Causes and Effects of Poverty

Any discussion of social class and mobility would be incomplete without a discussion of  poverty, which is defined as the
lack of the minimum food and shelter necessary for maintaining life. More specifically, this condition is known
as absolute poverty. Today it is estimated that more than 35 million Americans—approximately 14 percent of the
population—live in poverty. Of course, like all other social science statistics, these are not without controversy. Other
estimates of poverty in the United States range from 10 percent to 21 percent, depending on one's political leanings.
This is why many sociologists prefer a  relative,  rather than an absolute , definition of poverty. According to the definition
of relative poverty, the poor are those who lack what is needed by most Americans to live decently because they earn
less than half of the nation's median income. By this standard, around 20 percent of Americans live in poverty, and this
has been the case for at least the past 40 years. Of these 20 percent, 60 percent are from the working class poor.

Causes of poverty
Poverty is an exceptionally complicated social phenomenon, and trying to discover its causes is equally complicated. The
stereotypic (and simplistic) explanation persists—that the poor cause their own poverty—based on the notion that anything is
possible in America. Some theorists have accused the poor of having little concern for the future and preferring to “live for the
moment”; others have accused them of engaging in self-defeating behavior. Still other theorists have characterized the poor as
fatalists, resigning themselves to a culture of poverty in which nothing can be done to change their economic outcomes. In this
culture of poverty—which passes from generation to generation—the poor feel negative, inferior, passive, hopeless, and
powerless.
The “blame the poor” perspective is stereotypic and not applicable to all of the underclass. Not only are most poor people able
and willing to work hard, they do so when given the chance. The real trouble has to do with such problems as minimum wages
and lack of access to the education necessary for obtaining a better-paying job.
More recently, sociologists have focused on other theories of poverty. One theory of poverty has to do with the flight of the
middle class, including employers, from the cities and into the suburbs. This has limited the opportunities for the inner-city poor to
find adequate jobs. According to another theory, the poor would rather receive welfare payments than work in demeaning
positions as maids or in fast-food restaurants. As a result of this view, the welfare system has come under increasing attack in
recent years.
Again, no simple explanations for or solutions to the problem of poverty exist. Although varying theories abound, sociologists will
continue to pay attention to this issue in the years to come.

The effects of poverty

The effects of poverty are serious. Children who grow up in poverty suffer more persistent, frequent, and severe health problems
than do children who grow up under better financial circumstances.
Many infants born into poverty have a low birth weight, which is associated with many preventable mental and physical
disabilities. Not only are these poor infants more likely to be irritable or sickly, they are also more likely to die before their first
birthday.
Children raised in poverty tend to miss school more often because of illness. These children also have a much higher rate of
accidents than do other children, and they are twice as likely to have impaired vision and hearing, iron deficiency anemia, and
higher than normal levels of lead in the blood, which can impair brain function.
Levels of stress in the family have also been shown to correlate with economic circumstances. Studies during economic
recessions indicate that job loss and subsequent poverty are associated with violence in families, including child and elder
abuse. Poor families experience much more stress than middle-class families. Besides financial uncertainty, these families are
more likely to be exposed to series of negative events and “bad luck,” including illness, depression, eviction, job loss, criminal
victimization, and family death. Parents who experience hard economic times may become excessively punitive and erratic,
issuing demands backed by insults, threats, and corporal punishment.
Homelessness, or extreme poverty, carries with it a particularly strong set of risks for families, especially children. Compared to
children living in poverty but having homes, homeless children are less likely to receive proper nutrition and immunization.
Hence, they experience more health problems. Homeless women experience higher rates of low-birth-weight babies,
miscarriages, and infant mortality, probably due to not having access to adequate prenatal care for their babies. Homeless
families experience even greater life stress than other families, including increased disruption in work, school, family
relationships, and friendships.
Sociologists have been particularly concerned about the effects of poverty on the “black underclass,” the increasing numbers of
jobless, welfare-dependent African Americans trapped in inner-city ghettos. Many of the industries (textiles, auto, steel) that
previously offered employment to the black working class have shut down, while newer industries have relocated to the suburbs.
Because most urban jobs either require advanced education or pay minimum wage, unemployment rates for inner-city blacks are
high.
Even though Hispanic Americans are almost as likely as African Americans to live in poverty, fewer inner-city Hispanic
neighborhoods have undergone the same massive changes as many black neighborhoods have. Middle and working class
Hispanic families have not left their barrio, or urban Spanish-speaking neighborhood, in large numbers, so most Hispanic cultural
and social institutions there remain intact. In addition, local Hispanic-owned businesses and low-skill industries support the barrio
with wage-based, not welfare-based, businesses.
Climbing out of poverty is difficult for anyone, perhaps because, at its worst, poverty can become a self-perpetuating cycle.
Children of poverty are at an extreme disadvantage in the job market; in turn, the lack of good jobs ensures continued poverty.
The cycle ends up repeating itself until the pattern is somehow broken.

