speech on the effects of poverty

6 Speech On Poverty You Should Know

According to the latest statistics on poverty, 8.6% of the world, or 736 million people, live in extreme poverty. As we all know, poverty is the state of being poor and lack of the means to provide necessary needs. Going by the basic definition of poverty, 736 million people lack the means to provide necessary needs and it shouldn’t be so.

In this article, we have collated a list of speeches on poverty to inspire the fight against poverty and also help you create wonderful content about poverty. These speeches on poverty were made by influential voices addressing the ever existing social issue, poverty.

Here are the 5 speech on poverty to inspire you to fight against poverty:

1.) Former U.N Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, Address on the International Day For The Eradication Of Poverty, 17 October.

In this address, Kofi Annan highlighted the need of working together to end poverty. He said: “But poverty is an old enemy with many faces. Defeating it will require many actors to work together.”

2.) Ban Ki-moon Speech At The 66th General Assembly .

On September 2011, the former U.N Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, gave a speech at the 66th General Assembly. In that speech, Ki-moon linked the fight for poverty to some important social issues. In his words: “Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth … these are one and the same fight.”.

“We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women’s empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.” Ban Ki-moon also said in the speech.

3.) Nelson Mandela Make Poverty History Speech in Trafalgar Square

Nelson Mandela gave a speech about poverty in London’s Trafalgar Square on February 3, 2005. Just like most speeches about poverty, Nelson Mandela’s speech is where most quote about poverty comes from.

The former president of South Africa made an important point that poverty doesn’t only affect those who can barely provide their necessary needs but everyone, rich and poor. Mandela said: “As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality exist in our world, none of us can truly rest.”

He also noted that poverty is a denial of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life. In his words: “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”

4.) Teva Sienicki TEDxMileHighWomen Speech

Teva Sienicki, president and CEO of nonprofit organization, Growing Home, which provides dual-generation programs to nurture children, strengthen families, and create community.

In Sienicki’s inspiring TEDx speech, she offers an efficient way to ending poverty. Sienick tells the world that we need to not just treat the symptoms of poverty, but treat the root causes of poverty.

Sienicki argues that one can end poverty by bringing equity and reforming systems in communities.

5.) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr 1964 Nobel Peace Prize Lecture

In 1964, in a Nobel Peace Prize lecture which took place at Oslo, Norway, renowned American activist, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke about poverty. He called on nations to end poverty. Martin Luther King Jr also argued that there’s no deficit in human resources but human will in the fight against poverty.

6.) Harry Belafonte Speech About Poverty

At a town hall in America, in the year 2005, Jamaican-American singer, songwriter, activist, and actor  dubbed “King of Calypso”,  Harry Belafonte gave a wonderful speech about poverty in America. Though, he was talking about poverty in America he made important points as regards to poverty. “We have to look at ourselves because I think the last frontier of truth and hope in this country are the people themselves.” Harry Belafonte says, calling for people to realize that we can bring the change we want.

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Mental health effects of poverty, hunger, and homelessness on children and teens

Rising inflation and an uncertain economy are deeply affecting the lives of millions of Americans, particularly those living in low-income communities. It may seem impossible for a family of four to survive on just over $27,000 per year or a single person on just over $15,000, but that’s what millions of people do everyday in the United States. Approximately 37.9 million Americans, or just under 12%, now live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau .

Additional data from the Bureau show that children are more likely to experience poverty than people over the age of 18. Approximately one in six kids, 16% of all children, live in families with incomes below the official poverty line.

Those who are poor face challenges beyond a lack of resources. They also experience mental and physical issues at a much higher rate than those living above the poverty line. Read on for a summary of the myriad effects of poverty, homelessness, and hunger on children and youth. And for more information on APA’s work on issues surrounding socioeconomic status, please see the Office of Socioeconomic Status .

Who is most affected?

Poverty rates are disproportionately higher among most non-White populations. Compared to 8.2% of White Americans living in poverty, 26.8% of American Indian and Alaska Natives, 19.5% of Blacks, 17% of Hispanics and 8.1% of Asians are currently living in poverty.

Similarly, Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous children are overrepresented among children living below the poverty line. More specifically, 35.5% of Black people living in poverty in the U.S. are below the age of 18. In addition, 40.7% of Hispanic people living below the poverty line in the U.S. are younger than age 18, and 29.1% of American Indian and Native American children lived in poverty in 2018. In contrast, approximately 21% of White people living in poverty in the U.S. are less than 18 years old.

Furthermore, families with a female head of household are more than twice as likely to live in poverty compared to families with a male head of household. Twenty-three percent of female-headed households live in poverty compared to 11.4% of male-headed households, according to the U.S. Census Bureau .

What are the effects of poverty on children and teens?

The impact of poverty on young children is significant and long lasting. Poverty is associated with substandard housing, hunger, homelessness, inadequate childcare, unsafe neighborhoods, and under-resourced schools. In addition, low-income children are at greater risk than higher-income children for a range of cognitive, emotional, and health-related problems, including detrimental effects on executive functioning, below average academic achievement, poor social emotional functioning, developmental delays, behavioral problems, asthma, inadequate nutrition, low birth weight, and higher rates of pneumonia.

Psychological research also shows that living in poverty is associated with differences in structural and functional brain development in children and adolescents in areas related to cognitive processes that are critical for learning, communication, and academic achievement, including social emotional processing, memory, language, and executive functioning.

Children and families living in poverty often attend under-resourced, overcrowded schools that lack educational opportunities, books, supplies, and appropriate technology due to local funding policies. In addition, families living below the poverty line often live in school districts without adequate equal learning experiences for both gifted and special needs students with learning differences and where high school dropout rates are high .

What are the effects of hunger on children and teens?

One in eight U.S. households with children, approximately 12.5%, could not buy enough food for their families in 2021 , considerably higher than the rate for households without children (9.4%). Black (19.8%) and Latinx (16.25%) households are disproportionately impacted by food insecurity, with food insecurity rates in 2021 triple and double the rate of White households (7%), respectively.

Research has found that hunger and undernutrition can have a host of negative effects on child development. For example, maternal undernutrition during pregnancy increases the risk of negative birth outcomes, including premature birth, low birth weight, smaller head size, and lower brain weight. In addition, children experiencing hunger are at least twice as likely to report being in fair or poor health and at least 1.4 times more likely to have asthma, compared to food-secure children.

The first three years of a child’s life are a period of rapid brain development. Too little energy, protein and nutrients during this sensitive period can lead to lasting deficits in cognitive, social and emotional development . School-age children who experience severe hunger are at increased risk for poor mental health and lower academic performance , and often lag behind their peers in social and emotional skills .

What are the effects of homelessness on children and teens?

Approximately 1.2 million public school students experienced homelessness during the 2019-2020 school year, according to the National Center for Homeless Education (PDF, 1.4MB) . The report also found that students of color experienced homelessness at higher proportions than expected based on the overall number of students. Hispanic and Latino students accounted for 28% of the overall student body but 38% of students experiencing homelessness, while Black students accounted for 15% of the overall student body but 27% of students experiencing homelessness. While White students accounted for 46% of all students enrolled in public schools, they represented 26% of students experiencing homelessness.

Homelessness can have a tremendous impact on children, from their education, physical and mental health, sense of safety, and overall development. Children experiencing homelessness frequently need to worry about where they will live, their pets, their belongings, and other family members. In addition, homeless children are less likely to have adequate access to medical and dental care, and may be affected by a variety of health challenges due to inadequate nutrition and access to food, education interruptions, trauma, and disruption in family dynamics.

In terms of academic achievement, students experiencing homelessness are more than twice as likely to be chronically absent than non-homeless students , with greater rates among Black and Native American or Alaska Native students. They are also more likely to change schools multiple times and to be suspended—especially students of color.

Further, research shows that students reporting homelessness have higher rates of victimization, including increased odds of being sexually and physically victimized, and bullied. Student homelessness correlates with other problems, even when controlling for other risks. They experienced significantly greater odds of suicidality, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, risky sexual behavior, and poor grades in school.

What can you do to help children and families experiencing poverty, hunger, and homelessness?

There are many ways that you can help fight poverty in America. You can:

• Volunteer your time with charities and organizations that provide assistance to low-income and homeless children and families.
• Donate money, food, and clothing to homeless shelters and other charities in your community.
• Donate school supplies and books to underresourced schools in your area.
• Improve access to physical, mental, and behavioral health care for low-income Americans by eliminating barriers such as limitations in health care coverage.
• Create a “safety net” for children and families that provides real protection against the harmful effects of economic insecurity.
• Increase the minimum wage, affordable housing and job skills training for low-income and homeless Americans.
• Intervene in early childhood to support the health and educational development of low-income children.
• Provide support for low-income and food insecure children such as Head Start , the National School Lunch Program , and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) .
• Increase resources for public education and access to higher education.
• Support research on poverty and its relationship to health, education, and well-being.
• Resolution on Poverty and SES
• Pathways for addressing deep poverty
• APA Deep Poverty Initiative

Reversing the Inequality Pandemic: Speech by World Bank Group President David Malpass

World Bank Group President David Malpass

Speech at Frankfurt School of Finance and Management

You can watch the replay of the event  here

Introduction

Thank you, Jens. And thanks to Frankfurt School and the Bundesbank for hosting me virtually. I look forward to engaging with you and taking questions from students, who will be future business leaders in a post-COVID world. I’m here to set the stage ahead of the IMF and World Bank Group’s Annual Meetings, which will focus primarily on COVID and debt, and will also engage partners in urgent discussions on human capital, climate change, and digital development.

Before I begin, I would be remiss not to mention that this is the first time that the positioning speech for the World Bank Group Annual Meetings is being held in continental Europe. Germany is a major anchor for the World Bank Group and the rest of Europe; it is IBRD’s fourth largest shareholder, and the fourth largest contributor to IDA, and Chancellor Merkel has always been a strong supporter of World Bank Group priorities, including tackling debt and COVID, as well as action on global public goods. I understand that these priorities are also the focus of Germany’s EU Presidency, which runs through the end of 2020.

As Jens said, the COVID-19 pandemic is a crisis like no other. Its toll has been massive and people in the poorest countries are likely to suffer the most and the longest. The pandemic has taken lives and disrupted livelihoods in every corner of the globe. It has knocked more economies into simultaneous recession than at any time since 1870. And it could lead to the first wave of a lost decade burdened by weak growth, a collapse in many health and education systems, and excessive debt.

The pandemic has already changed our world decisively and forced upon the world a painful transformation. It has changed everything : the way we work, the extent to which we travel, and the manner in which we communicate, teach, and learn. It has rapidly elevated some industries—especially the technology sector—while pushing others toward obsolescence.

Our approach has been comprehensive—focused on saving lives, protecting the poor and vulnerable, ensuring sustainable business growth, and rebuilding in better ways. Today, I’m going to focus on four urgent aspects of this work: first, the need to redouble efforts to alleviate poverty and inequality ; second, the associated loss of human capital and what must be done to restore it; third, the urgent need to help the poorest countries make their government debt more transparent and permanently reduce their debt burdens, two necessary steps to attract effective investment; and finally, how we can cooperate to facilitate the changes needed for an inclusive and resilient recovery .

Topic 1: Poverty and Inequality

First, on poverty and inequality, COVID-19 has dealt an unprecedented setback to the worldwide effort to end extreme poverty, raise median incomes and create shared prosperity.

Jens has referred to the World Bank’s new poverty projections, which suggest that by 2021 an additional 110 to 150 million people will have fallen into extreme poverty, living on less than $1.90 per day. This means that the pandemic and global recession may push over 1.4% of the world’s population into extreme poverty.

The current crisis is a sharp contrast from the recession of 2008, which focused much of its damage on financial assets and hit advanced economies harder than developing countries. This time, the economic downturn is broader, much deeper, and has hit informal sector workers and the poor, especially women and children, harder than those with higher incomes or assets.

One reason for the differential impact is the advanced economies’ sweeping expansion of government spending programs. Rich countries have had the resources to protect their citizens to an extent many developing countries have not. Another is central bank asset purchases. The scale of such purchases is unprecedented and has successfully propped up global financial markets. This benefits the well-to-do and those with guaranteed pensions, especially in the rich world, but it is not clear, either in textbook theory or in practice, how 0% interest rates and ever-expanding government asset and liability balances will translate into new jobs, profitable small businesses, or rising median income—key steps in reversing inequality.

Poorer economies have fewer macro-economic tools and stabilizers and suffer from weaker health care systems and social safety nets. For them, there are no fast ways to reverse the sudden reduction in their sales to consumers in advanced economies or the almost overnight collapse in tourism and remittances from family members working abroad. It’s clear that sustainable recoveries will require growth that benefits all people—and not just those in positions of power. In an interconnected world, where people are more informed than ever before, this pandemic of inequality—with rising poverty and declining median incomes—will increasingly be a threat to the maintenance of social order and political stability, and even to the defense of democracy.

Topic 2: Human Capital

Second, on human capital, developing countries were making significant progress before COVID-19—and, notably, starting to close gender gaps. Human capital is what drives sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. It consists of the knowledge, skills, and quality of health that people gain over their lives. It is associated with higher earnings for people, higher income for countries, and stronger cohesion in societies.

