Sociological Views of Poverty

When discussing deviance and what most people classify as deviant, many won’t admit that they find people who are poor, and people who are ethically different as deviant. But when observing people’s actions, it is obvious that they do. We are all guilty of purposely avoiding walking near a homeless person, or avoiding eye contact with them at a stop light. These action and behaviors prove that we see these people as deviant. I agree with Goode, that poverty can take individuals and make them deviant or make them more deviant than they already were. “Shame is what the poverty-stricken individuals feel,” (Goode 85), which makes these individuals more likely to partake in illegal activities. They will partake in these activities as a sort of income, for example the using and selling drugs, or they will partake in these activities because they know they are already stigmatized, and there is no point in trying to prove otherwise. Which further proves that being poor may be deviant on its own but it also causes deviance. If middle and upper class Americans were more open and accepting to the poor, then I think they would be less likely to commit deviant acts. Poverty is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it is harder for these individuals to better themselves when they are already labeled as deviant.

The average American now lives 78.7 years in 2010, more than one year below the average of 79.8 years. This is no issue when you figure out that America tops all others when it comes down to the best healthcare research and cancer treatment. The five-year survival from colorectal cancer is also among the finest.

Poverty is something serious that affects the health and wellbeing of people of all ages that suffer from it. To live in

biggest problem people in poverty are faced with, the lack of money needed to survive.

The life expectancy of people in the United States have progressively increased since the 1930s. In the year 1930, the life expectancy of American men and women was 59 years old but in 2014, that number has increased to about 79 years old ("Life Expectancy at Birth by Race and Sex, 1930–2010"). People in the United States now live up to 20 years longer and because of the longer lifespan, more people are now developing chronic diseases that they were not before. Looking at data on people who are diagnosed with diabetes, a correlation can be seen in which as a person’s life expectancy increases, so does the number of people who have been diagnosed with diabetes. In the 1960s, the number of people in the United States who were

They also provide incomes for doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others who are too old, poorly trained or incompetent to attract more affluent clients. In addition to economic functions, the poor perform a number of social functions: Fifth, the poor can be identified and punished as alleged or real deviants in order to uphold the legitimacy of conventional norms. To justify the desirability of hard work, thrift, honesty, and monogamy, for example, the defenders of these norms must be able to find people who can be accused of being lazy, spendthrift, dishonest, and promiscuous. Although there is some evidence that the poor are about as moral and law-abiding as anyone else, they are more likely than middleclass transgressors to be caught and punished when they participate in deviant acts. Moreover, they lack the political and cultural power to correct the stereotypes that other people hold of them and thus continue to be thought of as lazy, spendthrift, etc., by those who need living proof that moral deviance does not pay. Sixth, and conversely, the poor offer vicarious participation to the rest of the population in the uninhibited sexual, alcoholic, and narcotic behavior in which they are alleged to participate and which, being freed from the constraints of affluence, they are often thought to enjoy more than the middle classes. Thus many people, some social scientists included, believe that the poor not only are more given to uninhibited

Last, teens at the age of 16, are more likely to get in accidents than 17 or 18 year olds. In

Poverty is an important issue for whole of society, and it may be described by many definitions, depending on what maybe the direct causes of it and how significant impact it may impose on unprivileged and vulnerable individuals or part of the nation.

Poverty is one of largest problem in the whole world, because thousands of people are affected by this major concern. Poverty is an issue that inflicts many dangerous situations, such as, crimes, diseases, lack of literacy, hard labor, etc., and therefore, it is essential to resolute before it gets worse. For example, United States is having risen in unemployment rates, which indicates the early symptoms, that citizens have started submerging into poverty. In most of the poor countries crime ratio is much higher than that of the rich countries. The rich countries are also not exempt from this general rule. The poor areas in a rich country witness more crimes than the posh areas of the same country. Same applies to the most devastating and threatening phenomena of epidemic diseases. Uncleanliness and inhabitation both have nourished in the inflicting more diseases in poor countries of the world, for example, Sudan has highest number of people infected from deadly diseases, such malaria, tuberculosis, and Ebola. Within my article, I learned that the basic cause for poverty is unjust distribution of wealth and other human needs. On the other side, through my article, I also observed that there organization that exists, which intends to help control the poverty, initiated procedure to improve the economic and social background. Poverty is an issue which has to be controlled, and thus, my research paper on poverty in Sudan will provide a glimpse of the leading causes of poverty

In 2010, about 46.2 million people were considered poor. The nation’s poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, whereas in 2009, 14.3 percent of people in America were living in poverty (Censky, 2011). That is an increase of 2.6 million people in 2010. In the United States, the federal poverty line – an absolute measure of annual income – is frequently used to determine who is categorized as poor (Ferris & Stein, 2008, 2010). Currently the government defines the poverty line as an income of $11,139 for an individual and $22,314 for a family of four (Censky, 2011). In sociology, poverty can be defined using two terms – relative deprivation and absolute deprivation. Relative deprivation is a comparison between people and social class. With

As far as how this topic fits into sociology, the answer to this is quite clear. Poverty is a blight on any society and it has many detrimental effects to the community including the mid- to upper echelons of the social strata in a society. For example, people in poverty often feel destitute and desperate and this manifests quite often in the form of robberies, drug dealing and other means for people to elevate their status, their cash flow or even just to eat for that day. Sociologists, many of the conflict and feminist perspective, point out that there are strong and sometimes insurmountable barriers that trap people in poverty and this includes racism, cost of education, inability to access cost-effective birth control and sexism (CSUDH, 2013)(Stanford University, 2013).

Although many people do not realize this, poverty has a great impact on out society. The rapid increase of death rate, crime rate, and environmental destruction have everything to do with the horrible state of poverty. These problems are booming all over our society today causing many speculations, but the reason many just be clear and simple. Poverty.

Poverty can lead to serious effects. Children who grow up in poverty are likely to have frequent health problems than the children who grow in better financial circumstances. For example, infants who are born into poverty have a low birth weight, and they grow up with mental or physical disabilities. Not only are they sick, but they are most likely to die before their first birthday. Children who are raised in poverty might miss school often because of their illnesses, and they have a much higher accident rate than the other children. Nearly a billion of the world’s population can’t read nor write. Poor families experience stress much more than a normal family does. They are more likely to be exposed to negative events such as illness, job loss, death of a family member, and depression. Homelessness is another effect of poverty. Homeless children are less likely to receive proper nutrition, protection and they experience more health problems. Around 1.4 million children die each year from lack of access to safe and clean water and proper nutrition. Homeless women experience a high rate of low birth weight infants as well as miscarriages. Families who do not have homes receive much more stress than other families. They also have disruption in school, work, friendships, and family relationships. There are other effects of poverty such as drug abuse and addiction, child and woman abuse, debts pressure, and increase in crimes.

something that can’t be controlled, but it seems to increase the rates of poverty tremendously.

This deludes the less powerful into conforming to a social order that works against their best interests, and results in the poor being driven to commit crime and thus be defined as deviant and criminal (O’Connor, 2006).