Feminist perspective on poverty

Finally, recent decades have witnessed the feminization of poverty, or the significant increase in the numbers of single women in
poverty alone, primarily as single mothers. In the last three decades the proportion of poor families headed by women has grown
to more than 50 percent. This feminization of poverty has affected African-American women more than any other group.
This feminization of poverty may be related to numerous changes in contemporary America. Increases in unwanted births,
separations, and divorces have forced growing numbers of women to head poor households. Meanwhile, increases in divorced
fathers avoiding child support coupled with reductions in welfare support have forced many of these women-headed households
to join the ranks of the underclass. Further, because wives generally live longer than their husbands, growing numbers of elderly
women must live in poverty.
Feminists also attribute the feminization of poverty to women's vulnerability brought about by the patriarchal, sexist, and gender-
biased nature of Western society, which does not value protecting women's rights and wealth.

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Causes and Effects of Drugs

There are many reasons why people turn to drugs, and many reasons why they choose to get help. Some people choose to use
drugs because of pressure from family. Others feel peer pressure from friends. Some people simply want to experiment. There
are also some that want to get away from a painful reality.Parents and other family members do not realize the damage they can
do, and how they can effect their relatives. Family has the power to make people feel the need for drugs. I recently had a friend
return to a detoxification program for heroin addiction. She was addicted to heroin for years, but went to rehabilitation and was
clean for over ten months. Her family had been pressing her and felt she was still using drugs, even though she was clean. Due
to the pressure from her parents, she used heroin again about a week ago for the first time in months. She did not want to do it,
but she did. For the following week, she had to continue using just to survive, or else she would go through withdrawal and it was
horrible. She is now in detoxification for a week, and plans to stay clean. She knows she messed up by using that one last time,
but she felt she needed it, and that is why she is getting help.Pressure from one s peers can cause a person to use drugs. If a
teenager is at a party and there is marijuana around, they may feel they need to smoke the marijuana to be accepted. If
everyone at the party is smoking, the teen may think he or she will be criticized or ridiculed if they do not smoke with the other
attendants of the party.
There are times in one s life where they are in an experimental phase. Many times this comes around the time of adolescence.
Adolescents may feel the need to try all kinds of things to learn for themselves the effects. Many adolescents want to learn from
their own experience, and if someone tells them the effects of a drug or an action, they want to find out for themselves. Many
people want to experiment with all different kinds of things, whether it be drugs, alcohol, piercings, tattoos, or anything else.There
are many people who live a life that is painful and which they want to escape from. If they are having family problems, financial
difficulties, or employment issues, there is a reality that is too painful for them to deal with. If a person wants to escape from
reality, he or she will sometimes turn to drugs. Drugs can put him or her in a different state of mind, and help him or her forget
what their problems are.
The effects of drug use are numerous. Addiction, sickness, and death, are just some effects which drug use can have on a
person. Those effects are only physical. There are also emotional and mental effects of drug use.
There are many causes of drug use. Some of the ones I mentioned are the more common reasons. I know this from the
experience with my friend, and some of her friends, as to why they started, or why they chose to try drugs.

Causes and Effects of Prostituton

Prostitution is generally defined as performing, offering, or agreeing to perform a sexual act for any money, property, token,
object, article, or anything of value. 1 Prostitution of children; therefore, is defined as the sexual exploitation of a child for
remuneration in cash or in-kind, usually but not always organized by an intermediary such as a procurer, family member, pimp,
or madame. 

Hundreds of thousands of children have been lured into prostitution. 2 Though the prostitution of female children is more widely
publicized, male children are also susceptible to the same dangers as females in this world of exploitation

What Are Some of the Causes of this Crime?

