What is poverty?

Poverty is a state or situation in which a person or a group of people don't have

enough money or the basic things they need to live. Poverty means that a person
doesn't make enough money from their job to meet their basic needs. People and
families who are poor may not have a good place to live, clean water, healthy food,
or medical care. Each country can use its own set of rules to figure out how many
people are poor.

POVERTY AT GLOBAL LEVEL

Since the Industrial Revolution, poverty has gone down in wealthy countries. As
production went up, prices went down, making goods more affordable. At the same
time, innovations in agriculture increased crop yields and food production.

Still, many individuals worldwide struggle to make ends meet. The World Bank says
that about 10 percent of the world's population, or 711 million people, will live in
severe poverty in 2021. This means that they had to live on less than $1.90 per
day.

Countries with highest poverty index are South Sudan- 82.30%, Equatorial Guinea-
76.80%, Madagascar- 69.30% and so on.

POVERTY IN INDIA

India is a developing nation. Although its economy is growing, poverty is still a major challenge. wo-thirds
of people in India live in poverty: 68.8% of the Indian population lives on less
than $2 a day. Over 30% even have less than $1.25 per day available - they are
considered extremely poor. This makes the Indian subcontinent one of the
poorest countries in the world; women and children, the weakest members of
Indian society, suffer most.

Poverty and youngsters

Children suffer a lot from living in poverty. Most children who grow up in poverty
have serious health problems that keep coming back. Babies born into poverty have
a higher chance of having a low birth weight, which can cause both physical and
mental problems.
In some poor countries, babies are nine times more likely to die in their first month
if they are born into poverty than in a rich country. Those who make it through may
have trouble hearing and seeing.

Children who live in poverty are more likely to be sick, and miss school and their
homes are more likely to be stressed. Children are affected by homelessness more
than adults because they often don't have access to health care or enough food,
leading to health problems.

Effects of poverty on young minds

Poverty harms the brain and other body systems.

Developmental science understands child poverty has changed a great deal in recent years.
Poverty, for children, is not simply a matter of getting by with less of the essentials of
life. Particularly at its extremes, poverty can negatively affect how the body and mind
develop, and can actually alter the fundamental architecture of the brain. Children who
experience poverty have an increased likelihood, extending into adulthood, for
numerous chronic illnesses, and for a shortened life expectancy.
Poverty creates and widens achievement gaps.
Children growing up in poverty, when compared with their economically more secure peers,
fall behind early. Starting in infancy, gaps are evident in key aspects of learning, knowledge,
and social-emotional development. When left unaddressed, these early gaps become
progressively wider. Early optimal development tends to open doors to further optimal
development, while impoverished development tends to close those doors. So, poor
children lag behind their peers at entry to kindergarten, in reading ability at the end of third
grade, in the important self-monitoring skills often called “executive functioning,” and
in school attendance in eighth grade. Poor children are more likely to drop out of school, or
fail to obtain post- secondary education.
Poverty leads to poor physical, emotional, and
behavioral health.
Even when poverty doesn’t directly alter human biological systems, we know that growing
up poor  increases the likelihood that children will have poor health, including
poor emotional and behavioral health. Poverty works in multiple ways to constrict
children’s opportunities and expose them to threats to well-being. Poor children are more
likely to lack “food security,” as well as have diets that are deficient in important
nutrients. Rates of several chronic health conditions, such as asthma, are higher among
poor children. They areless likely to receive preventive medical and dental care.

GROWING UP IN IMPOVERISHED NEIGHBORHOODS

While direct causal links between neighborhood poverty and children’s outcomes are
challenging to identify in research, scholars have found that growing up in neighborhoods
with concentrated poverty is associated with negative academic outcomes, more social and
behavioral problems, and poorer health and physical fitness outcomes. Poor children
are more likely to live in neighborhoods where they are exposed to environmental toxins
and other physical hazards, including crime and violence. In the case of violence,
evenindirect exposure — witnessing, or simply hearing of its occurrence — has been linked
with adverse developmental outcomes. Poor children are also disproportionately likely to
attend schools in districts with fewer resources, with facilities that are grossly inadequate,
and with school leadership that is more transient.
NEGATIVE IMPACT OF POVERTY ON FAMAILIES
While the strengths of poor families are often overlooked, parents experience numerous
challenges that can affect their own emotional well-being, as well as their children’s. Poor
parents report higher stress, aggravation, and depressive symptoms than do higher-income
parents. Parents with scarce economic resources face difficulty planning, preparing, and
providing for their families’ material needs. Children in poor families have fewer books and
other educational resources at home, and they are less likely to experience family outings,
activities, and programs that can enrich learning opportunities. Their families are more
likely to experience housing instability. Direct evidence that additional income can improve
children’s lives comes from several experimental evaluations: programs that increased
family income showed improvements in children’s social and academic outcomes.  

How to reduce child poverty.

1.  Increase Household Income

Low educational attainment is the key way in which poverty in childhood affects
outcomes for adults. The source of income, e.g. whether it is from benefits or earnings,
does not make a difference to outcomes, but who receives the money does – income
received by the mother makes more difference than receipt by the father.

Government should intensify its efforts to increase family incomes through:

 increasing labour market participation of mothers – including the need for a coherent
and easy to understand offer on childcare;
 maximising the take-up of in- and out-of-work benefits, including education-related
benefits such as free school meals and school uniform grants
 action on improving the quality of work
2.  Support Parental Relationships
There are clear links between poverty and the type of household in which a child grows
up, which are partly but not solely linked to income. Various types of action to support
family relationships are proven to help to reduce poverty, and include facilitating fathers’
involvement in with their child and access to relationship counselling for low income
couples. This can be done by:

 encourage employers in the public, private and third sectors to offer better parental
leave for fathers;
 encourage couple counselling that is accessible to low income families;

3. Better Parenting
Parenting explains less than half of the educational disadvantage faced by children from
low income backgrounds, however specific parenting practices do make a difference to
outcomes. Government could build on this evidence by establishing a national,
evidence-based parenting programme.

4.  Develop early years (pre-school) education

High quality early years education can help to overcome some of the disadvantages
faced by children from poor families, with the amount of money allocated making a
difference to outcomes. This can be done by-

 establish a consistent approach to early years learning across India.

 protect expenditure on early years provision;
 continue to drive up quality of early years provision especially in disadvantaged areas.

 5.  Better primary and secondary education

High-quality teaching has been shown to be the most important school-level factor
affecting attainment and is particularly significant for children from low income
 backgrounds. For these pupils, having a good teacher compared to a bad teacher leads
to an additional year’s progress.

This can be achieved by-

 increase its focus on improving the quality of teaching especially in schools with a
large number of pupils from low-income households;
 make a step change in the provision and quality of careers advice, with active
employer involvement, a stronger understanding of local labour markets and a focus
on children from low-income families;
 include the acquisition of social and emotional skills by children in the curriculum;
 monitor pupil destinations not just attainment.

7.  Leadership and Commitment

Last but not least there needs to be strong political leadership and commitment, not just
in government but across the whole public, private and third sectors. It needs to be
integral to all departments not coralled into the ‘poverty unit’, and all bodies need to
listen – really listen – to the views of people experiencing poverty

SURVEY

Have you ever interacted with a poor child

CONCLUSION