poverty and families essay

Poverty and child welfare

• Understanding poverty
• Child poverty in Ontario
• Poverty in Indigenous and racialized communities
• Effects of poverty on children

Effects of poverty on families

• Child welfare and poverty
• Working with low-income families
• More resources

Poverty can negatively impact families and caregivers in a number of ways:

• As with children, adults who live in poverty experience worse health outcomes, including higher mortality rates  and increased risk of mental health conditions (e.g. depression, substance use disorders). The stress of poverty, coupled with inadequate health care access and limited financial resources for treatment, further exacerbates health conditions and makes parenting even more challenging
• Poverty can create considerable stress for families. As per the family stress model , poverty can contribute to interparental conflict, which plays a key role in family dynamics and can be a precursor to negative child outcomes. Conflict can also arise between children and parents because of economic pressures. For example, children may resent parents for having to work late or not being able to provide small luxuries. Finally, the living conditions associated with poverty - notably overcrowded housing and housing instability - can negatively affect all family relationships, including sibling relationships
• Poverty can make it difficult for parents to maintain a work-life balance that allows them to spend time at home caring for their children and to be active and involved with school, extracurricular activities, and community life. Parents on a low income are more likely to work long hours in  precarious jobs  that do not provide basic supports like parental leave and sick pay. Low-income workers typically also have less flexibility and choice than other parents (for example, they must rely on public transportation and do not have access to work-from-home options)
• Low-income fathers and paternal family members may be at risk of reduced family involvement due to negative perceptions they may have regarding their value and ability to fill the role of father as economic provider. It's important to note that the relationship between poverty and father involvement is complicated, as structural violence and other systemic barriers also play a role. Recent research also indicates that, despite racist and classist stereotypes about "deadbeat dads," the majority of low-income fathers are involved with their children once the definition of fatherhood is expanded beyond financial contributor

Spotlight on low-income parenting

• Parenting on a low income [2012] This report from About Families looks at the impact of low income on parenting. more... less... https://web.archive.org/web/20180412174026/https://aboutfamilies.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/about-families-report-parenting-on-a-low-income.pdf
• The relationship between poverty and parenting [2007] Summary and link to a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an organization working to solve UK poverty.
• Your helicopter parenting means you’re privileged [2018] This Maclean's article discusses heliciopter parenting and how it is not an option for many low-income families in Canada.
• Vast majority of impoverished fathers involved with their children [2016] Brief summary of a research study that found, despite stereotypes, many low-income fathers are involved in the lives of their children

Links and resources

• Inter-parental relationships, conflict, and the impacts of poverty [2017]
• Full house? How overcrowded housing affects families [2005]

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Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation

Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

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The main focus of this book is on the causation of starvation in general and of famines in particular. The traditional analysis of famines concentrates on food supply. This is shown to be fundamentally defective—it is theoretically unsound, empirically inept, and dangerously misleading for policy. The author develops an alternative method of analysis—the ’entitlement approach’, which concentrates on ownership and exchange. Aside from developing the underlying theory, the approach is used in a number of case studies of recent famines, including the Great Bengal Famine of 1943, the Ethiopian famines of 1973 and 1974, the Bangladesh famine of 1974, and the famines in the countries of the African Sahel in the 1970s. The book also provides a general analysis of the characterization and measurement of poverty. Various approaches used in economics, sociology, and political theory are critically examined. The predominance of distributional issues, including distribution between different occupational groups, links up the problem of conceptualizing poverty with that of analysing starvation. The book contains some technical economic analysis, but the text of the book has been kept as informal as possible, so that the text is accessible to the non‐technical reader, and the main lines of reasoning and their applications to the case studies are easily followed. Technicalities and mathematical reasoning are confined to the four appendices, which (1) present a formal analysis of the notion of exchange entitlement, (2) provide illustrative models of exchange entitlement, (3) examine the problem of poverty measurement, and (4) analyse the pattern of famine mortality based on the Bengal famine of 1943.

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Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, is one of the researchers studying the link between poverty and social mobility.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo

Unpacking the power of poverty

Peter Reuell

Harvard Staff Writer

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.”

More like this

Cities’ wealth gap is growing, too

Racial and economic disparities intertwined, study finds

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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Impact of Poverty on Parent–Child Relationships, Parental Stress, and Parenting Practices

Laurie long kwan ho.

1 The Nethersole School of Nursing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

William Ho Cheung Li

Ankie tan cheung, yuanhui luo.

2 Xiangya School of Nursing, Central South University, Changsha, China

3 School of Nursing, The Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China

Joyce Oi Kwan Chung

4 School of Nursing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Objectives:

To explore the impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices.

A mixed methods study.

Four hundred and eighty five Hong Kong Chinese parents who had children aged 3-6 years, and who were from low-income families. Eleven of these parents were randomly selected for individual semi-structured interviews.

Measurements

A sociodemographic questionnaire, the parent–child relationship score, the Parental Stress Scale and the Perceived Parental Aggression Scale.

The parents were found to have an impaired relationship with their children. The findings indicated that employment status, parental stress and harsh parenting were significantly associated with parent–child relationships. The qualitative findings revealed that parents from low-income families encountered a wide range of difficulties, which made these parents more likely to experience parental stress, thereby increasing their tendency to adopt harsh parenting practices that undermined parent–child relationships.

This study sheds light on the associations between parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices in low-income families. These findings will enhance nurses' understanding of the impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, and highlight the need for nurses to ensure that underprivileged parents and their children receive adequate primary care to prevent the development of psychological problems in this vulnerable group.

Introduction

Parent–child relationships play an important role in the development of children, especially during their preschool years ( 1 , 2 ). Poverty can place severe strains on parent–child relationships, due to the highly stressful conditions caused by financial problems and material deprivation, thereby generating negative psychological effects and family dysfunction ( 3 , 4 ). Psychological health is defined as an integral part of health, in which an individual is capable to recognize his/her own abilities and cope with the stresses of life ( 5 , 6 ). In particular, the quality of parent–child relationships is known to be a crucial determinant of the psychological health and life satisfaction of children from low-income families ( 7 ). Lower-quality parent–child relationships jeopardize children's cognitive development and increase their risk of developing behavioral and psychological problems ( 8 ). Moreover, a systematic review revealed that preschool children from low-income families were five times more likely to have behavioral problems than other age-group children from such families ( 9 , 10 ). Preschool children with developmental problems have also been shown to exhibit weaker adaptive abilities in later life than those without such problems, which makes such preschool children more prone to develop severe behavioral and psychological problems during adolescence and adulthood ( 9 , 11 , 12 ).

The family stress model explains the impact of poverty and poor household economic conditions on children and their parents ( 13 ). This model also demonstrates how poverty and economic hardship amplify parental stress and hence increase inter-parental conflict, which in turn leads to an increase in the adoption of harsh parenting practices ( 3 , 14 ). These harsh parenting practices not only impair parent–child relationships ( 3 ), but also cause mental and developmental maladjustment in children, including decreased cognitive functioning ( 15 ), reduced social competence ( 16 ), and impaired psychological health, such as depression and anxiety ( 17 ).

Most of the literature in this area has focused on adolescents and has thus failed to recognize the importance of parent–child relationships during preschool years, which is a critical stage in life during which children are at a high risk of developing mental and behavioral problems, especially those who are underprivileged ( 18 ). The existing evidence also fails to provide a qualitative understanding of the impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices. A more comprehensive insights of this topic would assist healthcare professionals to design appropriate interventions for enhancing parent–preschool child relationships in low-income families, and thus ensure that there is adequate support for the prevention of psychological problems in this population. It is also imperative that effective psychological interventions are developed for this subset of low-income families, as they may enhance the health of these families and reduce poverty-related burdens on healthcare systems.

