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Effects of poverty in south africa
Effects of poverty in south africa
The main cause of poverty in South Africa
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Introduction
The following assignment focuses on social problems affecting the Cape flats community and also identifies the causes and consequences of the social problem. Social problem is defined as the undesirable social conditions that disrupt damage the society and affects people’s educational, health, economic, political needs and their social wellbeing. The Cape Flats is a community which is faced with various social problems ranging from substance abuse to environmental issues. We will be focusing mainly on poverty in this community.
What is poverty?
A condition in which an individual or community’s basic needs are not being met and also lacks the financial resources and necessities to enjoy a minimum standard of life and wellbeing that is believed to be acceptable in societies.
Poverty in the cape flats
Cape flats is a poverty stricken community whereby buying food has emerged as major problem for the poorest residents and also contains highest rates of unemployment in the province. Service delivery remains prominent point of contention. The data shows that there is 15 percent of households ran out of money to buy food. Coloureds residents dominate with 23 percent while fourteen percent of black households went hungry, four percent of whites households found themselves also in the same situation.
Causes and prevalence of poverty
Poverty is particularly prevalent in rural areas and informal settlements, and especially among Blacks and coloureds. The following aspects are the causes of poverty in the Cape flats.
• Lack of access to employment and illiteracy
The lack of access to employment can be described in two ways one can be that there is a lack of employment in this community or individuals do not have the adequate s...
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... top the government. The must create canter for those who are vulnerable, orphans, child headed- female and those affected by poverty. These centres will help them to be taught and be helped equipped with resources and education they need.
• Police forum
For crime to decrease the police will patrol to check those who will be committing crime so that they will be putted in the correctional place where they will be rehabilitated of crime and the drug dependency centres for drug users. The policy forum will be linked with the community so that the society will participate.
• Facilities should be within reach
The people of cape flats should be able have access to primary health facilities where they will get the services easily and also they will get information regarding their health and their hygiene conditions, how they should maintain their community health.
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
Absolute poverty refers to when a person does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet the minimum requirements for one or more basic living needs over an extended period of time. This includes things like, Food, Safe drinking water, Sanitation facilities Health, Shelter and Education. It can also be measure by those living on less than $1.25 a day.
Not having food, clothes, a roof over your head, money, or a job. It means living a lower quality of life than the average person. Poverty can be someone’s choice of lifestyle. They may spend all their money on fancy materialistic items rather than on basic human needs. Tressie McMillan Cottom’s article, “The Logic of Stupid Poor People”, states how there are two types of poor people. One that tries to be acceptable, and one tries to be presentable. “...‘Acceptable’ is about gaining access to a limited set of rewards granted upon group membership (Cottom 4).” Cottom believes that people living in poverty should strive to appear acceptable rather than presentable. Being acceptable is the logical way of going about being in poverty. It’s actually trying to make yourself be better rather than just trying to be the bare minimum that society wants. People living in poverty are usually perceived as not knowing how to manage money because most people living in poverty spend their money on expensive cars and accessories. They purchase these expensive items in order to seem like they are not
The ultimate question, why does poverty exist? Poverty can be measured in two ways. It can be measured by absolute poverty and by relative poverty (Author). Absolute poverty is about the goods and services. Relative poverty looks at needs (Author). There are many reason why poverty exists. It exists local, nationally and internationally. There are problems with people obtaining education, obtaining jobs and just with money in general. There are ways to improve the quality of life of the poor and in this essay they will be laid out.
Merriam Webster defines poverty as the state of lacking a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. The United States Census Bureau identifies poverty as a lack of goods and services commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society. Professor Gene Nichol, however, defines poverty from an emotional, yet som...
“For most Americans, the word ‘poverty’ suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter” (Rector, 2007). Poverty can be socially defined through severe deprivation of education, food, safe water, sanitation, and health care regardless of one’s income. The U.S. Department of Health and human Services periodically updates poverty guidelines and depending on what state you live in the guidelines range.
Poverty is a serious phenomenon that has been widespread all over the world. Although, many charitable organizations like CARE, Action Against Hunger (AAH) or Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) have operated with a highest enthusiasm to help the indigent, the amount of those have still been increasing significantly in recent years. According to the survey of the United States Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans in poverty rose from 12.2 to 15.9 percent and the proportion skyrocketed from 33.3 million to 48.8 million between 2000 and 2012 (Bishaw, 2013). The indigent are very poor people, including the disabled, beggars, homeless people who live in slums with lacking of insurance, being unemployed and earning underpaid salaries, about 1.25$ a day (Shah, 2011). Many of them are innocent people who face with mishaps that they cannot control. Consequently, they not only affect the society but also impact on development of the young generation. Therefore, the government should be responsible for take care of the indigent as well as supporting them to enhance the standard of living of citizens and maintain the stability of the society.
Poverty is general scarcity or dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. It is a multifaceted concept, which includes social, economic, and political elements. Poverty seems to be chronic or temporary, and most of the time it is closely related to inequality. As a dynamic concept, poverty is changing and adapting according to consumption patterns, social dynamics and technological change. Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter and health care.
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Poverty is the state of being extremely poor, or when people are living in deprivation of food, water and or shelter.
This implies that the poverty incident is higher among the poor inhabitants than that of the urban settings. In a nutshell, poverty in Ghana is driven by inequality. (This can be seen at appendix 4, figure 1).
Poverty is generally defined as a state of deprivation in well-being. The conventional perspective connects well-being basically to control over commodities, so the poor are individuals who do not have sufficient income or consumption to place them above some adequate bare minimum threshold (Lyman et al, 2004). Poverty is also tied to a particular type of consumption, for instance people may be considered health poor, house poor or food poor. The poverty dimensions can often be determined directly. For instance it can be measured by assessing malnutrition or levels of literacy (Alla...
"Causes and Effects of Poverty." Cliffs Notes. Cliffs Notes, n.d. Web. 27 Nov 2013. .
Poverty is one of the greatest problems facing South Africa. South African families live in very unsatisfactory conditions. The South African government works hard to bring down the rate of poverty but it also seems to increase as they try.
Poverty an also be described as having a lack of income and/or goods to satisfy necessities-food, shelter, clothing, and acceptable levels of health and education.