Poverty and Its Effects on Females Research Paper

Introduction

Sociology is the science that deals with the most important phenomenon for every human being. It deals with the society in all its aspects and such spheres of social life as politics, economy, equality of rights, etc. Drawing from this, sociology, as a comprehensive and all-embracing science, is one of the basis sources of knowledge about the principles of human coexistence. It goes without saying, however, that considering the major phenomena of social life it is impossible to be focused on positive things only (Collins and Makowsky, 2004). Problems, social conflicts, various discriminations and rights inequalities constitute a large part of the societal relations. Poverty is one of the most significant issues that the human society faces in its development, and special attention in this respect should be paid to poverty among women (Collins and Makowsky, 2004). This is exactly the focus of this paper aimed at finding out the reasons for women poverty, main factors influencing it and the possible ways of its overcoming.

Background to the Problem

Stereotyping

To start the discussion of such a burning issue as women poverty, it is necessary to find out the reasons for its emergence and for the very distinction between poverty among males and females. Thus, the major factor that makes scholars talk about men and women poverty separately is the patriarchal nature of the human society. In other words, males have dominated the social life from time immemorial while females were viewed as mere housekeepers able for cooking, cleaning and bringing up children (Collins and Makowsky, 2004). Despite the fact that the dawn of the 19^th century and the appearance of feminism movement brought considerable progress into the struggle for the equality of rights for men and women, the traditional public attitude have remained unchanged – women are weaker and more dependant upon men. This phenomenon, according to Buvinic (1997), is called “the “feminization” of poverty” because “women are traditionally found to be more impoverished than men” (p. 38).

Governmental Fault

Further on, the tradition-based inequality in wages is also a reason for the inequality. However, the major reason for the women poverty as a separate phenomenon is the inadequate policy of the government that did not manage to settle the issues of unemployment, family breaking and overall income decrease that started already in 1920s. The period of the Great Depression was one of the hardest for the social life of the United States. Over a quarter of all the workers started losing their jobs since 1929, and the tendency led to the increase in poverty rates and single parenthood figures. Accordingly, males who were more adjusted to social changes and able for more varied kinds of work could feed themselves while women were left to face poverty and raise children on their own (Buvinic, p. 38).

Welfare

Drawing from this, the government tried to solve the issues of poverty by developing various support programs whose very idea was, as it turned out later, failing from the beginning. The first signs of the modern welfare system could be observed in 1935 when the Social Security Act was adopted by the Congress. Under its force, the so-called Aid to Families with Dependant Children Program (AFDC) was carried out (Buvinic, p. 38). It aimed at supporting single parents, mostly single mothers, who had no working places and had to care for children. However, the very idea of the AFDC program contradicted the common sense. The Government provided poor women with financial aids, while the very problem of poverty could not be solved in that way. It demanded more qualified approach reflected in the creation of new working places for those women instead of giving them money that inflated and was not a reliable means of feeding families (Buvinic, p. 38).

Moreover, the constant rise of numbers of those women who either apply or already receive welfare aids affect poverty rates as well. This is observed in the negative attitudes towards welfare and those who live on it. Consequently, it becomes more difficult for these women to find a job as far as employees are subject to the influence of one of the welfare myths stating that “most women on welfare are lazy and do not want to work” (Berrick, p. 16). All these factors cause the today’s situation in which the numbers of women on welfare grows together with the numbers of women living behind the poverty line.

Women Poverty Nowadays

Worldwide Importance

Speaking about the women poverty in its today’s state demands an immediate reaction to the worldwide significance of this problem. In other words, “because women are increasingly economic actors and heads of households as well as mothers, their poverty slows global economic growth.” (Buvinic, p. 38) Development and wide acceptance of feminist ideals resulted in the increase of the social importance of the female members of the society. Accordingly, the issues faced by women worldwide reflect the state of the whole global society. For example, due to the high rates of women poverty 700 million of “income poor” people in the world are women while men constitute 200 million (Buvinic, p. 38). Moreover, for every 100 literate men there are only 74 literate women, which is also the result of the poverty of women and obvious lack of access to education caused by the latter (Buvinic, p. 38).

Social Issues

There are also numerous social issues that deepen the women poverty in the modern society. Among them there are such burning social troubles as the increase of divorces, growth of the numbers of children living with single parents who never married, the subsequent increase of rates of divorced, never-married women or single mothers who use welfare although its initial aim was to help widows or disabled women (Berrick, p. 7). Drawing from these issues, the negative perspectives for future societal development are observed. Thus, for example, the rate of Caucasian children from single-parent families is on the 10% rise compared to the last decade. This is reflected in the relation of 5% in 1990s to 15% of Caucasian children living predominantly with their mothers nowadays. The situation in the African American ethnic group is even worse – the above mentioned rates are on the more dramatic rise amounting to 45% of African American children living with single parents today compared to “only” 15% rate that could be observed in the decade before (Berrick, pp. 8 – 9).