Since the outbreak, however, more than 1.6 billion children in developing countries have been out of school because of COVID-19, implying a potential loss of as much as $10 trillion in lifetime earnings for these students. Gender-based violence is on the rise, and child mortality is also likely to increase in coming years: our early estimates suggest a potential increase of up to 45% in child mortality because of health-service shortfalls and reductions in access to food.

These setbacks imply a long-term hit to productivity, income growth and social cohesion—which is why we’re doing everything we can to bolster health and education in developing countries. In the area of health, the World Bank Group worked with our Board in March to establish a fast-track COVID response that has delivered emergency support to 111 countries so far. Most projects are now in advanced stages of disbursement for the purchase of COVID-related health supplies, such as masks and emergency room equipment.

Our goal was to take broad, fast action early and to provide large net positive flows to the world’s poorest countries. We are making good progress toward our announced 15-month target of $160 billion in surge financing, much of it to the poorest countries and to private sectors for trade finance and working capital. Over $50 billion of that support takes the form of grants or low-rate, long-maturity loans, providing key resources to maintain or expand health care systems and social safety nets. Both are likely to play a key near-term role in survival and health for millions of families.

We are also taking action to help developing countries with COVID vaccines and therapeutics. I announced last week that, by extending and expanding our fast-track approach to address the COVID emergency, we plan to make available up to $12 billion to countries for the purchase and deployment of COVID-19 vaccines once the vaccines have been approved by multiple stringent regulatory agencies around the world. This additional financing will be to low- and middle-income developing countries that don’t have adequate access and will help them alter the course of the pandemic for their people. The approach draws on the World Bank’s significant expertise in supporting public health and vaccination programs and will signal to markets that developing countries will have multiple ways to purchase approved vaccines and will have significant purchasing power.

Our private sector arm—the International Finance Corporation, or IFC—is also investing heavily in vaccine manufacturers through its $4 billion Global Health Platform. The aim is to encourage ramped-up production of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics in advanced and developing economies alike—and to ensure that emerging markets gain access to available doses. IFC is also working with the vaccine partnership—CEPI—to map COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capacity, focusing especially on potential bottlenecks.

To mitigate the impact of the pandemic on education, the Bank is working to help countries reopen primary and secondary schools safely and quickly. Out of school, children tend to backslide in their educational skills; and for children in the poorest countries, physical attendance in school is an important source of food and security, not just the reading and math that provide a critical ladder out of poverty. The Bank is working in 65 countries to implement remote-learning strategies, combining online resources with radio, TV, and social networks, and printed materials for the most vulnerable. We are also partnering with UNICEF and UNESCO on school-reopening frameworks.

In Nigeria, for example, we provided $500 million in new funding for the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), which aims to improve secondary education opportunities among girls. The project is expected to benefit more than 6 million girls, using TV, radio, and remote-learning tools.

Topic 3: Debt Burdens

My third urgent topic is debt. A combination of factors has led to a wave of excessive debt in countries where there is no margin for error. Global financial markets are dominated by low interest rates, creating a reach-for-yield fervor that invites excess. This is reinforced by an imbalance in the global debt system that puts sovereign debt in a unique category that favors creditors over the people in the borrowing country—there’s not a sovereign bankruptcy process that allows for partial payment and reduction of claims. As a result, people, even the world’s poorest and most destitute, are required to pay their government’s debts as long as creditors pursue claims—even so-called “vulture” creditors who acquire the distressed claims on secondary markets, exploit litigation, penalty interest clauses and court judgments to ratchet up the value of the claims, and use attachment of assets and payments to enforce debt service. In the worst cases, it’s the modern equivalent of debtor’s prison.

Further, the political incentive and opportunity for government officials to borrow heavily has increased. Their careers benefit from the availability of long-maturity debt because the repayment cycle is often well after the political cycle. This undermines accountability for debt, making transparency much more important than in the past.

An added factor in the current wave of debt is the rapid growth of new official lenders, especially several of China’s well-capitalized creditors. They’ve expanded their portfolios dramatically and are not fully participating in the debt rescheduling processes that were developed to soften previous waves of debt.

To take a first step toward debt relief for the poorest countries, at the World Bank’s Spring Meetings in March, I, along with Kristalina Georgieva of the IMF, proposed a moratorium on debt payments by the poorest countries. It was partly a response to COVID and the need for countries to have fiscal space, and also a recognition that a debt crisis was underway for the poorest countries. With endorsement by the G20, G7 and Paris Club, the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, or DSSI, took effect on May 1. It enabled a fast and coordinated response to provide additional fiscal space for the poorest countries in the world. As of mid-September, 43 countries were benefiting from an estimated $5 billion in debt-service suspension from official bilateral creditors, complementing the scaled-up emergency financing provided by the World Bank and IMF. The DSSI has also enabled us to make significant progress on debt transparency, which will help borrowing countries and their creditors make more informed borrowing and investment decisions. This year’s edition of the World Bank’s International Debt Statistics, to be released next Monday, October 12, will provide more detailed and more disaggregated data on sovereign debt than ever before in its nearly 70-year history.

Many more steps are needed on debt relief. One avenue is to broaden and extend the current debt initiative so that there is time to work out a more permanent solution. The World Bank and the IMF have called on the G20 to extend the DSSI’s relief through the end of 2021, and we are highlighting the need for G20 governments to urge the participation of all their private and bilateral public sector creditors in the DSSI. Private creditors and non-participating bilateral creditors should not be allowed to free-ride on the debt relief of others, and at the expense of the world’s poor.

Debt service suspension is an important stopgap, but it is not enough. First, too many of the creditors are not participating, leaving the debt relief too shallow to meet the fiscal needs of the inequality pandemic around us. Second, debt payments are simply being deferred, not reduced. It doesn’t produce light at the end of the debt tunnel. This is particularly apparent in today’s low-for-long financing environment. The normal time value of money simply isn’t working, so the creditors’ offer of a deferral of payments with a compounding of interest often means that the burden of debt goes up with time, not down. The historical use of net present value equations in debt restructurings has to be scrutinized for fairness to the people in the debtor countries.

The risk is that it will take years or decades for the poorest countries to convince creditors to reduce their debt burdens enough to help restart growth and investment. Given the depth of the pandemic, I believe we need to move with urgency to provide a meaningful reduction in the stock of debt for countries in debt distress. Under the current system, however, each country, no matter how poor, may have to fight it out with each creditor. Creditors are usually better financed with the highest paid lawyers representing them, often in U.S. and UK courts that make debt restructurings difficult. It is surely possible that these countries—two of the biggest contributors to development—can do more to reconcile their public policies toward the poorest countries and their laws protecting the rights of creditors to demand repayments from these countries.

Several steps are needed. First, as I mentioned, full participation in the moratorium by all official bilateral and commercial creditors, to buy time. Second, full transparency of the terms of the existing and new debt and debt-like commitments of the governments of the poorest countries. Both creditors and debtors should embrace this transparency, but neither has done enough in this regard. Third, using this fuller transparency, we need a careful analysis of a country’s long-term debt sustainability to identify sovereign debt levels that would be sustainable and consistent with growth and poverty reduction. This degree of transparency and analysis would also be strongly beneficial for the public commitments of developed countries, such as outlay projections for public pension funds. Fourth, we need new tools to push forward with the reduction of the stock of debt for the poorest countries. The World Bank and IMF are proposing to the Development Committee a joint action plan by the end of 2020 for debt reduction for IDA countries in unsustainable debt situations.

Looking more broadly, since the arrival of COVID-19, the challenge of high debt burdens has expanded to endanger the solvency of many businesses. The Bank for International Settlements has estimated that 50% of businesses do not have enough cash to pay their debt-servicing costs over the coming year.

Rising corporate debt distress has the potential to put otherwise viable firms out of business, exacerbating job losses, depressing entrepreneurship, and slowing growth prospects well into the future. The World Bank and IFC are both working with our client countries to address this issue, helping them bolster and improve insolvency frameworks while shoring up the working capital of systemically important businesses.

Topic 4: Fostering an Inclusive and Resilient Recovery

My fourth topic is on fostering an inclusive and resilient recovery. COVID-19 has demonstrated—with deadly effect—that national borders offer little protection against some calamities. It has underscored the deep connections between economic systems, human health, and global well-being. It has concentrated our minds on building systems that will better protect all countries the next time, especially our poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

It is critical that countries work toward their climate and environmental goals. A high priority for the world is to lower the carbon emissions from electricity generation, meaning the termination of new coal- and oil-dependent power generation projects and the wind-down of existing high-carbon generators. Many of the largest emitters—in the developing world but, I must say, also in the developed world—are still not making sufficient progress in this area.

Amid the pandemic, the World Bank Group has remained the largest multilateral financier of climate action. Over the last five years, we have provided $83 billion in climate-related investments. Our work has helped 120 million people in over 50 countries gain access to weather data and early-warning systems crucial to saving lives in disasters. We have added a total of 34 gigawatts of renewable energy into grids to help communities, businesses and economies thrive. I’m happy to say that, in Fiscal Year 2020, my first full year as President, the World Bank Group made more climate-related investments than at any time in its history.

We intend to step up that work over the next five years. We are helping countries put an economic value on biodiversity—including forests, land, and water resources—so they can better manage these natural assets. We are helping them assess how climate risks affect women and others who are already vulnerable.

We are also working with governments to eliminate or redirect environmentally harmful fuel subsidies and to reduce trade barriers for food and medical supplies. Global progress in this area, however, has remained slow. COVID-19 spending packages could have a decisive effect on promoting more low-carbon energy sources and facilitating a stronger, more resilient recovery.

And on the economy itself, recognizing the severity of the downturn and the likely longevity, a key step in a sustainable recovery will be for economies and people to allow change and embrace it. Countries will need to allow capital, labor, skills, and innovation to shift to a different, post-COVID business environment. This puts a premium on workers and businesses using their skills and innovations in new ways in a commercial environment that is likely to rely more on electronic connections than travel and handshakes.

To speed recovery, countries will need to find a better balance between, on the one hand, maintaining core public and private sector businesses and, on the other, recognizing that many businesses won’t survive the downturn. In many cases, support efforts will be more effective if they aid families rather than propping up pre-COVID business structures.

The business environment needs change and improvement to build a faster, more sustainable recovery. A key part of this process of change is for the ownership and repurposing of distressed assets to be resolved as quickly as possible. This will likely entail a combination of faster bankruptcy proceedings, new legal avenues for settling small claims, and other out-of-court alternatives such as arbitration. These are important building blocks for effective contracts and capital allocation, but only a few developing countries have them in place. The severity of the downturn makes the prompt streamlining and transparency of commercial law as vital for recovery as the availability of new debt and equity capital.

None of these steps will be enough, and the reality is that aid, even from the most generous donors, can’t make ends meet. Just to reverse COVID’s likely increase in extreme poverty in 2020 would require $70 billion per year ($2 per day times 100 million people). That’s well beyond the World Bank Group’s financial capacity or any of the development agencies. My view is that sustainable solutions can only come by embracing change—through innovation, new uses for existing assets, workers and job skills, a reset on excessive debt burdens, and governance systems that create a stable rule of law while also embracing change.

In conclusion, I raised the urgency of addressing poverty, inequality, human capital, debt reduction, climate change, and economic adaptability as elements in ensuring a resilient recovery. This once-in-a-century crisis has demonstrated why history doesn’t exactly repeat itself—because humankind does learn from its mistakes. The pandemic so far has not triggered the devastating side effects of earlier crashes—neither hyperinflation, nor deflation, nor widespread famine. Even though the loss of income and the inequality of the impact have been worse than in most past crises, the global economic response, so far, has been much bigger than we might have expected at the start of this crisis.

The development response will need to be extended and intensified, both in terms of the health emergency and the efforts to help countries find effective support systems and recovery plans. Greater cooperation will enable us to share knowledge and develop and apply effective solutions far more swiftly. It will enable innovators to develop a vaccine that beats the virus and restores people’s confidence in the future. Working through all channels, my hope—and my belief—is that we can shorten the downturn and build a strong foundation for a more durable model of prosperity—one that can lift all countries and all people.

Thank you very much.

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Unpacking the power of poverty

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Study picks out key indicators like lead exposure, violence, and incarceration that impact children’s later success

Social scientists have long understood that a child’s environment — in particular growing up in poverty — can have long-lasting effects on their success later in life. What’s less well understood is exactly how.

A new Harvard study is beginning to pry open that black box.

Conducted by Robert Sampson, the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, and Robert Manduca, a doctoral student in sociology and social policy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the study points to a handful of key indicators, including exposure to high levels of lead, violence, and incarceration as key predictors of children’s later success. The study is described in an April paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“What this paper is trying to do, in a sense, is move beyond the traditional neighborhood indicators people use, like poverty,” Sampson said. “For decades, people have shown poverty to be important … but it doesn’t necessarily tell us what the mechanisms are, and how growing up in poor neighborhoods affects children’s outcomes.”

To explore potential pathways, Manduca and Sampson turned to the income tax records of parents and approximately 230,000 children who lived in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, compiled by Harvard’s Opportunity Atlas project. They integrated these records with survey data collected by the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, measures of violence and incarceration, census indicators, and blood-lead levels for the city’s neighborhoods in the 1990s.

They found that the greater the extent to which poor black male children were exposed to harsh environments, the higher their chances of being incarcerated in adulthood and the lower their adult incomes, measured in their 30s. A similar income pattern also emerged for whites.

Among both black and white girls, the data showed that increased exposure to harsh environments predicted higher rates of teen pregnancy.