The wealth disparity in Hong Kong is the highest among all developed countries, as indicated by the Gini coefficient ( 19 ). This is illustrated by the fact that over the past decade, the number of children aged under 18 years in Hong Kong who were living in poverty has increased by 10,800, to 181,200 ( 20 ). In addition, the child poverty rate was 17.8% in 2019, indicating that approximately one in five children in Hong Kong was living in poverty. The increasing number of children living in poverty reveals that a substantial proportion of children are susceptible to the adverse impacts of poverty, including undermined parent-child relationship. In particular, lockdown policies (including school closure) during the COVID-19 pandemic are found to greatly affect the psychological well-being of parents and children from low-income families, owing to confinement of their small homes (e.g., subdivided flats) for long hours and limited space for movement. This could also increase family conflict, which might further undermine the parent-child relationship of low-income families during the pandemic. This study, therefore, aimed to (1) examine the level of parent–child relationships, parental stress and harsh parenting practices in low-income families comprising Hong Kong Chinese parents and their preschool children; (2) investigate the relationships between parent–child relationships, parental stress and harsh parenting in this population; and (3) explore how the lived experiences of and challenges faced by parents in this population affect their parenting practices and their relationships with their children.

Materials and Methods

This study aimed to examine and explore the impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices.

We conducted an exploratory study using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The methods and results are reported according to the Good Reporting of a Mixed Methods Study (GRAMMS) checklist.

We defined low-income families as families with a monthly income at or below the half-median monthly domestic household income of Hong Kong, or those who received Comprehensive Social Security Assistance ( 19 ). Parents from low-income families were recruited if they: (i) had children aged between 3 and 6 years, (ii) were able to speak Cantonese and read Chinese, and (iii) had completed primary school education or above. Parents with identified cognitive and learning problems were excluded, as were children with such problems. Only one parent, either father or mother, from each family, who was the primary caregiver of children, was recruited.

Data Collection

The recruitment of participants (i.e., parents) was conducted in Sham Shui Po community, which is the Hong Kong district with the highest poverty rate ( 19 ). All participants were asked to complete a set of questionnaires. In addition, 11 participants were randomly selected for individual semi-structured interviews, which lasted for approximately 15–25 min and were conducted in a private meeting room. These interviews were audio-taped with participants' permission.

Socioeconomic and Demographic Characteristics

Participants' socioeconomic and demographic data were collected, comprising their age, sex, marital status, educational level, employment status, whether they were born in Hong Kong, the type of housing they lived in, religious belief and number of children.

Parent–Child Relationship

The parent–child relationships of the participants were assessed using a self-reporting method containing the following two items: “How satisfied are you with your parent–child relationship?” and “As a parent, how satisfied are you with yourself?” ( 21 ). Each item is rated on a six-point Likert scale from 1 (totally unsatisfactory) to 6 (totally satisfactory). A higher score indicates a better parent–child relationship.

The Chinese Version of the Parental Stress Scale

The PSS was developed to measure parents' perception of the parental stress they experienced when raising children ( 22 ). The Chinese version of the PSS was translated by Cheung ( 23 ) and consists of 17 items that are rated on a six-point Likert scale from 1 (disagree very much) to 6 (agree very much). A higher score represents a higher level of parental stress. The Chinese version of the PSS has demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties ( 23 ) and is therefore suitable for use by researchers to assess the parental stress levels of Chinese parents.

The Chinese Version of the Perceived Parental Aggression Scale

The Chinese version of the PPAS was used to assess the level of harsh parenting practices, such as parents' level of physical and verbal aggression toward their children. It is one of the subscales of the Parental Acceptance Rejection Questionnaire, which is a parent self-report questionnaire ( 24 ). It consists of 15 items that are measured on a five-point Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always). A higher score indicates a higher level of aggression and hostility toward one's children. The psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the PPAS have been empirically investigated and indicate that it has high reliability and validity for assessing the level of harsh parenting practices ( 24 , 25 ).

Semi-structured Interview

Participants were randomly selected from the quantitative study, using a computer-generated random number list, and invited to attend individual semi-structured interviews. The interview sample size was determined by data saturation, which was achieved after interviewing 11 participants. The interviews aimed to explore parents' lived experiences and challenges related to poverty, which affect parent–child relationships. All the interviews were conducted by a registered nurse, who was not involved in the quantitative data collection and was trained by a professor who is experienced in qualitative research and childcare so as to gain the competence to communicate with parents. A semi-structured interview guide was developed to explore three major areas: parents' perceptions of being a parent, parents' perceptions of their relationships with their child(ren) and the daily poverty-related challenges experienced by parents that affected parent–child relationships. The interviews began with some broad and open questions, such as: “Can you share something about you and your child(ren)—for example, how would you describe your relationship with your child(ren)?” This was followed by questions related to major areas in the interview guide [e.g., “How does your family income or financial status affect you and your child(ren)'s daily lives?” or “In what ways does your present financial situation affect your relationship with your child(ren)?”]. Nondirective and repetitive supplementary questions (e.g., “Why do you feel like this?” or “Can you give me some examples?”) were used to elicit more detailed information. Different probing techniques were also applied throughout the interviews to evoke more responses and more comprehensive information.

Ethical Considerations

Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (UW16-250) and written informed consent was obtained from the participants. We ensured that the participants understood that their participation was voluntary, that they could withdraw from the study at any time without any negative consequences, and that the information collected would remain confidential.

Analytic Strategy

SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 23.0 (IBM Corp, Armonk NY, United States) was used for quantitative data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the frequencies and percentages of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Data on parent–child relationships and results of the Chinese versions of the PPAS and PSS were presented as means and standard deviations. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were calculated to investigate the relationships between parent–child relationships, PPAS and PSS scores and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. In addition, a multiple regression model was used to explore factors that may significantly affect parent–child relationships. The parent–child relationship score was set as the dependent variable. The independent variables were selected using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients of particular variables, namely age, sex, marital status, employment status, born in Hong Kong, parental stress and harsh parenting.

Colaizzi's ( 26 ) descriptive phenomenological data-analysis strategy was used to analyze the qualitative data. To accurately capture the content of the dialogue and physical expressions, all interview recordings were transcribed verbatim into Cantonese. Important quotations relevant to the themes were identified and translated into English.

First, the transcripts were reviewed intensively multiple times to gain a general sense of the constructs or ideas in the content. Then, content relevant to the major areas covered in the interview guide was extracted and labeled as significant statements. These significant statements were used to formulate different meanings about the content. The formulated meanings were then grouped into categories and themes by examining and identifying their similarities. Ultimately, exhaustive descriptions were obtained from the themes.

The quality and rigor of the qualitative study, in terms of its credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, were ensured using several strategies. Triangulation strategies were adopted to enhance credibility, such as by taking field notes throughout the interviews to capture any supplementary nonverbal cues and involving two researchers in the process of data analysis ( 27 ). Member-checking was also performed to enhance credibility, by validating results with the participants ( 27 ). Moreover, interview privacy was ensured by offering a safe and secure environment for the participants. The participants were assured of confidentiality to encourage them to feel free to express their feelings and ideas honestly. Transferability was demonstrated by identifying similarities to other research findings and was enhanced by using direct quotations of the participants and explicit descriptions of their experiences.

Dependability was achieved by using the technique of stepwise replication ( 28 ). This involved two researchers analyzing the data independently, and then comparing their findings to ensure stability and consistency. Additionally, all of the interviews were carried out by the same researcher to maintain consistency. Finally, confirmability was improved by reflecting on the process of data analysis ( 28 ), which involved the two researchers recording the procedures of data analysis and periodically reflecting on these procedures to maintain their objectivity. Research team meetings were also held at regular intervals to monitor the data-analysis process and manage any divergence of opinion.

Quantitative Analysis

From March 2017 to January 2018, 485 participants were recruited by convenience sampling. The response rate was 91%; 49 participants refused to join the study because of unavailability or no interest in participating. The participants' socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are shown in Table 1 . The participants had a mean age of 35.6 years and most (91.5%) were mothers. A majority of the participants were married (80%), had a secondary educational level (76.5%), were unemployed (78.1%) and did not have a religious belief (85.2%). Most were living in subdivided flats (42.5%) and public rental housing (38.8%). Two hundred and twenty-three participants (46%) had two children and 195 (40.2%) had one child.

Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of participants ( N = 485).

The mean parent–child relationship, PPAS and PSS scores are shown in Table 2 . The results showed that the mean parent–child relationship score of the participants was slightly higher than the midpoint of the scoring ranges (range: 1–12; mean = 7.47; SD = 2.25), implying that the participants have an impaired relationship with their children. The results also revealed that the participants had rather high levels of parental stress (range: 17–102; mean = 69.86; SD = 11.12), indicating that they experienced a significantly high level of stress when raising their children. Moreover, the mean score of harsh parenting practices was slightly above the midpoint of the scoring ranges (range: 15–75; mean = 39.49; SD = 10.79), showing that the participants might have a slight tendency to adopt harsh parenting practices.

The mean score for parent-child relationship, PPAS and PSS ( N = 485).

The relationships between parent–child relationships, PPAS and PSS scores, and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are shown in Table 3 . The results revealed that parent–child relationships were negatively associated with parental stress and harsh parenting. In addition, sex, marital status, employment status and being born in Hong Kong were also found to be significantly associated with parent–child relationships. Table 4 summarizes the results of a multiple regression analysis of variables that may predict participants' relationships with their children. Age and sex were entered at Step 1, explaining 4% of the variance in parent–child relationships. In Step 2, the other variables related to parent–child relationships were entered, namely marital status, employment status and born in Hong Kong. The variance explained by the model at Step 2 was 15% of the variance in parent–child relationships. After the entry of the variables of parental stress and harsh parenting at Step 3, the overall models explained 55% of the variance. After controlling for the possible effects of age, sex, marital status, employment status and born in Hong Kong, the coefficient of determination ( R 2 ) value changed by 0.40, indicating that parental stress and harsh parenting explained an additional 40% of the variance in parent–child relationships. Notably, after all variables were entered into the model, employment status, parental stress and harsh parenting were identified as factors that were significantly associated with parent–child relationships. Parental stress had the highest standardized coefficient (β = −0.67, p < 0.001), followed by harsh parenting (β = −0.12, p = 0.01) and employment status (β = 0.10, p = 0.03).

The intercorrelation coefficients among parent–child relationships, PPAS and PSS scores, and socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Multiple regression analysis for variables affecting parent-child relationship.

Qualitative Analysis

Eleven parents were recruited for the individual semi-structured interviews. Their mean age was 34.3 years (SD = 3.3). Most were mothers (81.8%) and housewives (63.6%), had received secondary education (90.9%), and born in Hong Kong (63.6%). Four main themes were identified from the qualitative data, and each theme was further divided into subthemes. A summary of themes and subthemes is presented in Table 5 .

Themes and subthemes from the semi-structured interviews.

Theme 1: Poverty Affects Parents' Perceptions of Their Parental Role

The theme “poverty affects parents' perceptions of their parental role” emerged in the data for 10 participants (90.9%). Two subthemes were identified.

Effects on the Role of Mothers and Fathers

The findings showed that the division of the workload in a family has different effects on parent–child relationships. A majority of the participants stated that the mother in their families was primarily responsible for rearing a child/children at home and that the fathers worked away from home on most of the day. This resulted in the fathers seldom being involved in parenting, as they spent little time with their children; thus, most fathers did not have a close relationship with their children.

“I take my son to the school, cook him meals, and teach him to do homework…. My husband does not have time to play with him… He is fully occupied by his work.” Parent C, female, aged 34.

“Her dad's job involves shift work. Sometimes he and our daughter don't meet each other for a week.” Parent H, female, aged 37.

Overwhelmed by Their Parental Role Due to Their Financial Situation

Some of the participants felt overwhelmed by their roles as parents, especially if they were single parents. A majority of the participants agreed that they did not know how to get along well with their children, and sometimes experienced conflict with them. Most of the participants said that poverty put great pressure on them, and they admitted that this sometimes made them emotionally upset, leading to them exhibiting negative emotions in interactions with their children.

“I hope I can give my son the best of everything. However, this makes me feel great pressure because actually, I can give him nothing.” Parent B, female, aged 31.

Theme 2: Financial Pressure Undermines Parent–Child Relationships

The theme of “financial pressures undermines parent–child relationships” was evident in the comments of 11 participants (100%), and two subthemes were identified.

Long Working Hours

Most participants mentioned that because of their low educational levels, they or their partners had to work for over 10 h per day and were only paid the Hong Kong statutory minimum wage (i.e., HK$34.5 per hour). Their relationship with their children was greatly affected by these long working hours.

“My working hours are very long, so I do not have much time to communicate with my daughter. But you know, earning money is very important. Sometimes I will ask her grandma to take care of her.” Parent G, male, aged 39.

Material Deprivation

Most of the participants stated that they felt stressed when their children were growing up and starting to make comparisons with their classmates. Some participants mentioned that their children wanted them to buy certain items, such as toys or stationery, which were similar to those of their classmates. However, most of the participants considered that these items were dispensable and that they could not afford such unnecessary expenditure. When they rejected their children's requests for such items, they reported that their children reacted angrily, and appeared to believe that the participants did not love them because the participants did not satisfy their wants, unlike other parents who satisfied the wants of their children. Although these participants understood that their children were too young to understand their family's financial situation, some of the participants nevertheless found it difficult to hide their negative response to their children's anger and hence expressed negative emotions in interactions with their children.

“I admit that I treat my son too harshly sometimes, especially when I refuse to buy him toys. But it is understandable, right? We are poor, so we cannot hope for too much in our lives. I hope he can understand this when he is grown up.” Parent A, female, aged 33.

“My son always thinks that I don't love him because I don't buy him toys, as other parents do for their children. However, our income only covers our daily expenditure. How can I have extra money to buy him toys?” Parent D, female, aged 36.

Theme 3: Poverty as a Key Barrier to Building Up Social Networks

The theme “poverty as a key barrier to building up social networks” was reported by nine participants (81.8%) and two subthemes were identified.

Difficulty in Building Up Social Networks Due to Having a Lower Financial Status Than Other Parents

A majority of the participants mentioned that it was very common to be invited to join social chat groups with other parents on social media platforms (e.g., WhatsApp or WeChat). Some of the participants described other parents as “monster parents” and stated that they felt pressure when listening to other parents describing their parenting practices. The participants stated that other parents always shared the schedules and content of their children's extra-curricular activities or tutorial classes and asked the participants whether their children wanted to join in these activities. The participants understood that their children could benefit by joining in such activities but stated that these activities were so expensive that they could never afford them. In addition, most of the participants said that they minimized daily expenditures by seldom taking their children to activities. Some of the participants were too ashamed to admit to other parents that they were poor, and instead lied, saying that their children did not have time to join these activities. A few of them even chose to quit chat groups. Single parents also mentioned that they never joined social groups, because they did not want to disclose their family situation to others.

“I don't know what other parents think of me because I said “no” every time they invited me and my son to join some activities. Those activities are too expensive for us to afford.” Parent F, female, aged 30.

“In Chinese, we have the saying “ family shames must not be spread abroad.” Poverty is not a good thing, and I don't want other parents to have any prejudiced viewpoints on me or my daughter. It's best that we keep a distance from other parents.” Parent I, female, aged 39.

“I tried to join their social groups, but I found that our disparities become apparent when we interacted with the rich people in these groups. I felt extra pressure when they asked me to allow my son to join some activities with their children.” Parent H, female, aged 37.

Mainland China Immigrants Experienced Difficulty in Integrating Into Their Communities

A few participants reported experiencing difficulties in integrating into their communities, as they were immigrants from mainland China. They felt stressed and required more time to adjust their lifestyles to adapt to the crowded living environment and fast-paced lifestyles of Hong Kong. In addition, the higher living standards of Hong Kong compared with mainland China increased their financial pressure. They stated that since immigrating from mainland China, they spent less time engaging with their children.

“They (other parents) seem to not want to interact with mainland people. Maybe [this is because] they think we are poor and come from a rural area. So, I don't want to start a conversation with them, either.” Parent J, female, aged 30.

