Poverty (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what poverty is, its causes, consequences and the types of poverty that exist. Also, figures in Mexico and the world.

What is poverty?

poverty It is a socioeconomic condition in which resources are scarceor the tools necessary to acquire them on a regular basis. Who suffers from it cannot satisfy their basic physical and mental needswhich guarantee an adequate quality of life: food, housing, health care, formal education.

In some cases it also implies the lack of access to basic services such as electricity, drinking water, telephone line, etc. In other words, poverty is much more than the mere lack of capital.

There are multiple social, economic and even psychological factors involved in poverty, and also different ways of measuring and understanding it. However, in general terms, the line at the beginning of poverty is drawn when one suffers from a lack of fundamental means for subsistence.

In many cases it is a consequence of chronic unemployment, a very low level of income. Besides, Significant conditions of marginalization and social exclusion make social advancement more difficult and integration in terms of equality in the community. That is to say, the poorer a person is, the more difficult it is to find opportunities to change their situation.

poverty It is one of the main problems of the industrialized worldgiven that other evils and sufferings in nations are due to it, in a world that exhibits profound inequalities. Although there do not seem to be 100% effective methods to combat it, numerous institutions of all kinds are dedicated to their own plans to reduce it.

In fact, according to UN measurements, it is estimated that Since 2000, the growth of poverty at a global level has been stopped.which could be the beginning of the slow and long process of beginning to reverse it.

Causes of poverty

Poverty has always existed, since early societies, since It is a consequence of the unequal distribution of wealthsomething that seems to nest within human societies since always. In fact, the word itself comes from Latin pauperwhich means “infertile”, probably associated with those who cultivated lands that were less generous than those of others.

Types of poverty

The main distinction when talking about poverty is between critical poverty and extreme poverty, depending on the amount of vital deprivation that the person suffers:

Critical poverty. It is suffered by citizens who are unable to meet the basic consumer basket, made up not only of food and supplies, but also of fundamental basic services. Generally, individuals in this situation invest absolutely all their capital in food exclusively.
Extreme poverty. Considered a step below criticism, inhabitants in this condition not only cannot access the basic food basket, but they cannot even consume a basic amount of daily calories that guarantees them a decent standard of living. At this level are the homeless, for example.

On the other hand, the measurement of poverty levels distinguishes, according to the socioeconomic context, between two other categories: absolute poverty and relative poverty.

Relative poverty. It is a concept that depends on the immediate socioeconomic environment of a city, a region, a country or a continent, since it is determined by the relationship with other individuals in society. Furthermore, the economic and social terms of one place can be very different from those of another, and are not always directly comparable.
Absolute poverty. On the contrary, absolute poverty is a general measurement of the population, applying more or less uniform criteria for it, such as the minimum consumption basket. It is a comparative value in the same terms, to be able to establish an amount of net poverty.

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Consequences of poverty

poverty malnutrition — There are programs to avoid malnutrition as a consequence of poverty.

Poverty has significant consequences in the lives of people and in nations as a whole, such as:

Malnutrition. Poverty prevents the child population from accessing the caloric levels necessary to grow strong and healthy, thus increasing infant mortality rates and giving way to generations that are weaker than their predecessors.
Pandemics. In countries where extreme poverty is abundant, there are large sectors of the population that are marginalized and have little or no access to public health. In these cases, the appearance of mass contagion diseases or the reappearance of diseases that had been considered eradicated is common.
Low human development. In general, societies with high poverty margins demonstrate slower consumer markets, less investment in culture and, generally speaking, less development as a society.
Crime and drugs. Although poverty has no direct and necessary link with crime and the proliferation of drugs, nor are these two elements exclusive to it, it is true that being in desperate economic and social conditions, the poor are the most likely to accept shady deals in exchange for an improvement in their economic income. Furthermore, in many cases drug use is part of poverty avoidance strategies, given that in many cases the rational options to stop being poor seem to be few, if any. However, this is a consequence only in some cases.
Social resentment. Poverty leads to exclusion. In some cases, exclusion leads to resentment and resentment can lead to urban violence, and other mass phenomena whose results can be unpredictable. However, violence is not an exclusive characteristic of people who suffer from poverty and, on the other hand, most of them are not violent.

Poverty in the world

The poverty measurement carried out in 2012 by the World Bank agencies showed the following figures:

Poverty is around 22.43% in developing countrieswhich represents a relative improvement compared to the 52.16% registered in 1981.
2 billion of people in the world still lack access to medicine and suffer from anemia.
More than 1 billion of people in the world can be considered in extreme povertythey lack stable housing and 70% are women.
More than 1.8 billion of people do not have access to drinking water.
Around 100,000 people die of hunger daily.

Many international organizations fight poverty through large-scale initiatives, ranging from educational plans (UNICEF), medical and food aid (Doctors Without Borders, UN), or simply economic tutelage and international aid projects (IMF, World Bank). .

Even so, the inequality between the nations of the developed world and those of the so-called Third World is so significant that there is no easy solution to the drama of poverty.

Poverty in Mexico

The Mexican population has less than 50% of citizens living below the international poverty lineaccording to the terms of the World Bank. But it is estimated that, in terms of national measurement, the percentage of poverty in Mexico is very significant.

Thus, a 76.9% of the total Mexican population lives in moderate poverty28.2% in relative poverty, 13.4% in absolute poverty and 1.8% in extreme or critical poverty.

These non-cumulative percentages come from the 2015 United Nations Human Development Report. All of the above translates into 87.7 million people living in moderate poverty; 33.6 million living in relative poverty; 15.2 million living in absolute poverty; and 2.2 million living in extreme poverty.

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