Despite the similarity of results along racial lines, Chicago’s segregation means that far more black children were exposed to harsh environments — in terms of toxicity, violence, and incarceration — harmful to their mental and physical health.

“The least-exposed majority-black neighborhoods still had levels of harshness and toxicity greater than the most-exposed majority-white neighborhoods, which plausibly accounts for a substantial portion of the racial disparities in outcomes,” Manduca said.

“It’s really about trying to understand some of the earlier findings, the lived experience of growing up in a poor and racially segregated environment, and how that gets into the minds and bodies of children.” Robert Sampson

“What this paper shows … is the independent predictive power of harsh environments on top of standard variables,” Sampson said. “It’s really about trying to understand some of the earlier findings, the lived experience of growing up in a poor and racially segregated environment, and how that gets into the minds and bodies of children.”

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The study isn’t solely focused on the mechanisms of how poverty impacts children; it also challenges traditional notions of what remedies might be available.

“This has [various] policy implications,” Sampson said. “Because when you talk about the effects of poverty, that leads to a particular kind of thinking, which has to do with blocked opportunities and the lack of resources in a neighborhood.

“That doesn’t mean resources are unimportant,” he continued, “but what this study suggests is that environmental policy and criminal justice reform can be thought of as social mobility policy. I think that’s provocative, because that’s different than saying it’s just about poverty itself and childhood education and human capital investment, which has traditionally been the conversation.”

The study did suggest that some factors — like community cohesion, social ties, and friendship networks — could act as bulwarks against harsh environments. Many researchers, including Sampson himself, have shown that community cohesion and local organizations can help reduce violence. But Sampson said their ability to do so is limited.

“One of the positive ways to interpret this is that violence is falling in society,” he said. “Research has shown that community organizations are responsible for a good chunk of the drop. But when it comes to what’s affecting the kids themselves, it’s the homicide that happens on the corner, it’s the lead in their environment, it’s the incarceration of their parents that’s having the more proximate, direct influence.”

Going forward, Sampson said he hopes the study will spur similar research in other cities and expand to include other environmental contamination, including so-called brownfield sites.

Ultimately, Sampson said he hopes the study can reveal the myriad ways in which poverty shapes not only the resources that are available for children, but the very world in which they find themselves growing up.

“Poverty is sort of a catchall term,” he said. “The idea here is to peel things back and ask, What does it mean to grow up in a poor white neighborhood? What does it mean to grow up in a poor black neighborhood? What do kids actually experience?

“What it means for a black child on the south side of Chicago is much higher rates of exposure to violence and lead and incarceration, and this has intergenerational consequences,” he continued. “This is particularly important because it provides a way to think about potentially intervening in the intergenerational reproduction of inequality. We don’t typically think about criminal justice reform or environmental policy as social mobility policy. But maybe we should.”

This research was supported with funding from the Project on Race, Class & Cumulative Adversity at Harvard University, the Ford Foundation, and the Hutchins Family Foundation.

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50 Years Later, How The Politics Of Poverty Evolved

Mara Liasson

A lot has changed since President Lyndon Johnson delivered his State of the Union address 50 years ago. In that speech, Johnson declared war on poverty. These days, there are even tougher economic problems that President Obama is hoping to confront.

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The transformative power of education in the fight against poverty

October 16, 2023.

Zubair Junjunia, a Generation17 young leader and the Founder of ZNotes, presents at EdTechX.

Zubair Junjunia

Generation17 Young Leader and founder of ZNotes

Time and again, research has proven the incredible power of education to break poverty cycles and economically empower individuals from the most marginalized communities with dignified work and upward social mobility. 

Research at UNESCO has shown that world poverty would be more than halved if all adults completed secondary school. And if all students in low-income countries had just basic reading skills, almost 171 million people could escape extreme poverty. 

With such irrefutable evidence, how do we continue to see education underfunded globally? Funding for education as a share of national income has not changed significantly over the last decade for any developing country. And to exacerbate that, the COVID-19 shock pushed the level of learning poverty to an estimated 70 percent .

I have devoted the past decade of my life to fighting educational inequality, a journey that began during my school years. This commitment led to the creation of ZNotes , an educational platform developed for students, by students. ZNotes was born out of the problem I witnessed first-hand; the inequities in end-of-school examination, which significantly influence access to higher education and career opportunities. It is designed as a platform where students can share their notes and access top-quality educational materials without any limitations. ZNotes fosters collaborative learning through student-created content within a global community and levels the academic playing field with a student-empowered and technology-enabled approach to content creation and peer learning. 

Although I started ZNotes as a solo project, today, it has touched the lives of over 4.5 million students worldwide, receiving an impressive 32 million hits from students across more than 190 countries, especially serving students from emerging economies. We’re proud to say that today, more than 90 percent of students find ZNotes resources useful and feel more confident entering exams , regardless of their socio-economic background. These globally recognized qualifications empower our learners to access tertiary education and enter the world of work.

Sixteen-year-old Zubair set up a blog to share the resources he created for his IGCSE exams. Through word of mouth, his revision notes were discovered by students all over the world and ZNotes was born.

In rapidly changing job market, young people must cultivate resilience and adaptability. World Economic Forum highlights the importance of future skills, encompassing technical, cognitive, and interpersonal abilities. Unfortunately, many educational systems, especially in under-resourced regions, fall short in equipping youth with these vital skills.

To address this challenge, I see innovative technology as a crucial tool both within and beyond traditional school systems. As the digital divide narrows and access to devices and internet connectivity becomes more affordable, delivering quality education and personalized support is increasingly achievable through technology. At ZNotes, we are reshaping the role of students, transforming them from passive consumers to active creators and proponents of education. Empowering youth through a community-driven approach, students engage in peer learning and generate quality resources on an online platform.

Participation in a global learning community enhances young people's communication and collaboration skills. ZNotes fosters a sense of global citizenship, enabling learners to communicate with a diverse range of individuals across race, gender, and religion. Such spaces also result in redistributing social capital as students share advice for future university, internship and career pathways.

“Studying for 14 IGCSE subjects wasn't easy, but ZNotes helped me provide excellent and relevant revision material for all of them. I ended up with 7 A* 7 A, and ZNotes played a huge role. I am off to Cornell University this fall now. A big thank you to the ZNotes team!"

Alongside ensuring our beneficiaries are equipped with the resources and support they need to be at a level playing field for such high stakes exams, we also consider the skills that will set them up for success in life beyond academics. Especially for the hundreds of young people who join our internship and contribution programs , they become part of a global social impact startup and develop both academic skills and also employability skills. After engaging with our internship programs, 77% of interns reported improved candidacy for new jobs and internships. 

ZNotes addresses the uneven playing field of standardized testing with a student-empowered and technology-enabled approach for content creation and peer learning.

A few years ago, Jess joined our team as a Social Impact Analyst intern having just completed her university degree while she continued to search for a full-time role. She was able to apply her data analytics skills from a theoretical degree into a real-world scenario and was empowered to play an instrumental role in understanding and developing a Theory of Change model for ZNotes. In just 6 months, she had been able to develop the skills and gain experiences that strengthened her profile. At the end of internship, she was offered a full-time role at a major news and media agency that she is continuing to grow in!

Jess’s example applies to almost every one of our interns . As another one of them, Alexa, said “ZNotes offers the rare and wonderful opportunity to be at the center of meaningful change”.

Being part of an organization making a significant impact is profoundly inspiring and empowering for young people, and assuming high-responsibility roles within such organizations accelerates their skills development and sets them apart in the eyes of prospective employers.

On the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, it is a critical moment to reflect and enact on the opportunity that we have to achieving two key SDGs, Goal 1 and 4, by effectively funding and enabling access to quality education globally.

How Poverty Can Impact Mental and Physical Health

Providing affordable housing and livable wages may prevent illness..

Posted August 12, 2021 | Reviewed by Chloe Williams

• What Is Alcoholism?
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• Living in poverty is linked to reduced lifespan, increased hospitalizations and a higher risk of mental and physical health problems.
• Affordable housing and livable wages can help improve the mental and physical health of individuals.
• Providing adequate housing and livable wages may be a cost-effective way to prevent illness and may reduce spending on treatment.

For the last few thousand years, we've understood the negative impact that poverty can have on health both mental and physical. In more recent years, we have seen a number of studies published that show the clear relationship between living in poverty and lifespan, hospitalizations and health problems, both physical and emotional. These findings are clear and indisputable.

I recently had an opportunity to see this process clearly in one of my patients. The woman had lived in poverty most of her life. She had a variety of health issues related to her lack of financial resources. She believed in paying her bills and often would use money that she should have used for medications or for medical services to pay her electric bill, etc. Episodes of severe depression were a regular part of her life. She had a history of alcohol abuse and had been in recovery for a number of years.

Her children had also experienced the effects of living in poverty. They had a number of physical health problems, including diabetes and substance abuse . After working with her for a number of years, a change in her living situation and financial status, not my care, made a major change in her life. She was finally able to obtain housing that she could afford which allowed her some extra money to pay other bills and commitments she had. Her mood improved drastically. She became much more active and assertive and even at times optimistic . Her physical health also improved. She can now sleep without medications, etc.

The Importance of Affordable Housing and Livable Wages

We have known for many years that providing affordable housing can do much to improve the mental and physical health of individuals. We also know that providing a livable wage can have the same impact. I hear a number of people complaining about people not wanting to go back to work and wanting to stay on unemployment. My question is why wouldn't they? Unemployment compensation may be time-limited but it is usually predictable. And more recently it has provided more compensation than a minimum wage job.

We know how to significantly improve the mental and physical health of our citizens. There is no mystery to this. We pay out much more in terms of treatment for health conditions and the loss in productivity than we would spend providing adequate housing opportunities and livable wages. Yes, we need more treatment services and better treatment services for those who are sick or injured. But the healthcare system needs to become a healthcare system, not an illness care system.

Unfortunately, there is a good deal of money to be made in providing drugs and treatment services. A patient of mine complained that we will not find a cure for diabetes because there's simply too much money to be made in treating it. I don't know if I agree with that but I do agree that we need to change our focus and take prevention services seriously. Providing a livable wage and adequate housing services may prevent mental illness and physical illness. These strategies can also be quite cost-effective and save much of the money that we are spending on treatment services.

We have an opportunity now to make some significant changes in our society. I hope we do not let the opportunity pass without taking action.

Ron Breazeale, Ph.D. , is the author of Duct Tape Isn’t Enough: Survival Skills for the 21st Century as well as the novel Reaching Home .

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• Introduction

Cyclical poverty

Collective poverty, concentrated collective poverty, case poverty.

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poverty , the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs. In this context , the identification of poor people first requires a determination of what constitutes basic needs. These may be defined as narrowly as “those necessary for survival” or as broadly as “those reflecting the prevailing standard of living in the community.” The first criterion would cover only those people near the borderline of starvation or death from exposure; the second would extend to people whose nutrition, housing, and clothing, though adequate to preserve life, do not measure up to those of the population as a whole. The problem of definition is further compounded by the noneconomic connotations that the word poverty has acquired. Poverty has been associated, for example, with poor health, low levels of education or skills, an inability or an unwillingness to work, high rates of disruptive or disorderly behaviour, and improvidence. While these attributes have often been found to exist with poverty, their inclusion in a definition of poverty would tend to obscure the relation between them and the inability to provide for one’s basic needs. Whatever definition one uses, authorities and laypersons alike commonly assume that the effects of poverty are harmful to both individuals and society.

Although poverty is a phenomenon as old as human history, its significance has changed over time. Under traditional (i.e., nonindustrialized) modes of economic production, widespread poverty had been accepted as inevitable. The total output of goods and services, even if equally distributed, would still have been insufficient to give the entire population a comfortable standard of living by prevailing standards. With the economic productivity that resulted from industrialization , however, this ceased to be the case—especially in the world’s most industrialized countries , where national outputs were sufficient to raise the entire population to a comfortable level if the necessary redistribution could be arranged without adversely affecting output.

Several types of poverty may be distinguished depending on such factors as time or duration (long- or short-term or cyclical) and distribution (widespread, concentrated, individual).

(Read Indira Gandhi’s 1975 Britannica essay on global underprivilege.)

Cyclical poverty refers to poverty that may be widespread throughout a population, but the occurrence itself is of limited duration. In nonindustrial societies (present and past), this sort of inability to provide for one’s basic needs rests mainly upon temporary food shortages caused by natural phenomena or poor agricultural planning. Prices would rise because of scarcities of food, which brought widespread, albeit temporary, misery.

In industrialized societies the chief cyclical cause of poverty is fluctuations in the business cycle , with mass unemployment during periods of depression or serious recession . Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the industrialized nations of the world experienced business panics and recessions that temporarily enlarged the numbers of the poor. The United States’ experience in the Great Depression of the 1930s, though unique in some of its features, exemplifies this kind of poverty. And until the Great Depression, poverty resulting from business fluctuations was accepted as an inevitable consequence of a natural process of market regulation . Relief was granted to the unemployed to tide them over until the business cycle again entered an upswing. The experiences of the Great Depression inspired a generation of economists such as John Maynard Keynes , who sought solutions to the problems caused by extreme swings in the business cycle. Since the Great Depression, governments in nearly all advanced industrial societies have adopted economic policies that attempt to limit the ill effects of economic fluctuation. In this sense, governments play an active role in poverty alleviation by increasing spending as a means of stimulating the economy. Part of this spending comes in the form of direct assistance to the unemployed, either through unemployment compensation , welfare, and other subsidies or by employment on public-works projects. Although business depressions affect all segments of society, the impact is most severe on people of the lowest socioeconomic strata because they have fewer marginal resources than those of a higher strata.

