Can we equate ‘poverty’ with ‘poor living’? Elaborate your answer. (UPSC CSE Mains 2017 - Sociology, Paper 1)
Poverty is the condition of not having access to material resources, income, or wealth.
- According to structural-functionalists, stratification and inequality are actually constructive phenomena that benefit society —specifically, that the privileges attached to high- status incentive motivated, qualified people to work to achieve those positions. According to this logic, inequality ensures that the most functionally important jobs are filled by the best qualified people.
- Conflict theorists argue that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful to society, and that it results in competition between the rich and the poor as individuals act for their own economic advantage. Conflict theorists hold that competition and inequality are not inevitable but are created and maintained by people trying to gain access to scarce resources.
Poverty operates in a dynamic cycle, with the effects of poverty increasing the likelihood that it will be transferred between generations.
- Poor people are less likely than others to have financial capital, education, and social capital (connections to people with specialized knowledge or in powerful positions). Without these resources, poverty -stricken individuals experience disadvantages which in turn increase their poverty.
- The cycle of poverty can trap families in poverty for generations, and often becomes widespread when economies undergo restructuring from manufacturing-based economies to service-based economies.
- Low-quality education, hunger, and homelessness can all perpetuate poverty by creating barriers to individual economic advancement.
The basic premise of the poverty cycle the idea that poverty is a dynamic process—its effects may also be its causes. In economics, the cycle of poverty has been defined as a phenomenon where poor families become trapped in poverty for at least three generations. These families have either limited or nonexistent social and economic resources. There are many disadvantages that collectively work in a circular process to make it virtually impossible for individuals to break the cycle of poverty. Definitionally, poor people are less likely to have financial capital, education, and social capital (connections to people with specialized knowledge or in powerful positions). Without these resources, poverty-stricken individuals experience disadvantages that, in turn, increase their poverty.
Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger, or in extreme cases starvation, and also exhibit disproportionately high rates of disease. These illnesses can be disabling, preventing people in poverty from working in certain occupations or at certain capacities, thus reducing one’s opportunities to improve their social and economic status.
Finally, poverty increases the risk of homelessness. Slum-dwellers, who make up a third of the world’s urban population, live in poverty no better, if not worse, than rural people, who are the traditional victims of poverty in the developing world. People who are homeless or live in slums have low access to neighborhood resources, high status social contacts, or basic services such as a phone line. This limits their ability to improve their economic position, again perpetuating poverty.
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