a result of colonization that made these countries lack capital and access to effective education. More so, wars and political turmoil led these countries to diminish their initial quality of life.
Poverty also has a direct link to overpopulation and unplanned births. The population growth of a certain area highly determines its status quo in regard to their quality of life. A country however, can boost its productivity agriculturally for instance, to improve the livelihood of the growing population. In such countries, the effects of poverty are not very apparent unlike in some other countries where their soils are less fertile or the government is not as concerned for its citizens. In these countries products are more expensive due to the high demand from the population and this results to the poor becoming poorer and the rich getting richer.
The poor in a cosmopolitan perspective possess the same psychological traits; only few among these persons try to improve their financial status. In most developed countries for instance, the United States, the poor look up to the welfare payments provided to them by the government. This stagnates their ability to grow ideas of promoting their finances, nevertheless, amongst them there are some who truly work harder to find a constant financial supply. Lacking education or otherwise lacking the finance to facilitate it, makes the poor unqualified for well-salaried jobs and often they result to working as cleaners and maids. Instead of these persons using the money earned to at least acquire some formal skills that would give better jobs, they opt to maintain their lifestyle by sticking to their routine hand to mouth status quo.
Children born in these situations of poverty often will have a low birth rate; this has been linked to a lot of mental and physical deformities that are otherwise preventable. Making the matter worse these children end up malnourished and even may die before celebrating their first birthday. If these children survive they look sickly and more so have poor immunity that makes them often sick and as a result miss many school days; thus,altering their performance. There are many childhood diseases that can be explicitly linked to poverty, these conditions mostly are apparent in Africa where poverty is wide spread in many societies.
Stress in the family can also result from wanting economic status of the family. Studies have shown that poor families undergo more stress in comparison to the middle-class or rich families (Hinders, Dana & Harris). The events around these families are labelled bad luck and financial uncertainty is a major causative of stress among them. From these financial frustration, the parents tend to be more ruthless and often haul insults at their children and issue endless threats; as a result of this negative environment stimulation,the children become criminal minded and can easily be involved in crime.
Breaking the chain of poverty is extremely hard for the victims. Children from poor families in the job-market are easily disqualified from position out of their incompetence (Hinders, Dana & Harris). This ensures the cycle of poverty continues unless the cycle is broken in some special way.
The poor kids even before birth, poverty and negative situations awaits them. The mother is mostly uninsured meaning they only get access to poor prenatal care and are predisposed to many medical conditions that have effects to the foetus (Hinders, Dana & Harris). After birth, the child is again exposed to houses that are poorly ventilated that will result in further complications e.g. Asthma and other respiratory infections. Due to these adverse and harsh environments and exposures the teenagers in poverty are more likely to indulge in drugs or risky sexual activities. This is the time which they should be laying useful foundations of their future (Hinders, Dana & Harris). This means that the society all along will be leading a low-quality life style among all ages.
Poverty is a worldwide concern to all countries; its effects are far reaching even to the developed countries. Each economically challenged society has its unique causes of the poverty, it’s the government task to identify these causatives and address them appropriately. Policies that help in breaking the chain of poverty from these families should be laid down to ease off their psychological pressure. For instance, the government should make basic education free and more so, ensure the standard quality is delivered just like in affluent schools. Health services should also be affordable and immunization for all, made free and compulsory to prevent opportune diseases in poverty.
Works Cited
Hinders, Dana, and Bronwyn Harris. “What are the Long-Term Effects of Poverty?” WiseGEEK. Conjecture Corporation, 17 Apr. 2017. Web. 02 May 20