POVERTY IN AMERICA

Case Analysis On “Living on the Edge: Poverty in America” - Virnic Secupolena



Case Analysis On “Living on the Edge: Poverty in America” - Virnic Secupolena

Introduction

Poverty became a clearly recognized problem during the twentieth century. The issue of women's poverty has emerged under the concept of "feminization of poverty". Women's poverty is gradually becoming more visible through the growing numbers of women living without men as lone parents or in old age and through women's occupational segregation into the low-wage sector. However, the concept of "feminization of poverty" is ambiguous as it is not able to reveal the true nature of women's poverty. Focusing on the gender dimension of poverty is indeed far more than simply counting the number of poor women.

Poverty is deprivation of material essentials such as food, shelter, drinking water, and clothing. It associates with the lack of education, freedom, and dignity. The uneven distribution of poverty at various scales, from the global to the household, via the national, regional, and local, suggests the importance of geographic factors in explaining its prevalence and understanding its nature (Ashman, 2010). Main objective is to explore the fundamental concepts related to poverty and how does external environment influences the life of a person living on the poverty line. This paper highlights the fundamentals of micro, mezzo, and macro-environment perspectives on the life of a person categorized under the poverty threshold.

Poverty Measures and People

There is disagreement on how best to measure poverty. The first distinction exists between absolute and reasonable measures. Relative poverty measures conceptualize poverty as socially constructed and dependent in the social context. Within this perspective, the poverty threshold defines in relation to a national or regional benchmark rather than in absolute terms. For the most part, individuals and families, considered to be poor if and when their income and resources are deemed insufficient for them to “normally” participate in society (Kodras, 1997). The experience of motherhood in South Africa shape by the history of apartheid and the resultant disparities in living conditions between peoples. During apartheid, the majority of women lived lives marked by racial oppression, poverty, and an absence of rights. Then and now, mothers' lives differed greatly depending on their race, geographic location, and economic status.

The case of Virnic Secupolena, a 27 year-old single Hispanic-American mom presents the facets of reality and how does poverty influences the life of a person. This is characterized by the hardships of life, orientation towards living life, level of efforts exhibited by the person towards achieving success, and hope of turning the life direction. Some of the gains in poverty are overshadowed by increases in inequality and worsening relative poverty in most of the developing world; where the poorest quintile accounts for less than 4% of domestic consumption (Sampson et al., 2002). Inequality is particularly acute in Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa.

Other poor people live with lone mothers or are recent immigrants. People living in poverty experience increased strain on their physical, emotional, psychological, and social well-being ...