Paper Topic:

sociology-definition of poverty

THE CONCEPT OF POVERTY

The term `poverty ' has become very common in this world today . In fact it has been a part of the everyday language of most people . But despite the common use of this word , it concept of essence has not been grasp fully or in to what really is centered on the concept of poverty

For the many , poverty would be defined as just the absence or lack or material possessions . To other , the lack of money can be equated to poverty . On a deeper sense , poverty can be defined

as the deprivation of an individual on the three basic needs for survival- food , clothing and housing . All of these definitions are deemed correct . However , the concept of poverty has come a long way . Poverty today goes beyond the lack of material possessions or the deprivation of the three basic needs of a human being . For all we know , the concept of poverty may have developed to become a subjective term

The `Copenhagen Declaration ' of the United Nations defines poverty as a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs including food , safe drinking water , sanitation facilities , health shelter , education and information ' With this , people can be considered as poor when they are unable to eat , have access to hospital care or even go to school regardless of their income (ThinkQuest , 2006

With this , one can say that there are different measures utilized in to determine the state of poverty of a person . Some would employ quantitative means in to measure poverty while other would rely on the qualitative aspect . More so , some people would emphasize the importance of the two approaches , thus the combination of it would yield the best result

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Anup , 2006 , have come up with a definition of poverty line to mean one dollar per day However , this measure has been criticized by many because it can not really provide a true picture of global poverty . This is evident in the issues of poverty threshold . For instance , in the family of four in the United States , they live with eleven dollars a day in to survive As such , this measure of poverty is deemed not effective since it misses out much of humanity to understand the impacts

According to the U .S . Census Bureau (2007 , poverty is defined at the family level and not at the household level . As such , the household can be considered as poor when the householder 's family has a which is below the appropriate poverty threshold . Meanwhile , there are also different criteria in determining poverty threshold . This includes the number of children , the size of the family , age and many more

In the United States , it has been claimed that in spite of the steady decline of poverty in the country , there is still a higher rate of poverty today than before . In 1998 , the Census Bureau states that there are 34 .5 million Americans who are...

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