Global Poverty
Introduction:
This research has discussed
about global poverty and its trends and factors that are increasing poverty at
global level. There is
also in an important fact about the world that is required to be considered
that is global poverty (Hossain, 2009) . The numbers of poor
people are also increasing with the passage of time (Macionis & Jansson.,
2000) .
According to
Webster’s dictionary, poverty is defined as lack of money of material
possession. Poverty is based on the level of income and the access to the basic
necessities of life such as water, food and shelter. Poverty is not confined to
some countries or nations instead it exists all over the world. Poverty has
become a global consideration. Moreover it is also increasing with every day
therefore in order to control the global poverty some serious steps are required
to be taken immediately (King & Bertino, 2009) . According to the World
Bank estimation, 10.7% of total world population lived below US$1.90 per day. Despite
of reduction in poverty rate, there can be seen uneven progress (Worldbank.org, 2016) .
The World Bank
has revived the poverty line in 2015 and as per the new data the person how
live on less than $2.25 per day is
considered poor and how live on less than $1.9 per day is considered extremely
poor(Thompson, 2013) . World Bank has also
provided the figures of poor people around the world. According to the report
of World Bank around 702.1 million people are poor(Van der Weide &
Milanovic, 2014) . Likewise 1 billion children are also living
in poverty. According to a report of UNICEF every day around 22,000 children
die due to poverty. Moreover almost 80% of the total population around the world
are living on less than $10 per day(Vannini, 2016.) .
However poor
people are unable to enjoy the minimum level of material possession. There are
multiple factors associated with poverty. These factors include governance
factors, economical factors, environmental factors, demographical factors,
geographical factors as well as social factors. It is also possible that a
person might face more than one of these above mentioned factors.
Aim of
Research: The aim of the research is to analyse the role of social in-equality
and social stratification in the Global poverty. Global poverty should be
controlled and this research has conducted in order to analyze the factors that
are contributing towards global poverty. It is aimed to understand that how
these aforementioned factors are impacting on the Global poverty and what are
their consequences. Will there be any positive effect on the global poverty, if
social in-equality and social-stratification is controlled.
There are two
other important things that I also need to answer is what is social in
quality? And what is social
stratification? Social inequality can be described as the un-equal distribution
of economic asserts and other facilities among the different individual living
in the same society. Social in-equality is referred as the existence of unequal
rewards and opportunities for people belong to different social positions or
status within the same society.
Social in-equality can occur on
different level in s society such as religious level, political level or class
level. People belong to the different class, religion or political view can
face economic in-equality within the society. Social in-equality also exists on
the bases of race and gender. It can
emerge due to the prevalence of social stereotypes or society’s understands
about the appropriate gender roles. Moreover discriminatory legislation also
promotes social in-equality(Macionis &
Jansson., 2000) .
Social
in-equality caused status anxiety, anger and stress among the people which
leads them to bad health. Moreover it also causes economic instability, financial
crisis, and increase in deb and inflation, which leads the effected people to
the criminal activities in order to earn their livings(King & Bertino, 2009) .
All the people living in the same society are different from each
other on the basis of their sex, age and personal characteristics. However
apart from these natural differences people are also categorized within the
society according to the socially approved criteria, such as social status,
occupation, wealth and income(King &
Bertino, 2009) .
The hierarchical ranking of the people based on the above mentions categories
is called as social stratification(King &
Bertino, 2009) .
Social
stratification refers to the division of society in to different layers or
strata. Individuals belong to the same
strata shares the same characterises and they usually have the similar life
style. These ranks refer to permanent relationship of superiority and
subordination among the people of different ranks. Social stratification is
based on the class, caste, estates and slavery. People have unequal access to
the power, wealth and prestige as per the rank they belong (Giddens, 1996) .
Social
stratification creates chaos among the people of the society. Lower level
people don’t have the access to the good education and jobs opportunities. People
belong to different categories will have less harmony for each other. People
become frustrated if they won’t get equal rights and facilities like other
people of the society. It develops hatred and grudge among the people. Social
stratification also increases inflation and poverty in the society. It might
leads people towards negative activities.
Chapter
Support: Since Globalization has advanced over the last century consequently
also increased inequality in wealth and social aspects. The gap between the
rich and poor is extending with the passage of time. According to the World
Bank and United Nation agencies, almost 30% of the world’s total population is
surviving on less than 2$ per day. Whereas the net worth of world’s richest 200
people have multiplied to more than $1 trillion between 1994 and 1998. This
Social inequality is not just confined to wealth or income but it also covers
various other components of the development between rich and poor which
includes the health facilities provided with a huge difference according to the
social status, then comes the provision of jobs which are more in favour to the
rich people rather than poor ones despite of their capabilities.
