2.4+Poverty+and+Population

media type="youtube" key="Nt4aWojF9Rg" width="560" height="315"

 [|Poverty reduction] has historically been a result of [|economic growth] as increased levels of production, such as modern industrial technology, made more [|wealth] available for those who were otherwise too poor to afford them. Also, investments in modernizing [|agriculture] and increasing yields is considered the core of the [|antipoverty effort], given three-quarters of the [|world] 's poor are [|rural] [|farmers]. Today, economic liberalization includes extending [|property rights], especially to [|land] , to the poor, and making [|financial services] , notably [|savings] , accessible Inefficient institutions, [|corruption] and political instability can also discourage investment. [|Aid] and government support in [|health], [|education] and [|infrastructure] helps growth by increasing [|human] and [|physical capital]. Definitions There many definitions of poverty depending on the context of the situation and the views of the person giving the definition. These are some from various sources including a well-known development scholar. Poverty is also often divided into relative poverty and absolute poverty. Poverty can also be defined as a condition wherein a person cannot satisfy his or her basic needs, namely, food, shelter, clothing, health and education. Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life.
 * Poverty ** is the lack of [|basic human needs], such as [|clean water] , [|nutrition] , [|health care] , [|education] , clothing and shelter, because of the inability to afford them.This is also referred to as [|absolute poverty] or **destitution**. [|Relative poverty] is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages. About 1.7 billion people live in absolute poverty; before the [|industrial revolution] , poverty had mostly been the norm.

 Causes **Scarcity of basic needs ** 

Before the [|industrial revolution], poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as economies produced little, making wealth scarce. In [|Antwerp] and [|Lyons], two of the largest cities in western Europe, by 1600 three-quarters of the total population were too poor to pay taxes.  In 18th century [|England], half the population was at least occasionally dependent on charity for subsistence. In modern times, [|food shortages] have been reduced dramatically in the developed world, thanks to agricultural technologies such as [|nitrogen fertilizers], [|pesticides] and new [|irrigation] methods. Also, [|mass production] of goods in places such as [|China] has made what were once considered [|luxuries], such as [|vehicles] or [|computers] , inexpensive and thus accessible to many who were otherwise too poor to afford them. Rises in the [|costs of living] make poor people less able to afford items. Poor people spend a [|greater portion of their budgets] on food than richer people. As a result, poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in [|food prices]. For example, in late 2007 increases in the price of grains led to [|food riots] in some countries. The [|World Bank] warned that 100 million people were at risk of sinking deeper into poverty.Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by [|drought] and the [|water crisis]. [|Intensive farming] often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of [|soil fertility] and decline of [|agricultural yields] .Approximately 40% of the world's [|agricultural land] is seriously degraded. In [|Africa], if current trends of [|soil degradation] continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to [|UNU] 's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.  [|Health care] can be widely unavailable to the poor. The loss of health care workers emigrating from impoverished countries has a damaging effect. For example, an estimated 100,000 Philippine nurses emigrated between 1994 and 2006. There are more Ethiopian doctors in [|Chicago] than in Ethiopia. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;"> [|Overpopulation] and lack of access to [|birth control] methods drive poverty. The world's population is [|expected to reach] nearly 9 billion in 2040. However, the reverse is also true, that poverty causes overpopulation as it gives women little power to control giving birth, or to have educational attainment or a career. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Barriers to opportunities ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">The unwillingness of governments and [|feudal] elites to give full-fledged property rights in land to their tenants is cited as the chief obstacle to development. This lack of [|economic freedom] inhibits entrepreneurship among the poor. New enterprises and foreign investment can be driven away by the results of inefficient institutions, notably [|corruption], weak [|rule of law] and excessive [|bureaucratic burdens]. Lack of [|financial services], as a result of restrictive regulations, such as the requirements for [|banking] [|licenses] , makes it hard for even smaller microsavings programs to reach the poor. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Illiteracy ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">It takes two days, two [|bureaucratic] procedures, and $280 to open a business in Canada while an entrepreneur in Bolivia must pay $2,696 in fees, wait 82 business days, and go through 20 procedures to do the same. Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created.In [|India], before economic reforms, businesses had to [|bribe] government officials even for routine activities, which was, in effect, a tax on business. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">For example, in [|Nigeria], [|corruption] led to an estimated $400 billion of the country's oil revenue being stolen by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999. [|[] Lack of opportunities can further be caused by the failure of governments to provide essential [|infrastructure]. [|[] **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">High competition ** **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Higher cost of education ** **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Lack of industrialization **