Homelessness, poverty and intolerance of their sexual orientation may all affect children who either are or have been prostituted.
General psychological and emotional problems, housing instability, substance abuse, educational and vocational failure, and
major problems at home have all been cited as common precipitating factors in the lives of prostituted children. 5 The children's
young age, lack of education, and lack of the necessary street sense to survive alone6 contribute to their need to engage in
survival sex, or the exchange of sex for food, money, shelter, drugs or protection that defines many of these young people's
lives.7 

Long-Term Psychological Effects to Children 

Children who experience inappropriate sexual activity of a violent or nonviolent nature are psychologically impacted by a
combination of the trauma of the assault itself, coupled with the distorted information exploiters use to justify their sexual
behavior. Some of the many psychological effects of assault may be revealed through the child suffering from depression,
disassociation and posttraumatic shock. To cope with their painful reality, more than three quarters are diagnosed as abusing
drugs or alcohol as a temporary escape. 8 The existence of a drug culture in street life is truly a double-edged sword. Being
sexually exploited through prostitution may result in a higher risk of substance abuse, and abusing substances places children at
a higher risk for prostitution. 9 Prostituted children may internalize feelings of guilt for their participation in sexual acts, which may
lead to additional promiscuity or the engagement in other reckless behaviors.

 
Children on the streets are not only more likely to be clinically depressed, but they are also twice as likely to have a serious
mental-health problem and almost twice as likely to be actively suicidal or to have previously attempted suicide. 10 In one group
of youth involved in prostitution, who were interviewed in shelters, 71 percent reported suicidal ideation, 33 percent had a lethal
plan and 14 percent reported a previous attempt at suicide.11

Causes and Effects of Family Disorganization

(2) Changes in the Social Position of Women. — Vastly more important are the changes which have come over the social status
of woman in the last fifty years. With her change in economic independence, she can now free herself from bonds which once
had to be endured in order that she might escape starvation. Once the power of tradition which visited with social ostracism the
woman who revolted from a life made hard by a mate who was in no sense a companion held her bound and prevented the legal
breaking of a bond which no longer was backed by love. Mohammedan countries and the countries of Europe in which divorce is
seldom permitted furnish plenty of evidence that there are other ways than divorce by which a woman may get rid of an
undesirable husband.' Where the spirit of the woman was not of that desperate character, she suffered and lived a loveless life, a
slave to a being she could not respect or love. Tradition has not yet been broken entirely. Many a woman still suffers and
endures for the sake of the opinion of her relatives and friends or because of the attitude of her church towards divorce, or for the
sake of her children. With woman's industrial enfranchisement, however, a great impetus has been given to divorce. With the
breaking down of social tradition condemning divorce it will naturally grow in the absence of a better method of contracting
marriages. With the increasing education of woman she is thinking upon the question of her relations to men. When she began to
think, tradition's power began to break.

(3) Mental Emancipation of Women. Out of an appeal to her reason has grown the emancipation of woman. The awakening
rationality of the sex began to doubt the old sanctions. The doubts have raised questions which many women are not prepared to
settle practically. One result, however, of this spirit of the age is woman's attempt to gain the ballot in England and America. A
much more important effect, however, is woman's lessened respect for the traditional sanctions of an indissoluble marriage bond
and hence an increase in divorce.' Woman's growing conviction that something is wrong with her lot in some cases was brought
to expression by the movement for her emancipation. Political enfranchisement was the least of the burden she felt. She felt
much more keenly her domestic bonds and therefore she desired the more intensely her emancipation from ties which she felt to
be hateful.

Like all reformers, doubtless the advocates of woman's freedom have gone too far. To make their case perhaps the leaders have
overstated her distress. Doubtless the agitation has stirred some excitable women to exaggerate their unhappiness. Reiterated
declarations concerning women's " slavery " have without question worked as a suggestion to some who otherwise would never
have thought of revolt against their position. Perhaps, therefore, we may reasonably anticipate after the agitation has quieted
down a decline in divorce.