Furthermore Social inequality
also refers to the availability of food facilities given to both members of
society with a big difference causing some 2 billion people deprived of enough
food to eat for their survival. This inequality also includes the access of
people to sanitary living conditions such as clean water and toilets. Figures
estimate that out 1000 babies, almost 107 lost their lives as they reach 5
years of age in comparison to the rich people whose death ratio is just 6 out
of 1000(Wedderburn, 2009) .
Another aspect
of social inequality is that more than half of the population is illiterate. As
Education is the main pillar towards development. How can a country develop
when more than half of its population are not able to get their education and
in result cannot even meet their basic needs? Poverty also means the death of
poor people at earlier age due to lack of sufficient money for the treatment
whereas the rich ones can easily get the required treatments with their income (Firebaugh, 2003) .
The inequity or discrimination leads
to Global poverty by creating an environment that restrict the access of a
person to the fulfilment of his basic needs and fundamental rights.
Discrimination on the basis of cast, colour, religion or other factors separates
the population in two halves causing only one half to obtain access to the
basic needs for survival and these are the rich ones(cFate & William Julius
Wilson, 2005) .
These groups are formed among
minorities, native people and those who move from one place to another to find
work or better living condition. Social inequality among these groups is
connected to global poverty in more than one ways. When a person is
discriminated on the basis of race or gender, directly influences the economic
opportunity and it gets complicated for him to cross over the social and
economic institutions. In result, one’s discrimination on the basis of social
rank or status creates the cycle between social inequality and poverty(Murali &
Oyebode, 2004) .
The connection
of discrimination and poverty is mainly associated with inequality in
opportunity. For example in some countries the minority groups are denied to
have rights of citizenship, which limits their access to employment, education,
opportunity and basic living in general. Governments also pay a crucial in
limited access of these particular groups based only on the basis of religion
and ethnicity. This inequality further leads the minority groups to poverty due
to limited social and economic rights (King & Bertino, 2009) .
Moreover,
Social inequality also leads to ones capability to participate in the policies
of government, specifically policies which are designed on the development of
schemes for depletion in poverty. Lack of justice also becomes a major issue of
not only inequality also an issue of global poverty.
Global stratification deals with how nations are stratified on the
basis of income and dividing the countries into high income, middle-income and
low income countries. The process of stratification has a direct link with four
major factors. First is the lifestyle and authority of small group of elites (Hossain, 2009) . Second are the
working class and their extent of powerlessness. Third is the way a political
system is carried on. And last factor is the level of income inequality inside
the noncore nations. In simple words the nations are categorized based on their
degree of wealth or poverty, their economic development and process of
industrialization and other related factors (Macionis & Jansson.,
2000) .
Using various
measures of economic inequality and development among nations, many studies
have produced the same result that when nations become fully industrialized,
the inclination for inequality gets reduced to a large extent. The terms
stratification shows that nations which are called ‘’developed’’ are considered
superior, while nations which are considered ‘’underdeveloped’’ are considered
inferior. This classification in one hand helps out to know the differences
among the developed and underdeveloped countries but it also leads to global
poverty due to unequal wealth distribution. The world is undoubtedly classified
into parts to a great extent.
Although rich
nations comprises of only about one-fifth of the world’s population, they have
four-fifth of world’s whole income creating a big gap among countries on the
basis of wealth and also becomes a barrier for less developed countries to
progress. These rich groups have high standard of living and live much more
comfortable existence than the groups who are deficient to get all these
luxuries. In result the rich groups enjoy longer lives. Also the wealthy
nations have high level of industrialization causes them to contribute in
changing their climate to a great extent, while poor nations are least industrialized.
People in less developed countries live with miserable existence.
They suffer
from deadly diseases like AIDS, have lack of electricity, live near to
starvation lack other modern facilities that most rich countries take for
granted. This leads to huge extent of global poverty giving benefit to only
rich nations. African countries have many examples of kids starving to death
with their thin limbs due to malnutrition which is mainly due to global
stratification.
Key Concept: The key terms that will be used further in the research paper in order
to explain the phenomenon of global poverty are social stratification and
social in-equality. Global poverty concept has used in order to specify
countries that are having high poverty rate and their causes. Key concept is that
there are less rich countries and more poor countries in the world. There are two important global poverty
theories and these are modernization and dependency theories. Few assumptions
have also included in each of the theory.
In the following writing it is intended to
explanation the relation between social in-equality and global poverty as well
as relationship between social stratification and global poverty.