Theme 4: Refusal to Seek Social Support

The fourth theme “refusal to seek social support” emerged in the interviews with seven participants (63.6%). These parents stated that their lives were hard due to financial pressure and a lack of support. However, they felt too ashamed to seek help from their families or the community.

“People think that all mainland China immigrants only know how to ask for money from the government. I am too ashamed to beg for help from others. I feel uncomfortable if I receive help from others, because I feel that I should be able to cope with my current situation.” Parent K, female, aged 33.

“I don't like to seek help. People should gossip about why I divorced. People judge us all the time, especially our family is poor and incomplete.” Parent E, male, aged 35.

This study addressed an understudied area: the impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices. Since there are no universal cut-off points for these measures, we compared the findings of this study with the baseline data of a previous Hong Kong study investigating the effectiveness of a parental training program in preparing children for their transition to the primary school that used the same measurement scales ( 21 ). Compared with parents experiencing a stressful transition, parents in this study showed a lower mean score in parent–child relationships (7.47 vs. 8.31) and higher mean levels of parental stress (69.86 vs. 67.54) and harsh parenting practices (39.49 vs. 35.61). These findings show that poverty has an additional negative impact on parent–child relationships.

The results presented here may not be comparable with those of Western studies, owing to differences in the use of measurement tools between Western and Eastern studies. However, the results are consistent with previous Western study findings that parents from low-income families experienced high parental stress and tended to exhibit harsh parenting practices, thereby damaging parent–child relationships ( 29 , 30 ).

This study sheds new light on the relationships between socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, parent–child relationships, and parental stress and harsh parenting in low-income families. Specifically, our findings indicate that parental stress and harsh parenting are negatively associated with parent–child relationships. In addition, the role of fathers, single parenthood, unemployment and being a mainland China immigrant is significantly associated with a lower mean parent–child relationship. These findings may be attributable to the fact that these socioeconomic and demographic characteristics could influence the choice of parenting style, and their perceptions of parent-child relationships/children's psychological health. The result of a multiple regression model revealed that employment status, parental stress and harsh parenting are statistically significant contributors to parent–child relationships in low-income families with preschool children. This is additional evidence that employment status, which indirectly reflects household income, is a factor that is significantly associated with parent–child relationships in low-income families. Moreover, parental stress accounted for the largest proportion of variance within parent–child relationship scores, with a β coefficient of −0.67.

The qualitative information in this study provides new insights into the lived experiences of and challenges faced by the participants, and the effects of these on parent–child relationships. It suggests that there are several reasons why poverty affects parent–child relationships in low-income families. For example, as economic pressure depletes an individual's capacity, low-income families might experience more intra-family conflict, resulting in parents being more likely to adopt harsh parenting practices and hence undermine parent–child relationships. Moreover, the long working hours in Hong Kong might decrease the quality of parent–child interactions and thus hinder parent–child relationships, especially father–child relationships. These outcomes illustrate how the mental health and quality of life of children in low-income families might be adversely affected.

Another interesting finding was that parents from low-income families—especially those from single-parent or mainland China immigrant families—were very reluctant to seek community support and build social networks with other parents. These results reflected the influence of a philosophical doctrine of Chinese culture that may lead Chinese people to believe that their fates are controlled by an external and unchangeable force ( 31 ). Moreover, Chinese people believe that family shame must not be spread abroad, and may therefore tend to “do not air your dirty laundry in public.” These cultural factors influence parents' choice of coping strategies, and thus, the coping strategies used by parents from low-income families may make them reluctant to seek help. This will make such parents more likely to experience parental stress and hence lead to impaired parent–child relationships. A lack of social support also jeopardizes the social development of children ( 32 ).

Additionally, our findings showed that single parents from low-income families might experience more parental stress. This is understandable, as single parents might suffer more financial pressure than dual parents, resulting in single parents experiencing a higher level of parental stress, more severe depressive symptoms and a lower level of self-esteem. Therefore, it could be concluded that single-parent low-income families are at a higher risk of lower quality parent–child relationships than dual-parent low-income families. Furthermore, another Hong Kong study found that there is inadequate community support in Hong Kong for single-parent low-income families ( 33 ); such a lack of psychosocial support might imperil the mental health of this population, leading to an increased level of parental stress and harsh parenting practices. This would decrease the quality of parent–child relationships, thereby deleteriously affecting the psychological well-being of children. Notably, the qualitative interviews found that some of the single-parent low-income families were ashamed to seek help, implying that additional attention from community nurses/social workers is warranted for identifying those who need further support. They could collaborate with non-governmental organizations which provide support/services for low-income families to reach this subgroup.

Limitations

This study has some limitations. First, the generalizability of our findings may be limited, as this study used a convenience sample. Second, the cross-sectional study design only revealed associations and did not identify causal relationships between outcome variables. Third, proxy reports were used because of the cognitive incompetence of preschool children.

This study addressed a literature gap by investigating the impact of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices in low-income families comprising Hong Kong Chinese parents and their preschool children. The findings show that healthcare professionals must design and evaluate appropriate interventions to enhance relationships between parents and their preschool children in such low-income families, particularly in single-parent families, to promote the mental health of this vulnerable population.

Relevance to Public Health

This was an original study that helped to clarify the impact of poverty on the relationships between parents and their preschool children, which is an underexplored area. This study adopted a mixed methods approach by using quantitative and qualitative methods to address the research question and to better understand the lived experiences of those affected by poverty. The results of this study provide a comprehensive picture of how poverty affects parent–child relationships in low-income families. In addition, participants were conducted in Sham Shui Po community, which is the Hong Kong district with the highest poverty rate, and it is conservatively estimated that this study included approximately 40% of low-income families having preschool children in this district ( 34 ). The sample size, therefore, can be considered to be a representative sample of parents from low-income families in this district.

The findings of this study have important implications for public health nursing, as they will enhance nurses' understanding of the effect of poverty on parent–child relationships, parental stress and parenting practices in low-income families. This will allow nurses to design and implement appropriate interventions in the community to promote the psychological well-being and the healthy development of children and their parents. Few such interventions and resources are available for underprivileged Hong Kong parents and their children ( 35 , 36 ). Given this reality, this study shows that nurses should highlight the primary care needs of this vulnerable group and raise public awareness of the negative effects of poverty. In particular, this study revealed that single-parent low-income families are more susceptible to lower quality parent–child relationships, and thus, more consideration should be given to this group of families during the allocation of healthcare resources and the design of future public-welfare policies. Future studies could build on the insights of this study by investigating the impact of poverty on the parent-child relationships among different age ranges of children and/or adolescents; as well as the relationship between parent-child relationship and different parenting styles (e.g., authoritative parenting style).

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Institutional Review Board of the University of Hong Kong/Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster (HKU/HA HKW IRB). The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

LLKH initiated the study design, analyzed and interpreted the data, and drafted the manuscript. WHCL and ATC contributed to the study design, analyzed and interpreted the data, and critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content. YL, WX, and JOKC provided practical and research knowledge on study implementation. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

This study was supported by the Music Children Foundation. The funding source had no involvement in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The reviewer AS-WC declared a shared affiliation with the author JC to the handling editor at the time of review.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank parents for their participation in the study.

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Well-Being and Stability among Low-income Families: A 10-Year Review of Research

• Published: 25 October 2020
• Volume 42 , pages 107–117, ( 2021 )

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• Yoshie Sano   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1741-2736 1 ,
• Sheila Mammen 2 &
• Myah Houghten 3  

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A Correction to this article was published on 28 December 2020

This article has been updated

Scholarship on families in poverty, in the last decade, documented various struggles and challenges faced by low-income families and expanded our understanding of their complicated life circumstances embedded within the contexts of community, culture, and policies. The research articles published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues during this time, that highlighted poverty, focused primarily on three topic areas: economic security, family life issues, and food security. Overall, findings conclude that family well-being and stability cannot be promoted without the consideration of environmental factors. They depend on the interaction among individual (e.g., increased human capital), family (e.g., positive co-parental relationship), community (e.g., affordable childcare), and policy changes (e.g., realistic welfare-to-work programs). Collectively, the articles have provided a road map for future research directions.