In contrast to cyclical poverty, which is temporary, widespread or “ collective ” poverty involves a relatively permanent insufficiency of means to secure basic needs—a condition that may be so general as to describe the average level of life in a society or that may be concentrated in relatively large groups in an otherwise prosperous society. Both generalized and concentrated collective poverty may be transmitted from generation to generation, parents passing their poverty on to their children.

Collective poverty is relatively general and lasting in parts of Asia, the Middle East , most of Africa, and parts of South America and Central America . Life for the bulk of the population in these regions is at a minimal level. Nutritional deficiencies cause disease seldom seen by doctors in the highly developed countries. Low life expectancy , high levels of infant mortality, and poor health characterize life in these societies.

Collective poverty is usually related to economic underdevelopment. The total resources of many developing nations in Africa, Asia, and South and Central America would be insufficient to support the population adequately even if they were equally divided among all of the citizens. Proposed remedies are twofold: (1) expansion of the gross national product (GNP) through improved agriculture or industrialization, or both, and (2) population limitation. Thus far, both population control and induced economic development in many countries have proved difficult, controversial, and at times inconclusive or disappointing in their results.

An increase of the GNP does not necessarily lead to an improved standard of living for the population at large, for a number of reasons. The most important reason is that, in many developing countries, the population grows even faster than the economy does, with no net reduction in poverty as a result. This increased population growth stems primarily from lowered infant mortality rates made possible by improved sanitary and disease-control measures. Unless such lowered rates eventually result in women bearing fewer children, the result is a sharp acceleration in population growth. To reduce birth rates, some developing countries have undertaken nationally administered family-planning programs, with varying results. Many developing nations are also characterized by a long-standing system of unequal distribution of wealth —a system likely to continue despite marked increases in the GNP. Some authorities have observed the tendency for a large portion of any increase to be siphoned off by persons who are already wealthy, while others claim that increases in GNP will always trickle down to the part of the population living at the subsistence level.

In many industrialized, relatively affluent countries, particular demographic groups are vulnerable to long-term poverty. In city ghettos , in regions bypassed or abandoned by industry, and in areas where agriculture or industry is inefficient and cannot compete profitably, there are found victims of concentrated collective poverty. These people, like those afflicted with generalized poverty, have higher mortality rates, poor health, low educational levels, and so forth when compared with the more affluent segments of society. Their chief economic traits are unemployment and underemployment, unskilled occupations, and job instability. Efforts at amelioration focus on ways to bring the deprived groups into the mainstream of economic life by attracting new industry, promoting small business, introducing improved agricultural methods, and raising the level of skills of the employable members of the society.

Similar to collective poverty in relative permanence but different from it in terms of distribution, case poverty refers to the inability of an individual or family to secure basic needs even in social surroundings of general prosperity. This inability is generally related to the lack of some basic attribute that would permit the individual to maintain himself or herself. Such persons may, for example, be blind, physically or emotionally disabled , or chronically ill. Physical and mental handicaps are usually regarded sympathetically, as being beyond the control of the people who suffer from them. Efforts to ameliorate poverty due to physical causes focus on education, sheltered employment, and, if needed, economic maintenance.

A Conclusion For Poverty

Poverty has become a great issue in our world. Though many organizations have been created to find solutions for this matter nobody could not save our world completely from poverty. The most common fact which we can realize when we consider on information about poverty is that poverty is mostly occurring in developing countries.

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What are the reasons caused for poverty mostly? According to the Borgen Project, reasons for poverty are History, War and Political instability, National Debts, Discrimination and social inequality and vulnerability to natural disasters. Poverty is the significant lack of money or poorness. Precise definitions of poverty are controversial; according to one definition, poverty is having so little money that one cannot pay for basic necessities, such as food and shelter. Sociologists study the effects of poverty as well as who lives in poverty and why.  Many surveys  have been done in order to calculate the accurate number of people who are suffering from the poverty. According to the Global Finance Magazine poorest countries in the world are Central African Republic, Congo, Dem.Rep, Malawi, Liberia, Burundi, Niger, Mozambique and Eritrea. There are many organizations such as CARE, Oxfam, ONE, The hunger Project working to stop poverty. Some of these are non-profit, strategic organizations committed to the sustainable end of poverty and world hunger.

The World Bank data has published data on absolute poverty for 1981 onward, but researchers have tried to reconstruct information of the living standards of the more distant past. The most cited paper was written by  Bourguignon and Morrison  in which the two authors reconstructed measures of poverty as far back as 1820. We can realize that the number of poor people in the present has decreased little than the numbers in early ‘90.

What are the effects of poverty for our world? Do you know that over 21,000 children die every day around the world due to illnesses, conflicts in the world and other different reasons? Most of these are caused by poverty.

As a young student, I would like to suggest some factors which would be helpful in our journey to reduce poverty. Basically we have to take necessary steps to reduce the population in our world. Natural resources don’t increase according to the population which is increasing at a high speed. When we consider the families in poor countries, they have at least six or seven kids. But those kids do not have a proper health or the parents cannot provide proper education for them. And also those parents cannot provide good foods filled with suitable nutrients to their kids due to lack of wealth. Because of that their healthiness decreases by a considerable amount. The development of their brains becomes insufficient and due to that their ability to get a proper education decreases.

So taking necessary steps to develop health and education sectors in these countries is a good way to reduce poverty. So firstly we have to develop services for pregnant women of those countries and provide them good foods filled with proper nutrients to keep the babies in good health. And then the kids will be in good health and their brains will be in a better condition to get a proper education. Developing the education sectors of those countries with the help of charity services and the governments of developed countries is also a good step to develop education systems in those countries. When we take a look at the situation of education in a number of African countries affected by poverty we see: language barriers; a lack of proper facilities; and military conflicts.

Increasing the number of organizations which are working to reduce poverty by educating people of developed countries to be organized and to take actions related to this matter is also another suggestion of mine. Encouraging people who have volunteered to provide facilities such as pure water, foods filled with nutrients, living places to poor people and who’re conducting charity services to develop the lives of them, by offering special rewards and admiring them in various ways would be a good way to increase the number of voluntary workers. So I believe my opinions and suggestions would be a good help to conclude poverty.

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All together in dignity to overcome poverty, speaking as an ally: learning from people with lived experience of poverty.

© ATD Fourth World – Joseph Wresinski Centre AR0200120002_01

Looking at the growing number of child protection referrals based on ‘neglect’, on 19 October 2021, the International Parent Advocacy Network hosted a webinar entitled “Poverty Is Not Neglect: Who is responsible for neglecting our children?” ATD parent activist Tammy Mayes chaired the event and was also a speaker. She explained:

‘Poverty doesn’t make it harder to be a good parent. Parenting is hard regardless of poverty; what poverty does make hard is meeting the basic needs of the entire family.’

Tammy’s remarks are here . Most of the speakers were also parents who shared their expertise gained through experiences of poverty and child welfare. Tammy also invited Diana Skelton of ATD’s National Coordination Team to speak to the question: “As an ally, what have I learned from working with people with lived experience of poverty?” Her remarks are below.

__________________

1. Poverty is hard for the whole family

In a society where inequality and discrimination are rampant, and the screws of austerity and budget cuts continue to twist, poverty makes life harder for every family member and for families as a whole.

This past March, at a symposium run by Royal Holloway University of London, a parent activist from ATD Fourth World, Lareine, described how the pandemic has amplified the challenges of parenting in poverty. To begin with, keeping children home for a year has meant increased costs of groceries and heating, as well as the internet access required for their schooling.

The financial insecurity exacerbated by these costs can lead to situations that Lareine called “invasive, degrading and humiliating. […] You feel like you have to do something; and at the same time you feel like you shouldn’t be doing it. Because of the situation, you are forced to feel shameless”. Anyone with a calculator could see why finances have been stretched thin; but it’s Lareine’s lived experience that leads her to describe this feeling of shame and humiliation.

Feeling dependent

Her words were echoed by a mother in Scotland who told me: “Before the lockdown, my daughter stayed after school every day to use the internet there for her homework. Now, without wifi of our own, I had to swallow my pride to ask our neighbour if we could piggyback onto his network from our flat. He agreed, but I feel like I should be able to chip in for his bill so that I don’t have to rely too much on him.”

For her as a lone parent to feel dependent on a male neighbour causes her anguish; and yet she also feels she must do this for her child’s sake.

Knots of anger

Lareine also thinks about her children’s lived experience in poverty. A year into this pandemic, virtually everyone is struggling with unending uncertainty, loss of normal social interactions, and constant fear of the future. In the face of these hardships, parents in poverty have even fewer resources than others. Lareine laments the psychological effects of lock-down on children:

“The knots of anger just build up inside them. […] With nowhere to go and no choices, they feel forgotten. They lose hope. […] The whole family loses good habits of family dialogue. […] We would do anything for our children; we just need help. My social worker has said, ‘Sorry, we have no funding, my hands are tied’. A lot of us are left abandoned, and good parents and children pay the ultimate price.”

Another activist with lived experience of poverty, Moraene Roberts, said: “The reason so much doesn’t work is that social workers often think of protecting the children from the poverty of their parents. And yet if you look at outcomes from care, the government statistics alone from abuse, drugs, early pregnancy, homelessness go on and on. [What we need instead is] good practice that develops good relationships that respect that both sides [social workers and parents] are working for the children. This has a better outcome for children.”

2. The generational legacy

The second thing I have learned from people with lived experience is how their generational legacy of poverty traps them in a generational legacy of care.

Because indicators of neglect are often conflated with indicators of poverty, a majority of the people in poverty who are part of ATD Fourth World’s community were removed from their own parents as children.

One care-experienced young adult says she saw social workers remove her sisters from her parents’ care because they couldn’t afford to provide “fancy schmancy” stuff.

She called that damaging because when her 12-year-old sister had to quarantine, the bureaucratic care home where was placed “literally locked into her bedroom for 10 days. Staff weren’t even allowed to see her, they had to talk through her door with a mask on. She’s got autism, she’s tactile, she needs hugs. She had none of that and she was on the edge by the end of it.”

Blamed and assessed

Another care-experienced young adult spoke about how her removal from her family impacted her identity, her mental health, and her self-esteem. She said, “When you’re still at home, if you’re acting out, they always blame your parents. But then the minute you’re in care, any behaviour issues you have get blamed on you and no one else. It can make you more inclined to do reckless things.”

‘Cassie’ is a young mother. When she first got pregnant, her own experience in care meant that she was automatically referred to the multi-agency safeguarding hub for an assessment of her potential to become a good parent. She said:

“In that first trimester, you’re hormonal already and on top of that this kind of assessment is massively triggering.

“The way they interrogate you about everything in your past makes you think you can’t parent. I’m not in touch with my birth family and so the assessment made me feel even more alone and anxious about having a baby without support. The assessment is done to you, not with you. It’s used against you.

“And they took my daughter away when she was born because they base everything off likelihoods and say ‘Even though you think you’re fine, if your child comes home, things could break down’.”

3. I’m wary of certain assumptions underlying academic research

The parents in poverty I know have taught me to be very wary of research showing that poverty causes stress and trauma. Of course it’s important to acknowledge how harmful poverty is and how much people have to cope with; but at the same time it’s this research on the traumatic nature of poverty that can lead to what Cassie called “basing everything off likelihoods”.

Assumptions are made that because poverty weighs so heavily on parents, this will make parenting harder.

And instead of giving the parent extra support that could make the difference, this can lead to removing children and breaking family ties that should never be broken. One example of this is a study that states: “Money and housing are known to be key stress points in people’s lives and relationships. […] Several quasi or natural experimental studies from the USA found that income alone makes a significant and substantial difference to rates of abuse and neglect.” 1

That’s much too big a jump!

Predicting doom

Of course money and housing are key stress points — but for one thing it’s not helpful to consider “abuse-and-neglect” as a single category when we know that signs of poverty are often confused with signs of very minimal neglect or, as Cassie described simply assumed to predict possible future neglect. And for another thing, it’s highly possible that the huge correlation being observed is not to actual proven “abuse-and-neglect” but simply to child protection investigations that may be based on assumptions, predictions of future doom, and old-fashioned prejudice.

Another mother described to me the problem she had with a social worker who had an aversion to large burly men — like this woman’s partner. Her partner was a gentle, soft-spoken man, but being aware of the aversion, he made himself scarce whenever the social worker visited, which reinforced her prejudice and led to her proclaiming that the couple ought to separate “for the sake of the children”.

4. The importance of peer networks

I feel I have been able to learn a lot from parents with lived experience of poverty because ATD Fourth World’s approach is to introduce families to our family network where they can find solidarity, advice and understanding from peers who have faced many of the same struggles.

When a parent or a couple lives in poverty on their own, the solitude and anxiety that Cassie described can make everything feel even harder. Having grown up in care can compound this. Another care-experienced young adult said how frustrating it was for her to know that in her local authority there were 500 other looked-after children — and yet she almost never had the chance to meet any of them. She said:

“You’re never able to be as open with others as you can be with kids going through the care system. We understand each other because we’ve been there. That helps you to see yourself in a different way. Talking to others who’ve had similar experiences can help you feel like part of a community and it can even help you to avoid bad influences in life.”