<span style="border-color: initial; border-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #000000; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 23.6pt; margin-bottom: 0.1in; padding: 0in;"> Effects of poverty **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Health ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;"> [|Hunger], [|disease] , and less education describe a person in poverty. One third of deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes: in total 270 million people, most of them women and children, have died as a result of poverty since 1990. Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger or even [|starvation] and disease. Those living in poverty suffer lower [|life expectancy]. According to the [|World Health Organization], [|hunger] and [|malnutrition] are the single gravest threats to the world's public health and malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to [|child mortality] , present in half of all cases. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Every year nearly 11 million children living in poverty die before their fifth birthday. 1.02 billion people go to bed hungry every night. Poverty increases the risk of [|homelessness] .There are over 100 million [|street children] worldwide. Increased risk of [|drug abuse] may also be associated with poverty. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">According to the [|Global Hunger Index], [|South Asia] has the highest child malnutrition rate of the world's regions. Nearly half of all [|Indian] children are undernourished, one of the highest rates in the world and nearly double the rate of [|Sub-Saharan Africa]. Every year, more than half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth. Almost 90% of [|maternal deaths] occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in the developed world. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Women who have born children into poverty may not be able to nourish the children efficiently and provide adequate care in infancy. The children may also suffer from disease that has been passed down to the child through birth. [|Asthma] and [|rickets] are common problems children acquire when born into poverty. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Education ** <span style="background: #f9f9f9; display: block; line-height: 23.6pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This often is a process that begins in [|primary school] for some less fortunate children. In the US educational system, these children are at a higher risk than other children for retention in their grade, special placements during the school's hours and even not completing their high school education. There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. For children with low resources, the risk factors are similar to excuses such as juvenile delinquency rates, higher levels of [|teenage pregnancy], and the economic dependency upon their low income parent or parents. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Families and society who submit low levels of [|investment] in the education and development of less fortunate children end up with less favorable results for the children who see a life of parental employment reduction and low wages. Higher rates of early [|childbearing] with all the connected risks to family, health and well-being are majorly important issues to address since education from preschool to high school are both identifiably meaningful in a life.

**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Housing ** <span style="background: #f9f9f9; display: block; line-height: 23.6pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Slum-dwellers, who make up a third of the world's [|urban] population, live in a poverty no better, if not worse, than [|rural] people, who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the [|developing world], according to a report by the United Nations. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Most of the [|children] living in institutions around the [|world] have a surviving [|parent] or close [|relative], and they most commonly entered [|orphanages] because of poverty. Experts and child advocates maintain that orphanages are expensive and often harm children's [|development] by separating them from their [|families]. It is speculated that, flush with [|money], orphanages are increasing and push for children to join even though [|demographic] [|data] show that even the poorest extended families usually take in [|children] whose [|parents] have [|died]. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Violence **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">According to a [|UN] report on modern [|slavery], the most common form of [|human trafficking] is for prostitution, which is largely fueled by poverty. In [|Zimbabwe], a number of girls are turning to prostitution for [|food] to survive because of the increasing poverty.In one survey, 67% of children from disadvantaged [|inner cities] said they had witnessed a serious assault, and 33% reported witnessing a homicide. 51% of fifth graders from [|New Orleans] (median income for a household: $27,133) have been found to be victims of violence, compared to 32% in [|Washington, DC] (mean income for a household: $40,127). <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Also there are also many effects of poverty closer to home. For example after dropping out of school children may turn to violence as a source of income i.e mugging people, betting during street fights etc... **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Substance abuse **

<span style="border-color: initial; border-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #000000; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 23.6pt; margin-bottom: 0.1in; padding: 0in;"> Poverty reduction