Prejudice and Myths

Drawing from the above presented statistical data, it is obvious that poor women have to face considerable challenges as single mothers, unemployed or illegally employed people with no health care insurance and no stable income sources. Based on this, the figures that are reported by the Governmental offices as sums paid to women on welfare do not seem to solve their financial problems. The financial aids received by poor women on welfare differ from state to state, but the average sum of $396 per month for a single mother with two or more children is not the sum allowing a woman to feed her children and provide them with all the necessary things (Berrick, 1995).

However, a number of myths about welfare and people using it exist nowadays. Their main essence lies in the assumption, which turns out to be groundless in most cases, that women on welfare are not willing to work, they have children for the purpose of receiving more financial aid from the government, and do not marry so that not to lose welfare financing, their children become as dependant of governmental help as they are, etc. These prejudiced opinions do not reflect the original state of things which is perfectly demonstrated by the above mentioned sums that every woman receives on welfare (Berrick, 1995). Knowing these figures it is impossible to imagine that women are satisfied with their positions and do not seek for the better. What is necessary in this situation is the properly developed, coordinated and effective governmental policy towards the reduction of women poverty and its effects on the society.

Solution Ways

Health and Education

As a result of all the above enumerated facts, there is a clear necessity of effective and strong governmental activities for overcoming the women poverty as one of the major threats to the society. The activities that the Government could take up to effectively fight the poverty among women embrace the wide circle of areas including health care standards, educational possibilities, employment perspectives and the opportunities of earning the deserved wages for women at their working places (Collins and Makowsky, 2004).

Accordingly, the main field that requires immediate and properly developed actions is the health care sphere. Poverty is the cause of bad healthcare standards, numerous diseases and issues which not only poor women but also their children have to face. For women it is of crucial importance to have constant access to reproductive health programs and services and family planning programs. The latter point is important for young females not to become single mothers as these programs shape their social awareness and educate them in sexual aspects. The former is the vital need of every woman which is, however, inaccessible to the poor due to its high cost (Dujo, 1996). Accordingly, the Government is to reduce these costs or provide the poor women with free access to such services in order to improve the health of the whole nation. Moreover, educational needs of the poor women and their children should also be taken into consideration through the Governmental tuition fees reduction and increase of education accessibility (Buvinic, p. 38).

Finance and Economics

Further on, in the financial and economical spheres of societal relations, the Governmental activities are also necessary. These are the areas of social life that allow the poor women to ensure their access to the above discussed health care and educational facilities as well as their confident position in the society (Dujon, 1996). Thus, the first, and the most important, step the Government could take is the creation of new working places for the unemployed women. This is possible by redirecting the money going on welfare for industrial or infrastructural development (Dujon, 1996). As a result, jobs will be provided for the unemployed who would not need any welfare as they would earn regular wages. Moreover, in this way the rates of criminality among the poor and unemployed will be reduced as well as juvenile delinquency levels (Dujon, 1996).

Another effective step could be the creation of the favorable environment for the poor single women who plan to open their small businesses. This could be realized by the program of the state financing of such initiatives when a certain bank would credit the beginning entrepreneurs who would return the sums received with certain interest rates (Buvinic, p. 38). All these measures, if properly carried out by the Government, will definitely bring improvements to the state of poor women and decrease the numbers of the poor on the whole. The results of these measures could be especially impressive if they are taken in the permanent contact with the public opinion and with the consideration of the viewpoint of the poor women themselves.

Conclusions

So, to make the respective conclusion to the present paper it is necessary to state once again that the women poverty is a burning issue of today’s society and recent trends in the world have made it into a global issue. The roots of the problem lie in the past traditional attitudes typical of the male dominated society and the inadequate Governmental policies. The modern state of things is rather challenging and demands immediate and effective measures to be taken by the Government to reduce women poverty or eliminate this societal phenomenon. These measures should be comprehensive and embrace such spheres of social life as health care, education, employment, business development and personal realization of every individual.

Works Cited

1. Berrick, Jill. Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
2. Buvinic, Mayra. “Women in Poverty: A New Global Underclass.” Foreign Policy 1997: 38+.
3. Dujon, Diane, and Ann Withorn, eds. For Crying out Loud: Women’s Poverty in the United States. Boston: South End Press, 1996.
4. Collins, Randall and Michael Makowsky. The Discovery of Society. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2004.