The collective wisdom of peers

This is the first reason that we create a peer network for parents: to offer them the opportunity to listen to and support one another in irreplaceable ways.

Another reason that peer networks are crucial is that when people with lived experience decide to become parent-to-parent advocates and activists, the peer network is a source of strength and collective wisdom. I’ve heard one grandmother caution a young mother about speaking publicly about the specifics of her own children’s situation, saying: “Your children are still in primary school now, but when they’re teenagers, you just don’t know how they’ll feel about things you want to say about them now. Why don’t you speak anonymously so that you can protect your relationship with your kids later down the line?”

A third important aspect of the peer network is that it’s often the first place where a parent can express themselves safely without fear of judgement. This creates the opportunity for parents to reflect together on the similarities and differences between their experiences.

The conditions for free expression

Here I’m going to quote my teammate Thomas Croft writing (in Socially Distanced Activism ) about the approach to peer support developed by the founder of ATD Fourth World, who grew up in deep poverty himself. This approach requires specific conditions so that people in poverty can: “claim the right to develop and share their own knowledge about poverty in a reciprocal exchange with others.

“The first condition is to safeguard the freedom for people in poverty to construct their own thinking, to express and name their experience and to conceptualise it. [This means] freedom in terms of resources such as time and space, but also the ongoing freedom as an individual to honour one’s own experience and construct one’s own thoughts.

“The second condition, once the first is in motion, is for people in poverty to share their thinking and exchange ideas among themselves as peers, safe in the knowledge that they each have a grasp on the lived reality of poverty. Here, working as peers is a means of protecting their thinking from potential domination by others, who may unintentionally co-opt their efforts and impose their own ideas. […]

“The third condition is for the autonomy and independence of their thinking to be recognised and respected by other partners in the process of knowledge co-production; and for them to be able to identify with the goal of that process. Fundamental to this identification with the goals of a research project is for people in poverty to feel that they are serious participants and that they belong to a collective effort to bring about a more just world; that they are contributing to a cause larger than themselves. Much more than righting a wrong or preventing psychological harm, this is about self-liberation.”

5. The impact of poverty on the right to family life is a human rights issue

Moraene Roberts, who grew up in poverty and who was part of ATD Fourth World UK’s National Coordination Team, it was crucial that people recognise that poverty violates human rights. She said:

“In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a way of building peace. My parents and theirs experienced the war. Rights are not just ways to assert ourselves; they are a way of building peace between communities and nations. Nowadays, people roll their eyes when you mention rights like you’re some kind of do-gooder. I am very proudly a throw-back to the past.

“There was a campaign against rights in the media so that now many people think rights are needed only in other countries. When you say that poverty violates human rights, that’s not obvious to anyone. People can’t make the connection. But if you give the example of the right to health being undermined as the NHS gets cut and cut and cut, then people begin to see it. We have a right to housing and yet there are policies that deliberately make thousands of people homeless. We have a right to be protected from the state but there are sanctions and people dying from austerity cuts.

“The first time I thought about poverty as a violation of human rights was in 1994. It was the Year of the Family. People were talking about the right to family life, which I didn’t know existed. And there I was fighting to keep my family together among so many families who were torn apart. Because I queried this right, I was given a book on the Indivisibility of Human Rights. That really opened my eyes. […] The important thing is to think about what kind of society we want to live in.”

6. The importance of framing

This final point is another one I learned from Moraene Roberts. More than a decade ago, she helped to develop a project where parents with lived experience would address social work students about how to make their practice more poverty-aware. Speaking in 2019, Moraene said:

“When we first went to the university, it was a bit adversarial. We put their backs up by saying, ‘This is what you’re doing wrong and it’s not working for us or our children’. What we try to do now is to work with social workers, to have an engagement with them, we don’t lecture them. We try to say: ‘What is good practice?’”

As Moraene pointed out, being adversarial is not an effective way to change minds hearts and behaviour. A researcher from the Frameworks Institute 2 outlines the risks of communicating without looking at how people are likely to understand what we say:

“…If being a good parent is just about loving your kids, what does it say about those times we struggle to do what society tells us we should? And what does it say about parents whose struggles are more severe and chronic because of poverty, discrimination, mental illness, or other factors of life that overload our attention and drain our capacity to provide responsible care? […] Calls to help vulnerable children and populations can boomerang and lead to less rather than more empathy for people experiencing adversity. These calls can depress the structural changes required to address the root causes of adversity and inequity. […]

“Most importantly, it doesn’t get people to rally behind the idea that parents need support, and that it’s society’s responsibility to provide it. If parenting is hard and that’s that, then it’s quite alright that people struggle at it. Logical, even. No action is necessary—for parents or society. For people working hard to make changes to our public policies, “okay as is” is not the goal. It doesn’t motivate and it doesn’t make change.”

I think that there is already some good language that we can use to frame this the difference between poverty and neglect in a way that will be convincing; and I also think there’s much more work to do on framing this issue with parents who have lived experience of poverty leading the way for us to develop even better language that is rooted in their lives and their thinking and that will also win over people who are new to considering this issue.

1 https://pure.hud.ac.uk/ws/files/21398145/CWIP_Final_Report.pdf , p. 31

2 https://qz.com/1762635/how-to-be-a-better-parent/

Poverty Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on poverty essay.

“Poverty is the worst form of violence”. – Mahatma Gandhi.

How Poverty is Measured?

For measuring poverty United nations have devised two measures of poverty – Absolute & relative poverty.  Absolute poverty is used to measure poverty in developing countries like India. Relative poverty is used to measure poverty in developed countries like the USA. In absolute poverty, a line based on the minimum level of income has been created & is called a poverty line.  If per day income of a family is below this level, then it is poor or below the poverty line. If per day income of a family is above this level, then it is non-poor or above the poverty line. In India, the new poverty line is  Rs 32 in rural areas and Rs 47 in urban areas.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Causes of Poverty

According to the Noble prize winner South African leader, Nelson Mandela – “Poverty is not natural, it is manmade”. The above statement is true as the causes of poverty are generally man-made. There are various causes of poverty but the most important is population. Rising population is putting the burden on the resources & budget of countries. Governments are finding difficult to provide food, shelter & employment to the rising population.

The other causes are- lack of education, war, natural disaster, lack of employment, lack of infrastructure, political instability, etc. For instance- lack of employment opportunities makes a person jobless & he is not able to earn enough to fulfill the basic necessities of his family & becomes poor. Lack of education compels a person for less paying jobs & it makes him poorer. Lack of infrastructure means there are no industries, banks, etc. in a country resulting in lack of employment opportunities. Natural disasters like flood, earthquake also contribute to poverty.

In some countries, especially African countries like Somalia, a long period of civil war has made poverty widespread. This is because all the resources & money is being spent in war instead of public welfare. Countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. are prone to natural disasters like cyclone, etc. These disasters occur every year causing poverty to rise.

Ill Effects of Poverty

Poverty affects the life of a poor family. A poor person is not able to take proper food & nutrition &his capacity to work reduces. Reduced capacity to work further reduces his income, making him poorer. Children from poor family never get proper schooling & proper nutrition. They have to work to support their family & this destroys their childhood. Some of them may also involve in crimes like theft, murder, robbery, etc. A poor person remains uneducated & is forced to live under unhygienic conditions in slums. There are no proper sanitation & drinking water facility in slums & he falls ill often &  his health deteriorates. A poor person generally dies an early death. So, all social evils are related to poverty.

Government Schemes to Remove Poverty

The government of India also took several measures to eradicate poverty from India. Some of them are – creating employment opportunities , controlling population, etc. In India, about 60% of the population is still dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. Government has taken certain measures to promote agriculture in India. The government constructed certain dams & canals in our country to provide easy availability of water for irrigation. Government has also taken steps for the cheap availability of seeds & farming equipment to promote agriculture. Government is also promoting farming of cash crops like cotton, instead of food crops. In cities, the government is promoting industrialization to create more jobs. Government has also opened  ‘Ration shops’. Other measures include providing free & compulsory education for children up to 14 years of age, scholarship to deserving students from a poor background, providing subsidized houses to poor people, etc.

Poverty is a social evil, we can also contribute to control it. For example- we can simply donate old clothes to poor people, we can also sponsor the education of a poor child or we can utilize our free time by teaching poor students. Remember before wasting food, somebody is still sleeping hungry.

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Economic Stability

About This Literature Summary

This summary of the literature on Poverty as a social determinant of health is a narrowly defined examination that is not intended to be exhaustive and may not address all dimensions of the issue. Please note: The terminology used in each summary is consistent with the respective references. For additional information on cross-cutting topics, please see the Discrimination , Employment , Housing Instability , and Incarceration literature summaries. 

Related Objectives (4)

Here's a snapshot of the objectives related to topics covered in this literature summary. Browse all objectives .

• Reduce the proportion of people living in poverty — SDOH‑01
• Increase employment in working-age people — SDOH‑02
• Increase the proportion of children living with at least 1 parent who works full time — SDOH‑03
• Reduce the proportion of families that spend more than 30 percent of income on housing — SDOH‑04

Related Evidence-Based Resources (3)

Here's a snapshot of the evidence-based resources related to topics covered in this literature summary. Browse all evidence-based resources .

• Social Determinants of Health: Tenant-Based Housing Voucher Programs
• New Perspectives on Creating Jobs: Final Impacts of the Next Generation of Subsidized Employment Programs
• Strengthening TANF Outcomes By Developing Two-Generation Approaches To Build Economic Security

Literature Summary

The United States measures poverty based on how an individual’s or family’s income compares to a set federal threshold. 1 For example, in the 2021 definition, people are considered impoverished if their individual income is below $12,880 or their household income is below $26,500 for a family of 4. 2 After 5 consecutive years in decline, the U.S. poverty rate increased to 11.4 percent in 2020, or a total of 37.2 million people. 3  

Poverty often occurs in concentrated areas and endures for long periods of time. 1 Some communities, such as certain racial and ethnic groups, people living in rural areas, and people with disabilities, have a higher risk of poverty for a myriad of factors that extend beyond individual control. 1 , 4 – 8 For example, institutional racism and discrimination contribute to unequal social and economic opportunities. 4 Residents of impoverished communities often have reduced access to resources that are needed to support a healthy quality of life, such as stable housing , healthy foods , and safe neighborhoods. 1 , 4 , 9 Poverty can also limit access to educational and employment opportunities, which further contributes to income inequality and perpetuates cyclical effects of poverty. 1  

Unmet social needs, environmental factors, and barriers to accessing health care contribute to worse health outcomes for people with lower incomes. 10 , 11 For example, people with limited finances may have more difficulty obtaining health insurance or paying for expensive procedures and medications. 12 In addition, neighborhood factors, such as limited access to healthy foods and higher instances of violence , can affect health by influencing health behaviors and stress. 12  

Across the lifespan, residents of impoverished communities are at increased risk for mental illness, chronic disease, higher mortality, and lower life expectancy. 9 , 13 – 17 Children make up the largest age group of those experiencing poverty. 18 , 19 Childhood poverty is associated with developmental delays, toxic stress, chronic illness, and nutritional deficits. 20 – 24 Individuals who experience childhood poverty are more likely to experience poverty into adulthood, which contributes to generational cycles of poverty. 25 In addition to lasting effects of childhood poverty, adults living in poverty are at a higher risk of adverse health effects from obesity, smoking, substance use, and chronic stress. 12 Finally, older adults with lower incomes experience higher rates of disability and mortality. 6 One study found that men and women in the top 1 percent of income were expected to live 14.6 and 10.1 years longer respectively than men and women in the bottom 1 percent. 26

Poverty is a multifaceted issue that will require multipronged approaches to address. Strategies that improve the economic mobility of families may help to alleviate the negative effects of poverty. 27 – 29 For example, tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit alleviate financial burdens for families with lower and middle incomes by reducing the amount of taxes owed. 30 In addition, federal social assistance programs are designed to provide safety net services and specifically benefit individuals and families with lower incomes. 31 Two of the nation’s largest social assistance programs are Medicaid, which provides health coverage, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides food assistance. Medicaid and SNAP serve millions of people each year and have been associated with reductions in poverty along with overall health benefits. 32 , 33 In order to reduce socioeconomic inequality, it may also be important to address factors that are associated with the health status of poor communities. 27 Additional research and interventions are needed to address the effects of poverty on health outcomes and disparities. 