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Introduction

Family well-being, essential to the smooth functioning of communities and societies, is hindered when there is high incidence of poverty. Poverty rate in the US hovered around 14% prior to the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PROWRA) of 1996 (U.S. Census 2019a ). Following welfare reform, the poverty rate started to decline (to a low of 11.3% in 2000) (U.S. Census 2019a ), although scholars have questioned if PROWRA is the cause of this decline. Uncertainties in the economy, including the 2008 Great Recession, caused the poverty rate to climb again and remain at around 15% until 2014. With the fading effects of the recession, the US poverty rate was at 11.8% in early 2020, right before the current Coronavirus pandemic. One group that is most vulnerable to poverty, however, are female-headed households, who consistently comprise 50% of all households living in poverty. Other vulnerable groups include non-Whites [poverty rate in 2018, Blacks: 22%; Hispanics: 19%; Native Americans: 24%] (Kaiser Family Foundation 2020 ); rural communities [poverty rate in 2018, non-metro: 16%; metro: 13%] (Economic Research Service 2020 ); and children [poverty rate in 2018, 16%; i.e. 1 in every 6 children] (US Census 2019b ).

Family well-being is a multidimensional concept that refers to a family’s subjective sense of overall welfare, taking into account the physical and emotional health of family members as well as their interconnectedness, which in turn results in family stability (a sense of consistency, predictability, and continuity). There are many components that contribute to the well-being of families such as income sufficiency, food security, stable family environment, mental and physical health security, safe housing and communities, employment opportunities, and adequate transportation. These components, taken as a whole, provide the necessary foundation for the well-being of families. For low-income families, in particular, the lack of some or all of these dimensions can be severely detrimental to their well-being since this could lead to poverty. Such a direct link between lack of well-being and poverty can ultimately lead to family instability.

In this paper, we will review select research findings of the past decade published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues from 2010 to 2019 that have increased our understanding of low-income families living in poverty. Each study employed a unique approach to its particular topic. Some studies utilized large secondary datasets including both metropolitan and non-metropolitan residents while others collected their own data from a smaller sample generated by non-probability sampling. However, all studies focused on low-income families in the United States with the exception of one study that examined poverty-related social policy in Columbia. The 29 papers, Footnote 1 while highly diverse, all illustrated the strengths and challenges faced by individuals and families living with limited resources.

Our review was carried out in multiple stages. First, each author independently reviewed the 29 articles, and then the authors qualitatively compared and contrasted the main themes that emerged from these articles. In the last step, the authors identified three specific dimensions of well-being Footnote 2 : economic security, family life, and food security. Our objective was not to provide a comprehensive summary of all poverty-related issues addressed in these articles but, rather, to synthesize the research findings along these three dimensions to see how they have contributed to the current knowledge base regarding low-income families and to provide a path for future research in order to improve family well-being and stability.

Families in Poverty: Decade in Review

Economic security among low-income families.

In the last decade, research on the economic security of low-income families has centered around poverty dynamics, the effectiveness of welfare-to-work programs, employment issues, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and banking behavior.

Poverty Dynamics

Mammen et al. ( 2015 ) developed the Economic Well-Being Continuum (EWC) as a comprehensive measure to describe the circumstances of low-income families in eight specific dimensions (child care, employability, food security, health care security, housing security, transportation, reliance of assistance programs, and capabilities) and establish their level of economic functioning (persistently poor, struggling, and getting by). When certain life circumstances and trigger events experienced by low-income mothers, which contributed to their entry into and exit from poverty, were examined with the EWC, the authors found that family health issues and changes in mothers’ intimate relationships acted as significant trigger events that established or altered the economic functioning of the families. We believe that what mitigated families’ hardships was their support networks. Prawitz et al. ( 2013 ) reported on the centrality of locus of control among low-income individuals who expressed less financial distress and more hopefulness when locus of control was more internal to them. When low-income individuals were able to make financial adjustments, however, they had more financial distress, accompanied with more hopefulness, possibly implying that while the current situation may be bleak, their adaptive responses may have fostered hopefulness that things would improve.

Effectiveness of Welfare-to-Work Programs Among Low-Income Families

One of the goals of PRWORA was to enable recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to exit the program and enter the job market. The transition from welfare to work, however, was not as effective when low-income individuals were trained only through labor force attachment (LFA) programs. Kim ( 2010 , 2012 ) found that former TANF recipients were more likely to obtain employment when LFA programs were combined with human capital development (HCD) programs as participation in HCD programs were related to longer employment durations and lower probability of TANF re-entry.

Participants in Welfare-to-Work programs, who succeeded leaving assistance and obtaining employment, disclosed low wages; informal labor market activity; notable levels of unmet needs; and continued government, community, and social support use (Livermore et al. 2011 ). Those with higher earnings and regular nonmonetary help from family and friends were likely to have more needs met; those who had fewer needs met reported lower wages, had more young children, used government support programs (including childcare subsidies), and engaged in informal labor market activity (Davis et al. 2018 ; Grobe et al. 2017 ; Livermore et al. 2011 ).

Employment Issues

An important way to exit poverty and attain economic security is through employment. Unfortunately, many low-income mothers, especially rural low-income mothers, face daunting challenges to remain employed. Son and Bauer ( 2010 ) reported that mothers who were able to remain in the same job did so because they utilized their limited resources and developed strategies to combine work and family life. These strategies included utilizing social support network for childcare and other household activities as well as relying, where possible, on flexibility at work such as non-standard work hours and supportive supervisors.

One way that low-income mothers were more likely to be employed, and especially employed full-time, was if they were provided state childcare subsidy (Davis et al. 2018 ) and the receipt of childcare subsidy was tied to their employment (Grobe et al. 2017 ). High level of job instability (job loss, major reduction in work hours), however, created a greater likelihood of losing the childcare subsidy. While job changes per se was not related to loss of childcare subsidy, parents required the subsidy to remain employed.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

The EITC program, initiated in 1975, is the largest federal assistance program targeted towards working poor families in order to supplement their household wages and to offset their Social Security taxes (Mammen et al. 2011 ). Despite the many benefits of the EITC, a substantial portion of working families, especially in rural communities, do not participate in the program. Mammen et al. ( 2011 ) found that, among rural low-income women, the EITC non-participants were more likely to be Hispanic, be less educated, have larger families, perceive their income as being inadequate, live in more rural counties, and possess little understanding of the EITC. Participating rural working mothers, on the other hand, were more likely to be single, food secure, and satisfied with life.

One important element of the EITC program is the frequency with which the tax credit payments are received by the working families: lumpsum, periodic, or monthly. Kramer et al. ( 2019 ) reported that periodic EITC payment recipients experienced significantly lower levels of perceived financial stress. This relationship was partly mediated by less need to borrow money, lower levels of food insecurity, and fewer unpaid bills. Therefore, periodic EITC payments may enhance the positive association between the EITC and financial well-being of families.

Banking Behavior of Low-Income Families

Having a bank account is more likely to enable low-income families to build assets and to offset unexpected financial expenditures. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC), among households with incomes less than $30,000, 38% of them were unbanked in 2017 (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 2018 ). Grinstein-Weiss et al. ( 2010 ) found that low-income households who did not have a bank account (unbanked) were more likely to be younger, Black, unpartnered, have more children, and have less income. They were also less likely to have attended college and less likely to be employed full-time. Banked participants, however, were more likely to have better saving performance in Individual Development Accounts (IDA) Footnote 3 programs and lower risks of dropping out the IDA programs. According to Rao and Malapit ( 2015 ), for female-headed households, having an additional child increased their likelihood to be underbanked or unbanked. Such financial behavior is more prevalent among female-headed households compared to couples or male-headed households, likely due to the opportunity cost of time for women and the intimidation they feel, perhaps, based on their lack of banking sophistication.