Theory: In
order to support the chosen concept of global poverty and its link with social
stratification and social in-equality, the three famous theories of sociology
will be used. These theories include functionalist theory and conflicts theory.
The functionalist theory of sociology interprets every parts of the society
with the worry that how it can add to the satiability of the society. In regard
to social inequality the functionalist concentrate on the way in which
inequality is favourable for society. They argue that inequality is essential
for the survival of society in light of the fact that without inequality the
division of work would be troublesome. Accordingly the functionalists believe the
financial inequality is genuinely fundamental for the society. Functionalist
scholars state that there is a need to have poor individuals in the society, so
that they can perform the dirty jobs and that too in low salaries. Hence
everyone in the society can’t be given equal rights, powers and wealth (Thompson, 2013) .
According to
the functionalist Kingsely David and Wilbert Moore it is important for a
society to have a range of professional experts are required to perform their respective
obligations including lawyers, educators, engineers, politicians and clerical
staff. Subsequent they are paid according to their jobs and capabilities. In
this manner the highly educated and competent individuals will have a good compensation
and other advantages, while an uneducated or less incompetent individual doesn’t
deserve these advantages? Hence they can’t be given more money in term of
salaries and benefits. (Van der Weide &
Milanovic, 2014)
Functionalist
theorist supports the inequality and stratification in the society. According
to their view a society needs individuals from various classes with a specific
end goal to perform distinctive assignments however in the event that everybody
gets equivalent wage and advantages they no one will perform the dirty jobs (Kristof, 2015) . Functionalist argues
that if individuals truly need to have great wages alongside different
advantages, they can get it through their hard work. They said that don't
restrict individual to prevail in the society, as they can enhance their competencies
and improve their education if they want to earn good salaries. Accordingly they
don't consider the governmental strategies for the in equality and poverty in
the society instead functionalist claims that people gets what they really deserve
(Wärneryd, 2014) . The conflicts theory of sociology is based
on the view that the beneficiaries have the authority and wealth to maintain
their prestige in the society.
According to this theory the rich and
prestigious individuals of the society enjoy all the facilities at the cost of
poor. Conflicts theorist claims that in equality and financial differences are
maintained within the society not due to its benefits for the society instead
on the ground that the resistance from the beneficiary. The power full and rich
people want to keep their prestige therefore they deliberately maintain the
poverty and in-equality in the society and confined the individuals to the low
wages and lesser facilities (Wärneryd, 2014) .
Social and intellectual context from which the theory
emerges: It has been observed that there is positive correlation between poverty
and social inequality. From the work of intelligentsia, on this subject, which
is backed by evidence, it is not hard to deduce that because of poverty social
inequality increases. Theories have further asserted that poverty and
social-inequality has direct correlation with crime.
Theory 2
Another theory is that social inequality is resulted by
income inequality, especially in capitalist societies or class based societies.
This theory is also a good theory as it can be verified by running different statistical
tests.
Social and Intellectual context from which Theory Two emerges: Theory 2 is also
result of systematic observations. As the methods of research developed, these
assumptions, pertaining to theory 2 has been tested and results have been
shared with academia and governments around the world.
Below table is providing information of poverty ratio in
the world
Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day (2011
PPP) (% of population)
|
|
ratio
|
Years
|
10.67
|
2013
|
12.51
|
2012
|
13.5
|
2011
|
15.55
|
2010
|
Source:
http://data.worldbank.org/topic/poverty It can be seen from the graph that
global poverty rate has reduced with the passage of time.
According to Karl
Marx, widely acclaimed social-economist, each society is partitioned in to
two main social categories; ruling class and subject class.
Ruling class has the power and wealth through which they persecute and misuse
the subject class to maintain their prestige in the society. He further added
that the legal and political systems are the tools of the ruling class which
sued to maintain and enhance their social benefits. Ruling class also use these
tools to restrict the poor to their present state. (Wärneryd, 2014)
Moreover the followers
of conflicts theory claims that the government make such polices that will give
advantages to the rich and prestigious individuals of the society. Likewise
Nicholas Kristof writes in his article that the reason for this financial
inequality are polices created on the government level. These policies are
intended to maintain the poverty in the society so that the lower class
continues to serve the upper class (Kristof, 2015) .
Poverty rate % of different countries
This picture is
showing global poverty rate of different countries. Top of the world in poverty
is Chas with poverty rate of 80%.
Research Method: For this writing work, the research is based on the primary
sources. For this aspect, various theories and literary material is used to
create understanding about the main point which is global poverty. To create
understanding about the global poverty I have described some facts and figures
that are taken from the authorised websites. Moreover, I have also studied
multiple research papers and journals to find the answers of the questions that
are developed for this research in the earlier part. The primary sauces are
used as a major source to get information about the writing work. There is bundle or writing material in which
the researchers have made research on the topic of global poverty. However, I
have used only authentic resources such as Journal articles, books and some
authentic websites.