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. (n.d.) Rural poverty & well-being . Retrieved December 13, 2021, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rural-poverty-well-being/

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. (2021, February 1). 2021 Poverty guidelines . https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2021-poverty-guidelines

Shrider, E. A., Kollar, M., Chen, F., & Semega, J. (2021, September 14). Income and poverty in the United States: 2020 . U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html

Williams, D. R., Mohammed, S. A., Leavell, J., & Collins, C. (2010). Race, socioeconomic status, and health: Complexities, ongoing challenges, and research opportunities. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1186 (1), 69–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.05339.x

Kaiser Family Foundation. (n.d.). Poverty rate by race/ethnicity . https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceethnicity/

Minkler, M., Fuller-Thomson, E., & Guralnik, J. M. (2006). Gradient of disability across the socioeconomic spectrum in the United States. New England Journal of Medicine, 355 (7), 695–703. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsa044316

Brucker, D. L., Mitra, S., Chaitoo, N., & Mauro, J. (2015). More likely to be poor whatever the measure: Working-age persons with disabilities in the United States. Social Science Quarterly, 96 (1), 273–296. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12098

Rank, M. R., & Hirschl, T. A. (2015). The likelihood of experiencing relative poverty over the life course. PLoS ONE, 10 (7), e0133513. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133513

Singh, G. K., & Siahpush, M. (2006). Widening socioeconomic inequalities in US life expectancy, 1980–2000. International Journal of Epidemiology, 35 (4), 969–979. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyl083

Phelan, J. C., Link, B. G., & Tehranifar, P. (2010). Social conditions as fundamental causes of health inequalities: Theory, evidence, and policy implications. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51(Suppl 1) , S28–S40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146510383498

Thompson, T., McQueen, A., Croston, M., Luke, A., Caito, N., Quinn, K., Funaro, J., & Kreuter, M. W. (2019). Social needs and health-related outcomes among Medicaid beneficiaries. Health Education & Behavior: The Official Publication of the Society for Public Health Education, 46 (3), 436–444. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198118822724

Khullar, D., & Chokshi, D. A. (2018). Health, income, & poverty: Where we are & what could help . Health Affairs Health Policy Brief. https://doi.org/10.1377/hpb20180817.901935

Braveman, P. A., Cubbin, C., Egerter, S., Williams, D. R., & Pamuk, E. (2010). Socioeconomic disparities in health in the United States: What the patterns tell us. American Journal of Public Health, 100 (Suppl 1), S186–S196. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.166082

Belle, D., & Doucet, J. (2003). Poverty, inequality, and discrimination as sources of depression among U.S. women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 27 (2), 101–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00090

Caughy, M. O., O’Campo, P. J., & Muntaner, C. (2003). When being alone might be better: Neighborhood poverty, social capital, and child mental health. Social Science & Medicine, 57 (2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00342-8

Ward-Smith, P. (2007). The effects of poverty on urologic health. Urologic Nursing, 27 (5), 445–446.

Mode, N. A., Evans, M. K., & Zonderman, A. B. (2016). Race, neighborhood economic status, income inequality and mortality. PLoS ONE, 11 (5), e0154535. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154535

Kaiser Family Foundation. (n.d.). Poverty rate by age . https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-age/

Cellini, S. R., McKernan, S. M., & Ratcliffe, C. (2008). The dynamics of poverty in the United States: A review of data, methods, and findings. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27 (3), 577–605.   https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/pam.20337

Eamon, M. K. (2001). The effects of poverty on children’s socioemotional development: An ecological systems analysis. Social Work, 46 (3), 256–266.

Evans, G. W., & Kim, P. (2013). Childhood poverty, chronic stress, self-regulation, and coping. Child Development Perspectives, 7 (1), 43–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12013

Shaw, D. S., & Shelleby, E. C. (2014). Early-starting conduct problems: Intersection of conduct problems and poverty. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 10 (1), 503–528. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032813-153650

Justice, L. M., Jiang, H., Purtell, K. M., Schmeer, K., Boone, K., Bates, R., & Salsberry, P. J. (2019). Conditions of poverty, parent-child interactions, and toddlers’ early language skills in low-income families. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 23 (7), 971–978. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-018-02726-9

Council on Community Pediatrics, Gitterman, B. A., Flanagan, P. J., Cotton, W. H., Dilley, K. J., Duffee, J. H., Green, A. E., Keane, V. A., Krugman, S. D., Linton, J. M., McKelvey, C. D., & Nelson, J. L. (2016). Poverty and child health in the United States. Pediatrics, 137 (4), e20160339. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-0339

Wagmiller Jr, R. L., & Adelman, R. M. (2009). Childhood and intergenerational poverty: The long-term consequences of growing up poor . National Center for Children in Poverty. https://www.nccp.org/publication/childhood-and-intergenerational-poverty/

Chetty, R., Stepner, M., Abraham, S., Lin, S., Scuderi, B., Turner, N., Bergeron, A., & Cutler, D. (2016). The association between income and life expectancy in the United States, 2001–2014. JAMA, 315 (16), 1750–1766. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2016.4226

Yoshikawa, H., Aber, J. L., & Beardslee, W. R. (2012). The effects of poverty on the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children and youth: Implications for prevention. The American Psychologist, 67 (4), 272–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028015

Riccio, J. A., Dechausay, N., Greenberg, D. M., Miller, C., Rucks, Z., & Verma, N. (2010). Toward reduced poverty across generations: Early findings from New York City’s conditional cash transfer program . MDRC.

Love, J. M., Kisker, E. E., Ross, C. M., Schochet, P. Z., Brooks-Gunn, J., Paulsell, D., Boller, K., Constantine, J., Vogel, C., Fuligni, A. S., & Brady-Smith, C. (2002). Making a difference in the lives of infants and toddlers and their families: The impacts of early Head Start. Volumes I–III: Final technical report and appendixes and local contributions to understanding the programs and their impacts . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.

Maag, E., & Airi, N. (2020). Moving forward with the earned income tax credit and child tax credit: Analysis of proposals to expand refundable tax credits. National Tax Journal, 73 (4), 1163–1186. https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2020.4.11

Blank, R. M. (2002). Evaluating welfare reform in the United States. Journal of Economic Literature, 40 (4), 1105–1166.

Currie, J., & Chorniy, A. (2021). Medicaid and Child Health Insurance Program improve child health and reduce poverty but face threats. Academic Pediatrics, 21 (8), S146–S153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2021.01.009

Keith-Jennings, B., Llobrera, J., & Dean, S. (2019). Links of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program with food insecurity, poverty, and health: Evidence and potential. American Journal of Public Health, 109 (12), 1636–1640. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305325

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What is the cycle of poverty?

How Concern understands extreme poverty shapes our work to end it.

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In 2023, over 648 million people are living in extreme poverty. Since 2020, that number has increased by more than half a million people. Put another way, that means over 8% of the world's population lack basic assets or do not see a return on the assets they have.

For these 648 million people, these circumstances fuel a cycle of poverty that they're unlikely to break on their own. Many have inherited this cycle from their parents. Many will pass it on to their own children.

What does this mean for ending poverty? Here, we explain both what the cycle of poverty is, the two factors that fuel it, and how we at Concern address both in order to break the cycle.

The four types of poverty

Poverty is dynamic, and numbers don’t tell the whole story. Often these numbers only give us a snapshot of people’s lives at one particular moment in time. Many families move in and out of poverty, experiencing it only occasionally or living on less than $2.15 a day for long stretches of time. Broadly, we can look at four different types of poverty:

1. Occasionally Poor

Occasional Poverty and Cyclical Poverty both represent transient poverty. People experiencing either of these types of poverty can expect to spend periods of time living above the poverty line. People experiencing Occasional Poverty are more likely to spend long stretches of time above the poverty line. However, an unexpected event, such as a fire or tsunami, can leave these groups more vulnerable.

Nearly half a million Filipinos face Occasional Poverty each year due to natural disaster. 2013’s Typhoon Haiyan hit the country especially hard: 70% of the country’s fishing community lost income. 65% lost key assets like boats.

Jonel Meranar lost his home and boat. As part of Concern’s Typhoon Haiyan response, he trained in boat repair and was hired at a boatyard in Concepcion. He also received his own boat. Within a year, he rebuilt his fishing business.

2. Cyclically Poor

What if the shocks that trigger periods of poverty for the Occasionally Poor are less severe but more consistent? This is the situation faced by millions of families who rely on agriculture for both their food and their livelihoods around the world. During peak periods, such as harvests, there is usually guaranteed income — either from working on someone else’s farm or from selling what’s harvested at the local market. Even without droughts or floods, hunger seasons between harvests can happen every year, resulting in Cyclical Poverty.

Malawi is 80% agrarian, which means that hunger seasons and poor harvests can leave families financially and nutritionally insecure. These low seasons can last for months, and are even more complicated if a natural disaster strikes — as Cyclone Idai did in 2019.

Agnes Jack participated in Concern’s Graduation program. She received a start-up grant and learned Climate Smart Agriculture techniques, which have improved her harvests and income, offsetting cyclical poverty.

3. Usually Poor

Usual Poverty is an inverse of Occasional Poverty: People experiencing Occasional Poverty are generally above the poverty line and only fall below due to an unexpected setback. People experiencing Usual Poverty are generally below the poverty line with the exception of an unanticipated windfall. This could be in the form of a good rain after a dry spell, or someone finding a short-term job that pulls their family above the poverty line for a few months.

In Niger, men often migrate abroad for work, sending money back home to support their families. However, these gains can be quickly lost if events like conflict or a pandemic prevent international travel, perpetuating a Usually Poor cycle.

Balkissa Matsallabi’s husband was prevented from traveling to the Cote d’Ivoire. Programs like Concern’s Community Management of Acute Malnutrition can help to reduce the impact of these situations while families find more sustainable forms of income.

4. Always Poor

Those who are Always Poor, like people experiencing Usual Poverty, tend to be those who experience poverty over long periods of time — in many cases, over generations. Families experiencing Usual Poverty may either benefit from a good harvest or a rare period of high-income labor. However, families classified as Always Poor live consistently below the poverty line, even if there’s some fluctuation in their income following harvests or work opportunities.

In 2010 and 2011, the worst drought in 60 years gripped Somalia, triggering a famine that killed over 260,000. More than decade of poor rains has pushed 43% of the country’s population below the poverty line.

Many families were still recovering from the 2010-11 drought when, in 2015, El Nino events once again led to failed rainy seasons. Somalia avoided a second famine in 2017, thanks to timely interventions and cash transfers. However, unprecedented drought in the Horn of Africa plus the economic impacts of the conflict in Ukraine leave many facing famine-like conditions in 2023.

What fuels the cycle of poverty?

As noted above, while the different types of poverty are centered on lack of assets or lack of a return on those assets, they also suggest different causes and maintainers of poverty. The obstacles that keep a community in Lebanon in extreme poverty may be totally different than those keeping a community in Malawi in extreme poverty. That said, we can boil all of this down into two key dimensions that, when combined, equal poverty: marginalization and risk.

As noted above, while the different types of poverty are centered on lack of assets or lack of a return on those assets, they also suggest different causes and maintainers of poverty . The obstacles that keep a community in Lebanon in extreme poverty may be totally different than those keeping a community in Malawi in extreme poverty. That said, we can boil all of this down into two key dimensions that, when combined, equal poverty: marginalization and risk.

By inequality, we mean the systemic barriers that lead to groups of people without representation in their communities. In order for a community or country to work its way out of poverty, all groups must be involved in the decision-making process — especially when it comes to having a say in the things that determine your place in society.

All types of systemic barriers (including physical ability, religion, race, and caste) serve as compound interest against a marginalization that already accrues most for those living in extreme poverty.

Gender discrimination is one of the biggest inequalities preventing the end of extreme poverty. This impact is felt in education: 650 million girls and women alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Usually, this means that they don’t finish school.

Lenason Dinyero is a farmer from Malawi’s Nsanje district and the chairperson of his local school father’s group. They fight early and forced marriages, as well as other practices that prevent girls from their right to an education.

Risk is the combination of a group’s level of vulnerability and the hazards they face. The more vulnerable a group is — and the more hazards they face — the harder it is to break the cycle of poverty. As noted above, risk often takes the form of emergencies: natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, and conflict all hit more vulnerable groups harder.

As newlyweds, Workitt Kassaw Ali and her husband Ketamaw faced a common challenge among young families in rural Ethiopia: not enough land. In the farming-focused Amhara region, this also means not enough income.

The couple participated in Concern’s ReGRADE program, a variation on our Graduation model, and gained sound financial footing. When Workitt experienced a medical emergency, they were able to cover the medical costs—something they could not have done in the past. “I think it saved my life,” she says.

How do we break the cycle of poverty?

While each situation is different, Concern’s approach to breaking the cycle of poverty focuses on addressing marginalization and risk. Looking at the waves that represent each type of poverty, our goal is to design interventions and programs that straighten each of the waves out, and move the overall line above the poverty line.

Addressing inequality

It stands to reason that, if there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to poverty, there’s also no one-size-fits-all approach to ending it. To address inequality, we consider the different starting points within communities, acknowledging the different skills and means that people already have and addressing the different barriers that people may face. Our approach to building equity is rooted in the knowledge that it’s not enough to focus on giving everyone the same resources to succeed. We have to focus on helping everyone achieve the same results.

For instance, one of the reasons that our work focuses on women and children is that gender inequality remains the most pervasive inequality (and one that intersects with other forms of inequality based on age, ethnicity, race, disability, caste, religion, sexual orientation, or geographical location).

Addressing inequality in action

As part of bringing the Graduation program to DRC, Concern requires that women play a full part in the decision-making process for their communities and works to find opportunities for them to take part in local leadership.

Ngoy Francine is the treasurer of her local water committee in Tanganyika province. The committee charges a small fee for use to cover ongoing maintenance. “If people can’t afford to pay, there is no charge,” she says. “The community supports the most vulnerable.”

In the countries where Concern works, we prioritize understanding the ways that gender disparity presents at the national and local level, and how those inequities affect participation in our programs. We then look for ways to bring women not only into our programs, but also into our staff and leadership in each country. With younger generations, we work to address gender imbalances and gender-based violence in the education system. With adults, we build support groups for both genders — ensuring that we’re not only fixing the symptoms, but addressing the causes to develop lasting equity.