<span style="line-height: 18.0pt; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Historically, poverty reduction has been largely a result of [|economic growth]. The [|industrial revolution] led to high economic growth and eliminated mass poverty in what is now considered the developed world. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;"> In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than a dollar a day, while in 2001, only about 20% do. As three quarters of the [|world] 's poor live in the [|country side], the [|World Bank] cites helping small [|farmers] as the heart of the [|fight against poverty]. Economic growth in agriculture is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country's population as growth generated in non-agricultural sectors. However, [|aid] is essential in providing better lives for those who are already poor and in sponsoring medical and scientific efforts such as the [|Green Revolution] and the eradication of [|smallpox]. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 23.6pt; margin-bottom: 0.05in;">**Economic liberalization** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Ian Vásquez, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Global Economic Liberty, wrote that extending property rights protection to the poor is one of the most important poverty reduction strategies a nation could take. Securing property rights to land, the largest asset for most societies, is vital to their economic freedom. The [|World Bank] concludes increasing land rights is 'the key to reducing poverty' citing that land rights greatly increase poor people's wealth, in some cases doubling it. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has estimated that state recognition of the property of the poor would give them assets worth 40 times all the foreign aid since 1945. Although approaches varied, the [|World Bank] said the key issues were security of tenure and ensuring land transactions were low cost. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">In [|China] and [|India], noted reductions in poverty in recent decades have occurred mostly as a result of the abandonment of [|collective farming] in China and the cutting of government red tape in India. However, ending government sponsorship of social programs is sometimes advocated as a [|free market] principle with tragic consequences. For example, the [|World Bank] presses poor nations to eliminate subsidies for [|fertilizer] even while many farmers cannot afford them at market prices. The reconfiguration of public financing in former [|Soviet] states during their [|transition to a market economy] called for reduced spending on health and education, sharply increasing poverty. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Aid **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Aid in its simplest form is a [|basic income grant], a form of [|social security] periodically providing citizens with [|money]. In pilot projects in [|Namibia], where such a program pays just $13 a month, people were able to pay [|tuition] fees, raising the proportion of children going to [|school] by 92%, child [|malnutrition] rates fell from 42% to 10% and economic activity grew by 10%.Researchers say it is more efficient to support the [|families] and [|extended families] that care for the vast [|majority] of orphans with simple allocations of cash than supporting [|orphanages] , who get most of the aid. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Some aid, such as [|Conditional Cash Transfers], can be rewarded based on desirable actions such as enrolling children in [|school] or receiving [|vaccinations]. In [|Mexico], for example, dropout rates of 16-19 year olds in [|rural] area dropped by 20% and children gained half an [|inch] in [|height] .Initial fears that the program would encourage families to stay at home rather than work to collect benefits have proven to be unfounded. Instead, there is less excuse for neglectful behavior as, for example, children stopped begging on the streets instead of going to school because it could result in suspension from the program. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Another form of aid is microloans, made famous by the [|Grameen Bank], where small amounts of money are loaned to farmers or villages, mostly women, who can then obtain physical capital to increase their economic rewards. For example, the [|Thai] government's People's Bank, makes loans of $100 to $300 to help farmers buy equipment or seeds, help street vendors acquire an inventory to sell, or help others set up small shops. While advancing the woman and her household's position economically, microloans empower women and enable them to voice their opinions in general household decisions. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Good institutions **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Efficient institutions that are not [|corrupt] and obey the [|rule of law] make and enforce good laws that provide security to property and businesses. Efficient and fair governments would work to invest in the long-term interests of the nation rather than plunder resources through corruption. Researchers at [|UC Berkeley] developed what they called a "Weberianness scale" which measures aspects of [|bureaucracies] and governments [|Max Weber] described as most important for [|rational-legal] and efficient government over 100 years ago. Comparative research has found that the scale is correlated with higher rates of economic development. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt;">Empowering women ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 18pt; margin-bottom: 6pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 4.8pt;">Empowering [|women] has helped some countries increase and sustain economic development. When given more [|rights] and opportunities women begin to receive more education, thus increasing the overall [|human capital] of the country; when given more influence women seem to act more responsibly in helping people in the family or village; and when better educated and more in control of their lives, women are more successful in bringing down rapid population growth because they have more say in [|family planning].