Family Life Issues

Family is where individuals seek rest and support, take nutrition, promote good health and, perhaps, most importantly, raise the next generation. In this section we will discuss findings from the last decade on work-family balance, parenting dynamics, and child well-being and poverty.

Work and Family Life

Many rural low-income families face daunting challenges to balance work and family life. Katras et al. ( 2015 ) found low-income families were able to juggle the demands of work and family life if they had access to resources such as informal social support, could manage both work and family time, and were in jobs that supported work and family life. Difficulties regarding availability of resources or inflexibility in employment created problems in work and family life balance (Katras et al. 2015 ). As mentioned previously, low-income mothers relied on informal support for childcare and household tasks. They also depended on sympathetic supervisors who provided flexible work hours (Son and Bauer 2010 ).

Work-family life balance that working mothers try to achieve can be easily sabotaged by housing instability. Kull et al. ( 2016 ) reported that higher residential mobility was associated with changes in employment status and relationships, experiences of intimate partner violence, as well as private-market rentals, substandard housing, and bad neighborhoods.

Parenting Dynamics

In their study of unmarried couples who coparented children, Jamison et al. ( 2017 ) documented that the difficulties of living in poverty, combined with the demands of parenting young children, can create stress and chaos. Parents who were successful in coparenting were those who were able to manage their limited resources well. Jamison et al. concluded that the best way of assisting low-income couples manage day-to-day stress is by providing them with adequate resources as well as information on how to use these resources effectively.

Traditionally, poverty research has focused on low-income mothers. Myers ( 2013 ), however, studied how low-income fathers defined responsible fatherhood. Previous findings on middle-class fathers have emphasized the importance of breadwinning and childcare rearing roles (Schoppe-Sullivan and Fagon 2020 ). Low-income fathers, who did not provide finances or primary care, on the other hand, did not consider responsible fatherhood to include provision for either of these two functions. Instead they defined responsible fatherhood as spending time in non-caregiving activities, voluntarily distancing themselves from a child when it is in the child’s interest to do so, acknowledging paternity in non-legal settings, spending money on presents, engaging in fun activities, attending to special needs, keeping abreast of what is going on in the child’s home, and ensuring that they are not absent from the child’s life (Myers 2013 ).

Child Well-Being and Poverty

The association between poverty and negative child outcomes has been well-established. Children growing up in poverty are more likely to experience negative health outcomes, poor academic performance, higher dropout rates, and behavioral issues compared to children in middle- and upper-income households (Brooks-Gunn and Duncan 1997 ). Focusing on three economic indicators (income, material hardship, and non-liquid assets), Kainz et al. ( 2012 ) found an association among them and variations in 36-month old children’s social and cognitive development. Poverty status, measured by income-to-needs ratio, was related to lower cognitive skills while the presence of non-liquid assets was associated with higher cognitive skills. Greater material hardship was correlated with more social problems for these children.

Investing in children’s education produces positive child outcomes (Chaudry and Wimer 2016 ). Child subsidy programs expand childcare options for low-income parents. De Marco and Vernon-Feagans ( 2015 ) found that parents who received child subsidies tended to choose center-based care. They concluded that childcare, regardless of type, was of higher quality when these families received child subsidies. Okech ( 2011 ), whose focus was on parents’ decision to enroll in preschool children’s college education accounts, found that decisions were influenced by parental education level as well as parents’ participation in information sessions about the account.

Another indicator of child well-being is good health. According to Valluri et al. ( 2015 ), low-income mothers chose healthcare visits for themselves and their child simultaneously. Pediatric visits increased with new medical conditions and greater number of chronic conditions among children, and maternal healthcare use increased with higher maternal depression scores, chronic conditions, new medical conditions, more children, more pediatric visits, prenatal/post-partum needs, and having health insurance coverage. Maternal health visits, on the other hand, decreased with maternal depression, pregnancy, being Latina or Black, having more children, and if mothers were covered through private health insurance.

Food Insecurity

Consumption of nutritious food is necessary for a healthy, productive life for both adults and children. Having enough food at home contributes to an enhanced sense of family well-being. In this section, we will discuss findings related to the measurement of food insecurity, factors influencing food insecurity, and food-related assistance programs.

Measurement of Food Insecurity

Balistreri ( 2016 ) argued that the commonly used measure of food security (18-item U.S. Household Food Security Survey) only captures the prevalence of food insecurity, not its depth or severity. He has, instead, proposed the Food Insecurity Index (FII) to assess the degree of food insecurity. Using the FII, Balistreri found that low-income households without children experienced the most rapid increases in the depth and severity of food insecurity since the 2008 Great Recession until 2018. Although White non-Hispanic households, with or without children, had lower food insecurity prevalence rates, they experienced steeper increases in both depth and severity throughout the last decade. Finally, Black non-Hispanic households, with and without children, were most likely to suffer food insecurity.

Factors Leading to Food Insecurity

Guo ( 2011 ) documented that, regardless of socio-economic status, family food security is related to household assets. This is because the interaction between household assets and income loss buffered changes in food consumption patterns. Further, regardless of household income level, the risk of food insecurity increased, when faced with liquidity constraint and asset inadequacy (Chang et al. 2014 ). This relationship was strongest among low-income families. Financial constraint was found to be an exogenous factor in the determination of food insecurity. Food insecurity also resulted partly from the interaction between unstable income and nonstandard work schedules (multiple jobs, part-time, varied hours). While this association differed across household types, it was most pronounced in male- and female-headed households, and weakest among married couples (Coleman-Jensen 2011 ). The above findings, taken together, implies that food insecurity should be considered in the broader context of asset building and work environment.

The food security of Latino immigrant families in rural communities was influenced by multiple ecological layers. This included family characteristics (higher literacy and life skills), community conditions (state of the local economy, embrace of diversity, affordable housing, and access to health care), cultural values (familism), as well as federal immigration policy (Sano et al. 2011 ). The rapidly expanding growth among Latino families in rural areas of the US requires that attention be paid to the food security needs of this mostly vulnerable population (Hanson 2016 ). In rural Colombia, conditional cash transfers (CCT) increased the perception of food insecurity and subjective poverty among marginalized families (Morales-Martínez and Gori-Maia 2018 ). The conditionalities (families’ commitment to education, good health, and proper nutrition) imposed on the beneficiary families reduced their dissatisfaction with health and education.

Food-Related Assistance Programs

In 2005 and 2010, metro and non-metro households had relatively similar levels of food insecurity. Yet, Nielsen et al. ( 2018 ) reported that a higher proportion of non-metro households received government food assistance (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP], Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children [WIC], free and/or reduced school meals, and related local and/or federal programs) compared to metro households. After the Great Recession, when government resources were expanded, this assistance gap widened even further. Nonetheless, according to Chang et al. ( 2015 ), participation in SNAP and WIC programs increased fruit and vegetable consumption significantly among disadvantaged families. Other factors such as exercise habits, family support, and willingness to adopt a healthy lifestyle played a bigger role in increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables. For some families, however, nutrition knowledge seemed to decrease actual intake of the same.

In a study that identified nonfood needs of low-income households who patronized food pantries, Fiese et al. ( 2014 ) classified product needs into three categories: products for survival (water, food, medicine), products to keep the household together (soap, toilet paper, hygiene products), and products to “make do” (paper plates, dish soap, household cleaning supplies). When households went without these products, it resulted in stress, personal degradation, and in illegal activities.

Overall Summary of Findings

The research findings from JFEI articles presented above have identified multiple challenges and have suggested future research directions to improve the well-being and stability of vulnerable families. Taken together, the findings imply that family economic functioning depends on the interaction among individual, family, and contextual factors (e.g., social network, culture, policies). Additionally, emphasizing employment alone, without consideration of factors such as childcare (availability, accessibility, affordability) or jobs (availability, flexibility), is not adequate to successfully enable welfare recipients to exit the program. Governmental and institutional support also play an important role in the economic security of low-income families, such as participation in the EITC, for those who are eligible, and in the banking sector.