The more we can reduce inequality, the more we can work with communities to consistently earn more and stay above the international poverty line.

Addressing risk

The other lever we can turn in order to break the cycle of poverty is offsetting risk. The more a community is better prepared against hazards, and the more resilient it is against vulnerability, the less prone they are to risk. This also requires a tailored approach given that each situation is unique.

All Concern programs incorporate some degree of disaster risk reduction as we work to offset the potential damage or harm caused by events ranging from climate disasters to conflict. Understanding how each individual hazard may affect a community, along with how they work together, is essential to having an effective response to risk. By focusing on specific vulnerabilities in specific situations, we can plan in advance to offset both catastrophic and everyday risks, creating a more stable and consistent quality of life for the people we serve.

The rainfall in Dar Sila, Chad, is unpredictable. This leads to seasonal food insecurity and malnutrition (among other risks). Concern has addressed this with Community Resilience to Acute Malnutrition. CRAM increases access to clean water and healthcare. Small business owner and mother Khamissa credits it with improving the community.

“We like what we are doing and we hope to continue it as we are witnessing some type of change.”

Who Concern Works with (and Why)

At Concern, our belief is that we must target our work so that it benefits primarily those living in extreme poverty. This means that we don’t always specifically target extremely poor people, but the extreme poor must be the ones who ultimately benefit from our work.

While we primarily work with the Always, Usually, and Cyclical Poor, we will also work with the Occasionally Poor when we believe that work will benefit those living in extreme poverty. This is especially true in times of natural and man-made disaster, such as the 2015 Nepal Earthquake, the ongoing Syrian conflict, or the current COVID-19 pandemic.

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• Innov Clin Neurosci

Poverty and Language Development: Roles of Parenting and Stress

Socioeconomic status affects a variety of mental and physical health outcomes, such as language development. Indeed, with poverty, disparities in the development of language processing are arguably among the most consistently found— with decreases in vocabulary, phonological awareness, and syntax at many different developmental stages. In this review, after considering basic brain systems affected by low socioeconomic status that are important for language development and related peripartum issues, we focus on two theoretical models that link poverty with the brain systems affected in language problems. The family stress model connects poverty with parental emotional distress that affects parenting, whereas the parental investment model involves a focus on basic needs that affects children’s language. Understanding the mechanisms through which poverty affects the brain, parenting behaviors and language development may have implications for identification and treatment of individuals as well as social policy.

INTRODUCTION

Chronic, long-term poverty or low socioeconomic status (SES) is negatively associated with a variety of mental and physical adverse health outcomes. 1 Disparities in the development of language processing are arguably among the most consistent, including vocabulary, phonological awareness, and syntax at many different stages of development, 2 - 4 along with memory and cognitive control mental functions. 5 , 6 In this review, we begin with an examination of candidate mechanisms by which low socioeconomic status influences brain development. Recent research has demonstrated effects of poverty on brain functions in language and executive function areas in particular. We also discuss possible environmental and behavioral mediators of the effects of low SES on language development through pregnancy, the perinatal period, and parenting. Next, we focus on two theoretical models that link poverty and adverse language development outcomes with consideration of related underlying brain physiology. First, we consider the family stress model, which posits that economic stress causes an increase in parental emotional distress and results in harsher, more authoritarian parenting practices and fewer opportunities for affection and nurturing. 7 Second, we review the family investment model, which suggests that families in poverty, by necessity, focus time on the acquisition and assessment of basic needs. 8 Finally, we conclude with discussions of how these models are helpful in understanding contributions of family dynamics and environment in the development of language processing and may inform the interpretation of research on biological mechanisms of poverty ( Figure 1 ). Most likely, poverty has adverse effects on language through both effects on parenting and increased stress, suggesting opportunities for early detection and treatment.

Conceptual pathways linking the experience of low-socioeconomic status (SES) during childhood with language-related physiology of the adult brain via either parenting (upper) or chronic stress (lower). We postulate that auditory (perisylvian), visual word finding areas (VWFA) and anterior inferior frontal cortex would be most affected by parenting, while emotion processing in amygdala and hippocampus as well as connected regulation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) would be most affected by chronic stress. Parenting and chronic stress interact with each other as well.

SES, BRAIN, AND LANGUAGE

There is good evidence that low SES is a stressful condition associated with deficits in brain physiology in regions associated with typical language development. One early study 9 described perisylvian deficits associated with low SES among children identified as poor readers. They found that children with poor phonemic awareness skills, despite higher SES backgrounds, had increased perisylvian function during a reading task. This was not the case for children with both low SES and low phonemic awareness. Moreover, low SES has been positively correlated with the degree to which left (relative to right) inferior frontal gyrus is activated during a language task in young children, indicating decreased specialization of language function in the left hemisphere in children with low SES. 10 These studies suggest that social, cognitive and underlying neurobiological influences on reading development are fundamentally related. 9 , 10

Poverty is also associated with deficits in the psychological underpinnings of language learning, which are keenly dependent on executive functioning and memory— both of which are vulnerable to stress. 6 , 10 Consistent with a high stress level, low SES children have higher levels of salivary cortisol, 11 which may explain some of the functional and structural findings 12 in brain areas that regulate stress hormones including the hippocampus (HC), amygdala (AG), and prefrontal cortex (PFC), 13 —all areas that are also important for aspects of executive function and memory. The related measure of perceived stress in adulthood has also been associated with decreased HC grey matter volume, 14 and low SES is associated with increased activity in the AG 15 suggesting a mechanism where increased glucocorticoids, as a result of the stress of poverty, leads to decreased HC volume and increased AG activity. This dysregulation of stress response in educational settings likely interferes with the acquisition of language both directly by distraction and through adverse effects on executive function development. 16 , 17 There is a current controversy over whether specific language impairments may result from impairment to a “domain-specific” system devoted to language itself or from some more “domain-general” system, 18 but this has not yet been studied among low SES children. However, one potential hypothesis is that since attention is subserved by the PFC, 19 likely any dysfunction in this region would also interfere with the development of language. Finally, adults with lower subjective social status have reduced grey matter volume in the executive function regions of the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) area of the medial PFC. 20 Thus, three neuroanatomical areas, AG, HC and PFC, work together to regulate emotion, in what behaviorally is often termed self-control, an integral part of healthy language development, 21 and all are vulnerable to the effects of low SES. 12 Critical developmental windows of relative susceptibility to SES-related effects on the brain are likely important for language.

In a recent study on the long-term effects of childhood SES, Gianaros et al 22 found that parental education was positively associated with corticostriatal activation and connectivity. During processing of stimuli that signal monetary gains, and after controlling for own education, lower parental education predicted reduced activation in ACC and dmPFC, plus reduced connectivity between these cortical regions and OFC and striatum— established as reward and impulse-control circuits. Important to language, functional connections were also reported with anterior inferior frontal (IFG) areas within the operculum and near the Broca’s area—regions well associated with articulation and word analysis. 21 Thus, childhood poverty may be associated with impaired connectivity of language areas with reward and impulse-control. 22

Indeed, the association between SES and language may be stronger than for other neurocognitive systems, 6 , 10 as it accounts for almost a standard deviation of difference between groups of high and low SES. These magnitudes of language delay can reach clinical significance, such as language impairment (LI) and speech impairment (SI). LI and SI are often thought of as being more genetic than environmental; however, there is mounting evidence that SES plays an important role in the development of LI and SI. In one study, children with LI had younger mothers with both lower levels of education and income 22 —factors that influenced the growth rate of vocabulary throughout childhood. In fact, for every gain of $5,000 in annual income, vocabulary scores were raised by almost two points. This effect appears to be internationally consistent. In one Chinese study, 3 SES explains five percent of variance in child vocabulary, a large effect that has important implications for long-term learning, education and potential for learning. 23

As further evidence of the importance of LI to child development, a long-term study of children with SI and LI 24 identified in early childhood found that LI was related to the worst outcomes in adulthood including academic achievement. In this study, children with LI and/or SI had significantly lower SES and intelligence quotient (IQ), which contributed unique variance to specific aspects of achievement. When controlling for these factors, children with SI largely remediated deficits by early adulthood; however, children with LI continued to show deficits in memory and executive function at age 19. In addition, children with LI at age 5 had a 3- to 10-fold increased likelihood of spelling, math, and reading disabilities by age 19. 24 LI is also associated with long-term consequences for mental health, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); affective and anxiety disorders, particularly social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder; 25 somatic complaints and delinquency; 26 high school dropout and adult low income; 27 and suicide. 28 LI is a profound problem for which more research is required to elucidate the biological and environmental mechanisms at work, especially among children born into poverty where those risks are higher due to inadequate nutrition, unstable living conditions, and/or poor quality medical care. For example, issues such as chronic ear infections may not be adequately managed and the associated symptoms could diminish concentration and interfere with the child’s ability to effectively use auditory processing to discriminate speech sounds.

PREGNANCY, PRETERM BIRTH AND THE PERINATAL PERIOD

Low SES environments may affect language development through pregnancy and the early postpartum. Prematurity, defined as less than 37 weeks of gestation, is more common in high poverty contexts 29 and may contribute to the development of language delays through maternal stress effects on the fetus. 30 Infants born prematurely have lower birth weights, a measure associated with a range of brain differences compared to full-term babies, which may help explain language effects, such as decreased grey matter volumes and levels of myelinated white matter. 31 Indeed, brain volume differences are associated with mental status as early as two weeks postpartum. 32 A large literature on fetal programming has shown that low SES and psychosocial stress adversely affects fetal development. 33 - 35 Finally, maternal stress is related to lower birth weight, 36 which is also associated with developmental delays in brain development associated with language.

In accord, preterm infants show delays in general cognition and both receptive and expressive language. 37 In one study, 38 preterm infants had delays in both receptive and expressive language at 26 months (corrected age) of between 3 and 5 months. Language delays were also correlated with both length of hospital stay after birth (receptive) and APGAR score (appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, respiration) at birth (expressive). Also, receptive language was positively associated with birth weight suggesting that developmental stage at birth may be an important factor in long-term development of language. Importantly, maternal behavioral sensitivity was associated with better receptive language skills suggesting a buffering effect of the mother, offering protection from environmental factors.

Environmental risk and resilience factors related to poverty are important. Elevated risk levels can be unexpectedly high anywhere leading to perinatal stress and adverse language development; and resilience factors may suggest effective interventions. In a fascinating natural experiment, Laplante et al 39 found that for infants who were in utero during an ice storm in Canada where families lived without electricity for several days, levels of prenatal maternal stress during the storm were related to communication development in the infants at two years old. In a follow-up study using a measure of the degree of exposure to actual threat, loss and change related to the event, the researchers found that prenatal stress was associated with child lower IQ and vocabulary at age five. 40 There is some evidence that as children age, stress during pregnancy has less of an effect on language ability. In a large cohort study, Whitehouse et al 41 found that high levels of stress in early pregnancy had no effect on children’s language at age 10 but stress during late pregnancy lowered language ability at a trend level. This research highlights the importance of the mother-infant relationship in supporting child language—perhaps especially in the face of psychosocial stress.

PARENTING STYLE

Parent-child interactions have an undeniable influence on developing children at every socioeconomic level. A parenting style that includes parental warmth combined with high expectations and clear rules and routines moderates other negative effects of poverty, and lack of parental warmth may be implicated in the development of language problems. Parent warmth is associated with numerous positive outcomes in later childhood and adulthood including better memory, 23 higher achievement, language ability, and income. 42 When mother-infant interactions are less positive, however, receptive and expressive language can be compromised. 37 In a study of mother-infant dyadic interactions, mothers with the highest amount of negative control strategies had children who used the shortest sentences and fewest grammatical word types and number of different word roots. 43 Conversely, maternal sensitivity and communication with the child around cognitive states (such as asking the child “Is this hard for you?”) is supportive of child executive functioning and self-regulation, 44 suggesting that this high-quality, early parent-child interaction is important for the development of underlying skills necessary for language development. Furthermore, in a large study of mother-child video-taped interactions, both income and maternal education predicted parenting quality for children at one, two, and three years of age, such that parents with higher SES had higher sensitivity and positive regard, showed more evidence of teaching during a teaching task, and were rated higher on supportive presence and quality of assistance on a complex puzzle task. 45 Parenting quality then was a function of SES and predicted mental health development in each age group.

Key brain structures and circuits are emerging as plausible mediators of the effects of low SES, peripartum stress, and low quality parenting. For example, adults who experienced adverse parenting during childhood have smaller hippocampus volumes in adulthood. 46 , 47 In one pioneering neuroimaging study, it was found that mothers who reported experiencing higher maternal care in their own childhood showed increased gray-matter volumes in frontal executive control brain regions, and more brain activity in response to baby-cry versus control sound in executive control regions and the hippocampus. 48 This suggests a long-term impact of parenting on brain structure and function in regions that are related to SES-effects and language.

