The poverty in the country

Poverty means a situation in which people cannot enjoy the basic needs of life. Almost, people are supremely poor in a specific province. They live below the poverty line. They lead to very miserable lives due to poverty. Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as food, nutrition, education, health care, and shelter. It is mainly caused because of fewer available incomes compared with others in the society. Poverty is not faced by a single person, it runs in a society. The public do lack of basic needed materials. Poor people have to live in bad houses, wear ugly clothes, they can’t go out for an expensive meal, eat delicious food and have the worst healthcare. There are several causes of poverty in the country. These causes will affect the others aspect.

First and foremost, the causes of poverty is lack of education. In this era of globalization, education is crucial in determining the standard of living. the level of education that will determine whether a person gets a good job or not. this is because, the employer is currently only looking for highly experienced and highly educated employees to be employed. Therefore, in order to avoid belonging to poverty, people need to equip themselves with sufficient knowledge and high level of education. In America, many people from the lower class simply cannot afford to attend college and earn a degree. Therefore, the only jobs they can get are low paying with little to no benefits and then they have to support themselves and their families on a low salary. This may slowly drive a family into poverty. As of the year 2008, the average earnings for someone with just a high school diploma was about $28,000, which is just above the poverty line for a family.

Furthermore, one of the factors that generate poverty is the prevalence of natural disasters. Disasters can lead to poverty for some countries that depend only on natural resources and crops for life. Disasters such as droughts, floods and others will affect the economy of a dependent family entirely from natural resources. For example, as a low-lying country situated on the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable countries to violent weather patterns that regularly destroy crops, homes and lives. Since agriculture supports 47 percent of the population, the losses can be especially devastating: a massive blow from a flood or a cyclone can cut off villages’ access to food, electricity and water.

Besides that, rapid growth of population is the other causes of poverty of the people. The growth of population exceeds the rate of growth in national income. Population growth not only creates difficulties in the removal of poverty but also lowers the per capita income which tends to increase poverty. The burden of this reduction in per capita income is borne heavily by the poor people. Population growth at a faster rate increases labor supply which tends to lower the wage rate. For example, rapid population growth since 1951 is another important factor responsible for persisting poverty in India. Population in India has increased from 36 crores in 1951 to 102.7 crores in 2001, that is, 66 crores people have been added to the Indian population in the last about 50 years since independence. Rapid population growth causes excessive sub-division and fragmentation of holdings. As a result, per person available land has greatly declined so that households do not have access to sufficient land to produce enough output and income for them.

The effects of poverty is the existence of child labor. When the parents just don’t have enough money to make ends meet they usually force their children out of school and send them to work out on the streets, haciendas or factories. Earning money for their food and shelter became their sole purpose, no longer the education that should have served to bring them a better future. According to the National Statistics Office, 3.6 million Philippine children, aged 5-17, are child laborers. Children from the ages 5 to about 17 are usually the ones found laboring under the hot sun or behind machines for small companies or syndicates. This figure alone comprises roughly 15.9% of the total Philippine population or one out of six children. In a breakdown, 216,000 are within 5-9 years old, 1.6 million for the 10-14 years old and 1.8 million are 15-17 years old.

Another effects of poverty is increase in criminal case. The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime found that poverty had a significant and direct effect on young people’s likelihood to engage in violence at age 15. Young people living in a family where the head of the household was unemployed were also more likely to participate in criminal behavior. Even poor individuals with “low risk” backgrounds were more likely to engage in violence. This means that for certain types of young people, living in a poor household increases their risk of engaging in violence beyond what one would expect. In Malaysia, robbery and house-breaking crimes increase each year especially during festive seasons. According to Utusan Online newspaper’s, in 2009 during the same period, the number of home-breaking crimes increased 175 cases from 674 to 849 cases.