(4) Irrational Methods of choosing Mates. — When one contemplates the irrational way in which matches are made one
wonders, not that one marriage out of every twelve ends in the divorce court, but that so few come to that conclusion. Two
theories dominate in present-day thought as reflected in our modern novels centering about the tender passion. Either "
marriages are made in heaven," or, according to the new theological version of that theory, people are intended for each other by
that paganized, but none the less personal, something called Nature. The one is as metaphysical and as unscientific as the
other. Both are prescientific statements of an actual situation less definitely determined, however, than the theories would make
us believe. The elements of attraction between well-mated personalities have never been scientifically established. Sexual
attraction rests partly on a physical basis. The popular belief is that people with unlike or complementary physical qualities attract
each other, very much as the positive and negative poles of a magnet. Thus, light and dark, the slim and the stout, attract each
other. Some sociologists think that the novel in one's experience attracts. Others think that each group of people forms an ideal
of personal beauty corresponding to its degree of mental development and of civilization. Unquestionably this ideal, to a
considerable extent, grows out of imitation of superiors in social status. However, the subject waits for more careful scientific
study.

What is Sociology?

Sociology is defined as the scientific study of society and human behavior. Sociology is a part of social sciences. The study of
sociology aims at analyzing the patterns of human behavior, deriving their causes and speculating the future of the behavioral
patterns in society. 

Importance of Sociology

The various disciplines of sociology include the study of social interaction between people. The areas covered by sociology
include the analysis of social contacts between members of a society as also the interactions between different people around
the world. Sociology attempts to study how and why people are organized as a society. It analyzes the structure of society and
studies the factors that contribute to the creation of social groups.

Sociology includes the study of the behavioral patterns, interactions and relationships among the individuals of society. This field
tries to examine the organizational structure of society and the influence it has on the social, political and religious ideas of the
members. It encompasses the study of the organization of families and businesses. It attempts to analyze the creation and
management of social groups as well as the factors, which lead to their breakdown. The disciplines of sociology are concerned
with the effects of social behavior on the formation of social traits. It also includes the ethical and moral values of society. 

Sociology is regarded as a branch of social sciences. It deals with the analysis of social behavior that shapes society and thus, is
a field that covers a very broad knowledge base.

Sociological Theories

Structural-Functionalism is a sociological theory that originally attempted to explain social institutions as collective means to meet
individual biological needs (originally just functionalism). Later it came to focus on the ways social institutions meet social needs
(structural-functionalism).

Structural-functionalism draws its inspiration primarily from the ideas of Emile Durkheim.[3] Durkheim was concerned with the
question of how societies maintain internal stability and survive over time. He sought to explain social cohesion and stability
through the concept of solidarity. In more "primitive" societies it was mechanical solidarity, everyone performing similar tasks,
that held society together. Durkheim proposed that such societies tend to be segmentary, being composed of equivalent parts
that are held together by shared values, common symbols, or systems of exchanges. In modern, complex societies members
perform very different tasks, resulting in a strong interdependence between individuals. Based on the metaphor of an organism in
which many parts function together to sustain the whole, Durkheim argued that modern complex societies are held together
by organic solidarity (think interdependent organs).

The central concern of structural-functionalism is a continuation of the Durkheimian task of explaining the apparent stability and
internal cohesion of societies that are necessary to ensure their continued existence over time. Many functionalists argue that
social institutions are functionally integrated to form a stable system and that a change in one institution will precipitate a change
in other institutions. Societies are seen as coherent, bounded and fundamentally relational constructs that function like
organisms, with their various parts (social institutions) working together to maintain and reproduce them. The various parts of
society are assumed to work in an unconscious, quasi-automatic fashion towards the maintenance of the overall
social equilibrium. All social and cultural phenomena are therefore seen as being functional in the sense of working together to
achieve this state and are effectively deemed to have a life of their own. These components are then primarily analysed in terms
of the function they play. In other words, to understand a component of society, one can ask the question, "What is the function
of this institution?" A function, in this sense, is the contribution made by a phenomenon to a larger system of which the
phenomenon is a part.[4]

A prominent sociological theory that is often contrasted with structural-functionalism is conflict theory. Conflict theory argues that
society is not best understood as a complex system striving for equilibrium but rather as a competition. Society is made up of
individuals competing for limited resources (e.g., money, leisure, sexual partners, etc.). Broader social structures and
organizations (e.g., religions, government, etc.) reflect the competition for resources in their inherent inequalities; some people
and organizations have more resources (i.e., power and influence) and use those resources to maintain their positions of power
in society.

Conflict theory was developed in part to illustrate the limitations of structural-functionalism. The structural-functionalist approach
argued that society tends toward equilibrium, focusing on stability at the expense of social change. This is contrasted with the
conflict approach, which argues that society is constantly in conflict over resources. One of the primary contributions conflict
theory presents over the structural-functional approach is that it is ideally suited for explaining social change, a significant
problem in the structural-functional approach.