Subsequently,
to support the argument, I have also used various social theories to analyse
the concept. For this regards, I have used functionalist theory, conflict
theory and symbolic attraction theories. These theories are used to understand
the role of social stratification and social in-equalities role in global
poverty.
Findings: To work on this topic is very interesting as
well as it has exposed many shocking facts about the global poverty. One of the
most concerning thing I have found is that a large number of people all over
the world are still living below the line of poverty. The social in-equality
exists within the societies in the form of gender inequality, racist
inequality, colour based inequality, religious based inequalities etc.
Moreover, social stratification exists in the form of power distribution among
the rich and poor people of the society.
According to
the World Bank it is stated that the people that are living with less than
$2.25 earning per day are consider as living a poor life. I have found that
around 80% of the people are earning less than $10. Following this, it is
concluded that the poor people do not have access to some of the basic living
facilities including the shelters, food, clothes, pure water and education.
From this
research it is also concluded that if only 25% income of the top 100 richest
people will divided among the poor of all world, then poverty can be
eliminated. Following this, it is found that social in-equalities and social
stratification both are the major factor that is increasing poverty.
In this
regards, it is found that at most of the places in-equality is not natural but
it is willingly developed. Following this, the justification of the argument is
made by the various social theories. According to the research it is found that
some people had a mind that inequality is important to dirty jobs.
People with this
state of mind are the major cause of social in-equality as well as of social
injustice. It is because, due to such people in the society, the power and
money is divided into the hands of some people due to which they do not allow
other to get hold on the power and money. Due to this factor, the money and
power remains in the hands of few. This state of mind is the major reason that
increase gap between the poor and rich and poor become poorer and rich become
richer.
Subsequently,
from the conflict theory it is found that the people with power always want to
maintain their power within the society. They believe that if equal
opportunities will be provided to all, then they will have threat to be over
powered by other which they do not accept. Therefore, they want to maintain
their power and support in-equality and system with social stratification.
Following this,
symbolic interaction theory also reflects the same thing that people in power
symbolise the things and create in-equality. In this regards, they develop
institutes and other places that are specifically made for them. This is very
similar to the conflict theory as such people want to maintain their dominant
role within the society and never agree to share their roles with the people of
low class.
Overall, it is
found that social in-equality and social stratification are the major reasons
of the global poverty. Due to this element, a society cannot move forward
because the supporter of this factor does not want to let the things go on in a
smooth way as they want to maintain social inequality so that they could remain
superior and they do this by the power they have.
Conclusion: Overall, it is concluded that global poverty is one of the biggest
issue in all over the world that has penalised the humanity to get its rights.
In this study it is concluded that most of the poverty is not natural but it is
artificial as some of the powerful people have willingly developed this
situation and they keep the poor with a plan.
It has
concluded from the global poverty that it has reduced with the passage of time
and all countries so cooperate with each others in order to eliminate poverty
from the country.
Social
inequality is one of the most conflicting issues in the global poverty because
some of the people believe that equality is a threat for them. They believe
that I all will be equal, then there will be no one to serve them and they will
also have to compromise on their social status. Subsequently, the addiction of
power is concerning thing as well that appeared within the society in the form
of social stratification.
Following this,
it is conclude that global poverty can be easily eliminated from the world if
people forget about lust of power and money. It is because in the
aforementioned report it is claimed that if only 25% income of the 100 richest
people of the world will be divided among the poor of the world, then they
could come out of the poverty.
Overall, it is
concluded that if the people from all over the world want to reduce the graph
of global poverty then there is need to eliminate the social in-equality and
social stratification because these elements are roots causes of global
poverty. More concerning thing is that these two factors are not merely the
cause of global poverty but at the same time these two factors are increasing
the distance between the poor and rich that is misbalancing the society.
Considering
this situation, there is need to develop rules and policies to change the
status conscious mind set to realise the people that instead of materialists
things like money and property, there are more important thing is humanity and
we all have some responsibilities towards the humanity.
Future: This research has some limitation however
still it has great potential for the future researchers who want to understand
the relationship between the global poverty and social inequality and social
stratification. For the future researchers, this report will be helpful to read
and understand rich information regarding the global poverty and its major
reasons. Furthermore, it is the fact that in future time, the things might
change therefore there are the possibilities that this research will no more
remains effective for the future as it is effective now.
For academic assistance: amanmushtaqpasha@yahoo.com
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