In order to balance work and family life, which would contribute to family well-being, working poor mothers require informal social support, especially for childcare and household tasks. In addition to effective resource management skills, it is important for low-income mothers to have a reliable co-parent who is more likely to decrease day-to-day stress and chaos in the household. Even those low-income fathers, unable to provide finances and primary care, may provide support in non-traditional ways, thereby, contributing to family stability. Utilizing available resources such as childcare subsidies, college savings programs, or local financial institutions enhance child well-being.

Food security is another important aspect of family well-being. New measures combined with traditional approaches should be used to capture the true extent of the depth and severity of food insecurity. Multidimensional in nature, food insecurity is impacted, not only by income, but also by household assets, food management knowledge and skills, cultural values, community resources, as well as federal policies. This is particularly true for racial/ethnic minorities and rural immigrant families.

Future Research Directions

The 29 articles from the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, that are reviewed here, suggest strategies for improved family well-being and increased stability. These strategies incorporate the true needs of low-income families with a variety of support systems at the individual (e.g., increase human capital), family (e.g., positive co-parental relationship), community (e.g., affordable childcare), and policy (e.g., realistic welfare-to-work programs) levels. The findings of these studies have provided a road map for future research directions. In this section, we will present a general direction for future research; detailed research recommendations, tied to specific findings, can be found in Table 1 (Economic Security), Table  2 (Family Life Issues), and Table  3 (Food Security).

Future research should examine life circumstances and trigger events that may affect changes in families’ economic functioning including the size and duration of its impact. Recent examples of trigger events that could cause a cascading effect on low-income families include natural disasters, the opioid crisis, technological displacement of jobs, and the novel Coronavirus pandemic. Research should also look at how such events may be mitigated in vulnerable families by individuals’ agencies such as internal locus of control, hopefulness, and financial literacy. The evaluation of current welfare programs and policies strongly suggest that future research must explore the impact of variations of state welfare policies including work requirements, strategies to incentivize employers to provide flexible work policies, and community-based support systems for parents of young children. Scholars should also explore low-income families’ attitudes, knowledge, and decision-making processes in the area of finances including their reluctance to participate in the banking sector and, for those who qualify, in the EITC program. At the same time, scholars should also not neglect to identify disincentives created by financial institutions that stand in the way of families participating in the banking system.

Previous research has established that work-family balance is vital for low-income mothers to obtain and maintain their employment in order to promote family well-being. Future research should focus on strategies to incentivize employers to provide flexible work policies and to establish community-based support systems. This current pandemic has created a loss of employment opportunities and loss of income especially for low-income working families; future research should, therefore, evaluate the meaning of work flexibility to include off-site work and job sharing.

Positive child development is embedded in family and social contexts. To prevent generational poverty, future lines of inquiry should go beyond mothers’ perspectives alone to include multiple voices of other family members such as co-parents (especially fathers), older and step-children, and grandparents. Additionally, research should focus on the impact of parental decisions regarding childcare enrollment and healthcare visits on the long-term outcome of children. Finally, the association between receipt of governmental assistance and the stigma experienced by low-income families, particularly among rural families, would be another important area of study.

Future research must investigate the role of economic volatility, market conditions, and policy changes in understanding the relationship between family finances and employment of low-income families and food insecurity. For poor immigrant families, the effect of documentation status and immigration policy changes on food insecurity cannot be understated and, to capture the nuances of their food needs, qualitative and mixed-methods studies would be preferred. Future studies should also incorporate geographical information to identify reasons why urban–rural disparity occurs among food insecure families when attempting to access food and possible strategies that would enable food-insecure metro families to access food. It is equally important to assess family income and food budgeting on families’ dietary habits as well as parental modeling and family food environment on healthy food behavior.

Change history

28 december 2020.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09746-0

The 29 articles reviewed in this paper were assigned by the special editor of this issue of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues. More information is in the introduction to the special issue.

Other dimensions of family well-being are being reviewed by other authors in this special issue. A topic of “health” was covered by Chaudhuri and “health and family” issues were covered by Tamborini.

An individual development account (IDA) is an asset building program designed to enable low-income families to connect to the financial mainstream by saving towards a targeted amount usually used for building assets.

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Sano, Y., Mammen, S. & Houghten, M. Well-Being and Stability among Low-income Families: A 10-Year Review of Research. J Fam Econ Iss 42 (Suppl 1), 107–117 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09715-7

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390 Poverty Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

• 📑 Aspects to Cover in a Poverty Essay

Students who learn economics, politics, and social sciences are often required to write a poverty essay as part of their course. While everyone understands the importance of this topic, it can be hard to decide what to write about. Read this post to find out the aspects that you should cover in your essay on poverty.

🏆 Best Poverty Topics & Free Essay Examples

👍 powerful topics on poverty and inequality, 🎓 simple & easy topics related to poverty, 📌 interesting poverty essay examples, ⭐ strong poverty-related topics, 🥇 unique poverty topics for argumentative essay, ❓ research questions about poverty.

Topics related to poverty and inequality might seem too broad. There are so many facts, factors, and aspects you should take into consideration. However, we all know that narrowing down a topic is one of the crucial steps when working on an outline and thesis statement. You should be specific enough to select the right arguments for your argumentative essay or dissertation. Below, you will find some aspects to include in your poverty essay.

Poverty Statistics

First of all, it would be beneficial to include some background information on the issue. Statistics on poverty in your country or state can help you to paint a picture of the problem. Look for official reports on poverty and socioeconomic welfare, which can be found on government websites. While you are writing this section, consider the following:

• What is the overall level of poverty in your country or state?
• Has the prevalence of poverty changed over time? If yes, how and why?
• Are there any groups or communities where poverty is more prevalent than in the general population? What are they?

Causes of Poverty

If you look at poverty essay titles, the causes of poverty are a popular theme among students. While some people may think that poverty occurs because people are lazy and don’t want to work hard, the problem is much more important than that. Research books and scholarly journal articles on the subject with these questions in mind:

• Why do some groups of people experience poverty more often than others?
• What are the historical causes of poverty in your country?
• How is poverty related to other social issues, such as discrimination, immigration, and crime?
• How do businesses promote or reduce poverty in the community?

Consequences of Poverty

Many poverty essay examples also consider the consequences of poverty for individuals and communities. This theme is particularly important if you study social sciences or politics. Here are some questions that may give you ideas for this section:

• How is the psychological well-being of individuals affected by poverty?
• How is poverty connected to crime and substance abuse?
• How does poverty affect individuals’ access to high-quality medical care and education?
• What is the relationship between poverty and world hunger?

Government Policies

Governments of most countries have policies in place to reduce poverty and help those in need. In your essay, you may address the policies used in your state or country or compare several different governments in terms of their approaches to poverty. Here is what you should think about:

• What are some examples of legislation aimed at reducing poverty?
• Do laws on minimum wage help to prevent and decrease poverty? Why or why not?
• How do governments help people who are poor to achieve higher levels of social welfare?
• Should governments provide financial assistance to those in need? Why or why not?

Solutions to Poverty

Solutions to poverty are among the most popular poverty essay topics, and you will surely find many sample papers and articles on this subject. This is because poverty is a global issue that must be solved to facilitate social development. Considering these questions in your poverty essay conclusion or main body will help you in getting an A:

• What programs or policies proved to be effective in reducing poverty locally?
• Is there a global solution to poverty that would be equally effective in all countries?
• How can society facilitate the reduction of poverty?
• What solutions would you recommend to decrease and prevent poverty?

Covering a few of these aspects in your essay will help you demonstrate the in-depth understanding and analysis required to earn a high mark. Before you start writing, have a look around our website for more essay titles, tips, and interesting topics!