Another important predictor of parenting quality was maternal reading frequency, suggesting that parental literacy, independent of education level, may mediate the effects of SES in the development of maternal-infant bonds. Intervention studies have also found preliminary evidence that stimulation, in the form of visits focused on parent-child interactions, can reduce mental health problems in adolescence in accord with the idea that the effects of parenting style are truly long lasting. 49 Also in accord, exposure to parental corporal punishment in childhood is associated with reduced grey matter volume in medial PFC, dorsolateral-PFC, and ACC. 50

One related study of the United States African American-Caucasian achievement gap found that low SES was related to degree of adolescent autonomy, parental monitoring, school orientation and warmth. 51 Both a higher level of autonomy and higher school orientation were related to positive school outcomes, overall suggesting that these parental styles may moderate achievement. There are putative brain circuits that moderate the direct effects of harsh parenting on the amygdala and PFC. 52 This is supported by studies of adults with adverse, early childhood family environments that show high AG reactivity during an emotion labeling task, which were positively correlated with high right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rvlPFC) activity. This can be potentially interpreted as decreased ability of rvlPFC to modulate AG activation.

Poverty is thus associated with lower parental quality as measured by warmth, autonomy, and monitoring through stressors that center around food, job, and housing insecurity. 7 Maternal stress has been shown to be transmittable to children and to negatively influence infants and small children. In one study of mother-infant dyads, high maternal stress was associated with distress at six months, as well as anger and deficits in attention at five years old. 53 In the Magill-Evans study, 37 both mother-spouse and mother-child relationships were influential in language development. Low rating of the spousal relationship and higher rating of stress related to the child’s distractibility both negatively influenced children’s receptive language, suggesting that multiple sources of stress in the home influence language and cognition.

LANGUAGE USE AND THE HOME LITERACY ENVIRONMENT

Stress has varied effects beyond the direct effects of the biological mechanisms of stress on development. Stress is also linked to communication and language development. 39 , 40 For example, parental use of language and evidence of reading as a leisure time activity predicts cognitive and language development. In Hoff’s study of children in China, 3 SES was predictive of five percent of language development, but because SES was related to maternal vocabulary, maternal vocabulary completely mediated the relation between SES and language, underlining the importance of parent literacy and suggesting that families in poverty where parents use complex and varied language buffer their children and support normative or advanced language development in children.

Furthermore, Hart and Risley 54 conducted a particularly influential study on parental education and word usage in the home. In their study, total number of words spoken in the home varied greatly between families, and word usage was the single strongest determinant of child vocabulary growth. Most importantly for the relation between poverty and vocabulary growth, less educated parents have been shown to be likely to use fewer words, less complicated syntax, and fewer references to events not in the present when communicating with their children. 54 Low language complexity in lower income homes was also a major predictor of vocabulary growth in children. This relation has been repeatedly replicated in other studies. Most recently, Huttenlocher 55 studied the role of caregiver speech by videotaping 47 parent-child dyads and examining speech patterns. Language usage is a complex idea, consisting of multiple aspects including quality and diversity of lexical utterances and constituent and clausal diversity. Lexical diversity is the number of different word employed by both children and caregivers. Constituent diversity includes the inclusion of optional words in a clause including adjectives, adverbs, qualifiers, and possessive. For example “pick up the ball” differs from “Can you please pick up your red, striped ball quickly and bring it over to me?” in the number of optional words used. Finally clausal diversity is the use of different ways of combining clauses, including combining two clauses and using modifying clauses. Parent language usage remains relatively constant over this time, with the exception of greater clausal diversity by parents as children age. 55 However, children develop new language exponentially between 14 and 46 months with a curvilinear increase in both lexical and constituent diversity and linear increase in clausal diversity. By 14 months, there are remarkable differences in the complexity and variety of child language, and these differences in language ability tend to remain over time. At 26 months, there are already significant differences in both the number of word types and the constituent diversity, with the highest rung of SES approximately double the initial starting point of the lowest SES children. Since these differences remain relatively stable, this achievement gap remains throughout the first four years studied. For clausal diversity, Huttenlocher 55 found a linear increase in diversity with SES. This may be in part because initial clausal diversity in any SES group is basically nonexistent, suggesting that the difference in clausal diversity found at four years of age may remain over time. Importantly, there is a high degree of predictive value of caregiver speech patterns to child speech patterns in all three areas. Variability in caregiver speech partially mediated the relation between SES and lexical diversity and fully mediated the relation with constituent diversity but did not influence relation between SES and clausal diversity. This suggests that greater parent language usage and diversity can influence language development positively, regardless of SES status. In fact, in children with early brain injuries, parent language, as measured by mean length of utterances, is related to a higher vocabulary growth rate than in typically developing children, 56 underlining the importance of parental language usage in mediating the effects of early adversity.

Although many studies of parent-child interactions focus on the mother-child relationship, there is evidence that father’s language usage is also important in child language development. In one study, fathers’ vocabulary was additive to mother characteristics in predicting child language development. 57 Nonverbal gestures are influential in the development of language in early childhood as well. In one study of gesture and word types in parent-child interactions, SES was related to the number of gestures used by parents and paternally mediated vocabulary usage at school age. 58

There is evidence that aspects of the environmental stress of poverty may negatively influence parental language usage. In a reanalysis of the Hart and Risley data, Evans et al 59 studied the role of crowding within the home on parental language. Crowding in the home is a measure of stress in that more people in the home increases noise density and minimizes opportunities for mental quiet. SES was predictive of greater crowding in the home and of less language diversity; however, density independently predicted less diversity of language, controlling for SES. Again, parental responsiveness, controlling for SES, mediated that role of crowding but SES remained a significant predictor of language density.

Parental style, which is an important predictor of language development in children, is also important for understanding patterns of word usage in the home. In the Taylor study, 43 high guidance mothers (mothers whose control strategies focused on guiding the child to help the child comply with directions) had the longest mean length of utterance and highest number of different word roots, and this was, in turn, associated with greater complexity in child language development.

Parent language environment is likely associated with the child’s development of brain regions associated with language reception and expression; however, there are no studies, to our knowledge, directly addressing this association. There is a recent study 60 that suggests that in children with higher parental language usage have better novel rule learning skills (the ability to learn a new rule related to a previously learned rule) and use a region of the PFC, the middle frontal gyrus (MFG, an area associated with rule learning), less, suggesting that they need less activity in this region during rule learning. The same pattern was exhibited in relation to SES. Comparing high and low SES children, a higher income-to-needs ratio was related to greater accuracy in new rule learning and less use of the MFG. 60

One focus of intervention in language development has been the home literacy environment (HLE), which has been characterized by a number of researchers as influential in the development of child language. 23 , 61 , 62 Birth to Three programs that give families books at pediatric visits and encourage parents to read to children (e.g., Reach Out and Read 63 ) or that encourage parent-child reading are centered on the idea that language in the home is one of the key areas where social programs can influence child language development. High SES homes have rich home literacy environments (HLE) and the reverse is true for low SES homes. Parental SES, parental reading, and language behaviors are significantly associated with the richness of the HLE, often measured using the HOME (Home Observation for the Measurement of the Environment) inventory. 64 The HOME inventory investigates materials and practices in the home related to literacy, including emotional and verbal responsivity, and includes acceptance of the child, organization of the environment, provision of appropriate play materials, and maternal involvement with the child under a variety of daily situations.

Stable rich HLEs have the greatest effect on kindergarten literacy skills. 65 In fact, rich HLE in early childhood that later decline are not as protective as those that remain rich over time. However, even moderately rich HLEs are better than impoverished environments for language function measured at kindergarten. These effects are long lasting. HLE predicts language at three years old, which predicts language at 4.5, and, perhaps most importantly, changes in the HLE between three and 4.5 predict language at 4.5 even after controlling for current HLE. 66 In one study, 62 early HLE influenced kindergarteners’ vocabulary and conceptual knowledge, which, in turn, predicted printed word recognition, a precursor to strong reading. These kindergarten pre-reading skills predicted reading skills into the second grade. In another study, 23 scores on the environmental stimulation subscale of the HOME predicted language ability in middle school. The HLE is not only important for language but is important in the development of cognitive skills that underlie the development of language, such as self-regulation. 66

The role of mother-child interactions is important in the HLE too. In the Sarsour study, 66 maternal depression was negatively associated with change in the HLE, underlining the importance of maternal mental health in child development. However, maternal education and number of hours worked predicted higher change in HLE, suggesting that maternal education and financial independence are important to the development of HLE. Although there is little evidence in human literature of specific associations between an enhanced HLE and the development of certain brain regions, there is a literature on the role of environmental deprivation on the brain development. Environment deprivation is associated with deficits in IQ and cognitive development, 67 as well as expressive and receptive language. 68 In these natural experiment studies, children reared in large institutions and adopted or brought into enhanced foster care were examined to determine the role of environmental deprivation in cognitive and brain development. Behaviorally, children placed in enhanced foster care before age two had good cognitive development and IQ outcomes 67 and improved expressive and receptive language. 68

In terms of brain functioning, early socio-emotional, including linguistic, deprivation is associated with deficits in the white matter fiber tract connecting the PFC to limbic structures, the uncinate fasciculus. 69 In these institutionalized groups, there are also documented deficits in the amygdala. 70 In a study using electroencephalogram (EEG), children who were institutionalized had brain activity consistent with younger children and those placed in enhanced foster care, prior to age two, showed similar brain patterns to children that were never institutionalized, suggesting that it is possible to remediate even serious social deprivation with early intervention. 71 The brain deficits, located in the PFC and temporal regions, mediate the relationship between institutional deprivation and self-control, a precursor to strong language skills. 72 Importantly institutionalized children exhibit a delay in the developmental shift in early childhood from right to left lateralization. 73 Considering the importance of left frontal and temporal regions in language development, a delay in this functional shift, may be very important to the development of language.

The literature reviewed suggests six neuroanatomical regions as central to the development of language ( Figure 1 ). The first three are language areas specific to auditory processing, visual processing, and word analysis and articulation, namely the perisylvian region of visual word form area (VWFA), and the anterior inferior frontal areas, respectively. We postulate that these would be most affected by environmental influences such as parenting. In addition, areas associated with emotional processing, namely the amygdala and hippocampus, as well as PFC regions associated with cognitive control over emotion are central to self-regulation and its role in the development of language ability and may be especially vulnerable to the effects of chronic stress.

Parenting styles that include warmth, promotion of autonomy, and encouragement are predictive of strong language skills 37 and better self-regulation, 44 while controlling parenting strategies relate to the opposite. 43 The ability to self-regulate in a learning situation is related to both SES and to parental language through the PFC. 60

Research implications. There are several converging lines connecting poverty to language problems through stress, home language use, home literacy environment, and self-regulation, yet many questions remain unanswered. Although poverty is related to language development through a number of pathways, in many studies, when controlling for other factors, poverty is still predictive of deviations from normative language development. Among unanswered questions is that if poverty has a unique effect on language development, what is the mechanism through which poverty, controlling for other factors, influences language? One possible mechanism is the direct effects of stress on language development. Another mechanism involves perinatal and parenting factors ( Figure 1 ). Studies aimed at understanding the basic mechanisms of the perinatal period will help to understand the role of maternal stress in brain development supporting language.

The literature on environmental deprivation has demonstrated delays in left-right lateralization, development of the PFC, 72 increased amygdala, 70 and white matter disruption linking these regions. 69 Taken together, these suggest a neuroanatomical pathway for decreased cognitive control, necessary for the higher order planning needed for language development 17 and for understanding content. 74

Although a growing number of studies have begun to explore the neurohormonal basis of parenting thoughts and actions in humans, 75 - 77 it remains largely unknown how socioeconomic factors, either growing up in poverty or experiencing poverty later in life as an adult, affects the human parental brain—that is, specific brain circuitry that promote parental thoughts and behaviors. Studies of this kind are still necessary to understand the risks associated with low SES and brain areas involved in caregiving motivation, which potentially simultaneously regulate approach and avoidance motivations to infant cues and are tied to the regulation stress response. 78 , 79 These brain areas and caregiving behaviors are perhaps critical to creating the nurturing environment necessary for normal language development in early life.

A bright spot is that parental language use, independent of SES, is predictive of the development of normative language. This is an important area where there has been limited previous research. Using the HOME interview, several researchers have found evidence that increases in the HLE are predictive of better language skills but studies that directly link HLE enhancement to neural function are lacking. It is an open question whether there are both language deficits and perisylvian brain region deficits in low SES and whether they still occur after controlling for language ability in adults.

Finally, we present a caveat in this area of research given the focus on parenting and the home environment. Children from low SES backgrounds may have school circumstances that contribute to language development problems. Such children often attend schools that have high student-to-teacher ratios, provide poor quality instruction, and lack access to academic resources (e.g., textbooks) that foster language development. Therefore, we acknowledge that the school environment deserves attention in models of language development and SES effects. Indeed, this may be an area of fruitful research in which certain improvements in school environments may compensate for SES-related problems.

Policy implications. For each $5,000 in extra income annually, vocabulary is raised an average of 2 points on a standard scale vocabulary measurement. 3 Given that language deficits last into early adulthood 24 and language delays increase the risk of long-term mental health outcomes, 80 understanding the underlying neural mechanisms behind language delays in high poverty contexts has important public health implications. Importantly the number of words spoken in the home can increase children’s vocabulary by 300 words at age two. 80 This provides strong evidence that intervention in maternal-infant interactions, prior to age two, will have long-lasting effects on child language development and consequently on long-term health and welfare.

FUNDING: This work was supported by grants from the NIH/NIMHD IRC2MD004767-01, National Alliance of Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) (bbrfoundation.org/), and University of Michigan resources including the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program, the Center for Human Growth and Development, and the Michigan Institute for Clinical Health Research UL1TR000433.

FINANCIAL DISCLOSURES: The authors do not have conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this article.