The following are three primary assumptions of modern conflict theory:

Competition over scarce resources is at the heart of all social relationships. Competition rather than consensus is characteristic
of human relationships.

Inequalities in power and reward are built into all social structures. Individuals and groups that benefit from any particular
structure strive to see it maintained.

Change occurs as a result of conflict between competing interests rather than through adaptation. Change is often abrupt and
revolutionary rather than evolutionary.

A heuristic device to help you think about society from a conflict perspective is to ask, "Who benefits from this element of
society?" Using the same example as we did above, we can ask, "Who benefits from the current higher educational system in
the U.S.?" The answer, of course, is the wealthy. Why? Because higher education in the U.S. is not free. Thus, the educational
system often screens out poorer individuals not because they are unable to compete academically but because they cannot
afford to pay for their education. Because the poor are unable to obtain higher education, this means they are also generally
unable to get higher paying jobs which means they remain poor. This can easily translate into a vicious cycle of poverty. Thus,
while the function of education is to educate the workforce, it also has built into it an element of conflict and inequality, favoring
one group (the wealthy) over other groups (the poor). Thinking about education this way helps illustrate why both structural-
functionalist and conflict theories are helpful in understanding how society works.

Conflict theory was elaborated in the United Kingdom by Max Gluckman and John Rex, in the United States by Lewis A.
Coser and Randall Collins, and in Germany by Ralf Dahrendorf, all of whom were influenced by Karl Marx, Ludwig
Gumplovicz, Vilfredo Pareto, Georg Simmel, and other founding fathers of European sociology.

In contrast to the rather broad approach toward society of structural-functionalism and conflict theory,  Symbolic Interactionism is
a theoretical approach to understanding the relationship between humans and society. The basic notion of symbolic
interactionism is that human action and interaction are understandable only through the exchange of meaningful communication
or symbols. In this approach, humans are portrayed as acting as opposed to being acted upon.[11]

The main principles of symbolic interactionism are:[12]

human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them

these meanings arise of out of social interaction

social action results from a fitting together of individual lines of action

This approach stands in contrast to the strict behaviorism of psychological theories prevalent at the time it was first formulated (in
the 1920s and 1930s). According to Symbolic Interactionism, humans are distinct from infrahumans (lower animals) because
infrahumans simply respond to their environment (i.e., a stimulus evokes a response or stimulus -> response) whereas humans
have the ability to interrupt that process (i.e., stimulus -> cognition -> response). Additionally, infrahumans are unable to
conceive of alternative responses to gestures. Humans, however, can. This understanding should not be taken to indicate that
humans never behave in a strict stimulus -> response fashion, but rather that humans have the capability of not responding in
that fashion (and do so much of the time).

Another more micro-oriented approach to understanding social life that also incorporates the more structural elements of society
is Role Theory.[14] Role theory posits that human behavior is guided by expectations held both by the individual and by other
people. The expectations correspond to different roles individuals perform or enact in their daily lives, such as secretary, father,
or friend. For instance, most people hold pre-conceived notions of the role expectations of a secretary, which might include:
answering phones, making and managing appointments, filing paperwork, and typing memos. These role expectations would not
be expected of a professional soccer player.

Individuals generally have and manage many roles. Roles consist of a set of rules or norms that function as plans or blueprints to
guide behavior. Roles specify what goals should be pursued, what tasks must be accomplished, and what performances are
required in a given scenario or situation. Role theory holds that a substantial proportion of observable, day-to-day social behavior
is simply persons carrying out their roles, much as actors carry out their roles on the stage or ballplayers theirs on the field. Role
theory is, in fact, predictive. It implies that if we have information about the role expectations for a specified status (e.g., sister,
fireman, prostitute), a significant portion of the behavior of the persons occupying that position can be predicted.

Social constructionism is a school of thought introduced into sociology by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann with their 1966
book The Social Construction of Reality .[17] Social constructionism aims to discover the ways that individuals and groups create
their perceived reality. Social constructionism focuses on the description of institutions and actions and not on analyzing cause
and effect. Socially constructed reality is seen as an on-going dynamic process; reality is re-produced by people acting on their
interpretations of what they perceive to be the world external to them. Berger and Luckmann argue that social construction
describes both subjective and objective reality - that is that no reality exists outside what is produced and reproduced in social
interactions.