• Poverty Research Proposal To justify this, the recent and most current statistics from the Census Bureau shows that the level and rate of poverty in USA is increasing, with minority ethnic groups being the most disadvantaged.
• Wordsworth’s Vision of Childhood in His Poems “We Are Seven” and “Alice Fell or Poverty” Specifically, the joint publication he released in 1798 known as “Lyrical Ballads” are considered the most important publications in the rise of the Romantic literature in the UK and Europe.
• Poverty: A Sociological Imagination Perspective I was raised in a nuclear family, where my mum was a housewife, and my father worked in a local hog farm as the overall manager.
• “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” by Peter Singer The article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” by author Peter Singer attempts to provide a workable solution to the world poverty problem.
• Poverty in the World In this paper, we will be looking at the situation of poverty in the world, its causes and the efforts of the international organizations to manage the same.
• The Philippines’ Unemployment, Inequality, Poverty However, despite the strong emphasis of the government on income equality and poverty reduction along with the growth of GDP, both poverty and economic and social inequality remain persistent in the Philippines.
• The End of Poverty Philippe Diaz’s documentary, The End of Poverty, is a piece that attempts to dissect the causes of the huge economic inequalities that exist between countries in the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere.
• Poverty in India and China India’s slow rate of poverty reduction compared to China is due to the differences in their approach to the economy. Improving the living conditions and general well being of the people is not only the […]
• Poverty in Africa These pictures have been published online to show the world the gravity of the poverty situation in the African continent. The pictures represent the suffering of majority of the African people as a result of […]
• Poverty Areas and Effects on Juvenile Delinquency The desire to live a better life contributes to the youths engaging in crimes, thus the increase in cases of juvenile delinquencies amid low-income families. The studies indicate that the fear of poverty is the […]
• Poverty Effects on Child Development and Schooling To help children from low-income families cope with poverty, interventions touching in the child’s development and educational outcomes are essential. Those programs campaign against the effects of poverty among children by providing basic nutritional, academic, […]
• Max Weber’s Thoughts on Poverty Weber has contributed to the exploration of the origins of poverty and the impact of religions on the attitude to it.
• Analysis of Theodore Dalrymple’s “What Is Poverty?” With ethical arguments from Burnor, it can be argued that Dalrymple’s statements are shallow and based on his values and not the experience of those he is judging.
• The Singer Solution to World Poverty: Arguments Against The article compares the lives of people in the developed world represented by America and that of developing world represented by Brazil; It is about a school teacher who sells a young boy for adoption […]
• What Causes Poverty in the World One of the major factors that have contributed to poverty in given areas of the world is overpopulation. Environmental degradation in many parts of the world has led to the increase of poverty in the […]
• Poverty and the Environment The human population affects the environment negatively due to poverty resulting to environmental degradation and a cycle of poverty. Poverty and the environment are interlinked as poverty leads to degradation of the environment.
• Community Work: Helping People in Poverty The first project would be water project since you find that in most villages water is a problem, hence $100 would go to establishing this project and it’s out of these water then the women […]
• Relationship Between Crime Rates and Poverty This shows that the strength of the relationship between the crime index and people living below the line of poverty is.427.
• Children Living in Poverty and Education The presence of real subjects like children is a benefit for the future of the nation and a free education option for poor families to learn something new and even use it if their children […]
• Is Poverty a Choice or a Generational Curse? The assumption that poverty is a choice persists in public attitudes and allows policy-makers to absolve themselves of any responsibility for ensuring the well-being of the lower socioeconomic stratum of society.
• Poverty and Global Food Crisis: Food and Agriculture Model Her innovative approach to the issue was to measure food shortages in calories as opposed to the traditional method of measuring in pounds and stones.
• Cause and Effect of Poverty For example, the disparities in income and wealth are considered as a sign of poverty since the state is related to issues of scarcity and allocation of resources and influence.
• The Problem of Poverty in Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” To see the situation from the perspective of its social significance, it is necessary to refer to Mills’ concept of sociological imagination and to the division of problems and issues into personal and social ones.
• Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development The research focuses on the causes of poverty and the benefits of poverty alleviation in achieving sustainable development. One of the causes of poverty is discrimination and social inequality.
• Poverty Simulation Reflection and Its Influence on Life Something that stood out to me during the process is probably the tremendous emotional and psychological impact of poverty on a person’s wellbeing.
• The Connection Between Poverty and Mental Health Problems The daily struggle to earn a daily bread takes a toll on an individual mental health and contributes to mental health problem.
• Third World Countries and the Barriers Stopping Them to Escape Poverty The phrase Third World was initially used in the Cold War period to represent those countries that were neither on the West NATO nations referred to as the first world countries, nor on the East-Communist […]
• Consumerism: Affecting Families Living in Poverty in the United States Hence, leading to the arising of consumerism protection acts and policies designed to protect consumers from dishonest sellers and producers, which indicates the high degree of consumer’s ignorance, and hence failure to make decisions of […]
• Global Poverty: Famine, Affluence, and Morality In the article Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Michael Slote contends that rich people have a moral obligation to contribute more to charities.
• Poverty in Bambara’s The Lesson and Danticat’s A Wall of Fire Rising It is important to note the fact that culture-based poverty due to discrimination of the past or political ineffectiveness of the nation can have a profound ramification in the lives of its victims.
• Environmental Degradation and Poverty It is however important to understand the causes of the environmental degradation and the ways to reduce them, which will promote the improvement of the environmental quality.
• Poverty in Urban Areas The main reason for escalation of the problem of poverty is urban areas is because the intricate problems of urban poverty are considered too small to attract big policies.
• Health, Poverty, and Social Equity: The Global Response to the Ebola Outbreak Canada and Australia, as well as several countries in the Middle East and Africa, were the most active proponents of this ban, halting the movements for both people and goods from states affected by the […]
• Poverty and Diseases A usual line of reasoning would be that low income is the main cause of health-related problems among vulnerable individuals. Such results that the relationship between mental health and poverty is, in fact, straightforward.
• “The End of Poverty” by Phillipe Diaz In the film End of Poverty, the filmmaker tries to unravel the mystery behind poverty in the world. The film is arranged in such a way that the author has persuasively argued his case that […]
• Social Issues of Families in Poverty With the tightened budget, parents of the families living in poverty struggle to make ends meet, and in the course of their struggles, they experience many stresses and depressions.
• We Can Stop Poverty in Ghana Today One of the main disadvantages of the document is that the problem of poverty is not considered separately, but only as a part of other economic and social problems.
• Poverty in Rural and Urban Areas My main focus is on articles explaining the sources of poverty in rural and urban areas and the key difference between the two.
• Reflective Analysis of Poverty It can be further classified into absolute poverty where the affected do not have the capability to make ends meet, and relative poverty which refer to the circumstances under which the afflicted do not have […]
• Poverty Through a Sociological Lens Poverty-stricken areas, such as slums, rural villages, and places hit by disasters, lack the required economic activities to improve the employment and wealth status of the people.
• Global Poverty: The Ethical Dilemma Unfortunately, a significant obstacle to such global reforms is that many economic systems are based on the concept of inequality and exploitation.
• Concept of Poverty The main difference between this definition and other definitions of poverty highlighted in this paper is the broad understanding of the concept.
• Social Issues; Crime and Poverty in Camden This has threatened the social security and peaceful coexistence of the people in the community. The larger the differences between the poor and the rich, the high are the chances of crime.
• The Myth of the Culture of Poverty Unfortunately, rather all of the stereotypes regarding poor people are widespread in many societies and this has served to further increase the problem of generational poverty. Poor people are regarded to be in the state […]
• Dependency Theory and “The End of Poverty?” It is also reflected in the film “The End of Poverty?” narrating the circumstances of poor countries and their precondition. It started at the end of the fifteenth century and marked the beginning of the […]
• Poverty, Government and Unequal Distribution of Wealth in Philippines The author of the book Poverty And The Critical Security Agenda, Eadie, added: Quantitative analyses of poverty have become more sophisticated over the years to be sure, yet remain problematic and in certain ways rooted […]
• Tourism Contribution to Poverty Reduction Managers usually make targeting errors such as poor delivery of tourism benefits to the poor and accruing tourism benefit to the rich in the society.
• Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality? & How to Judge Globalism The article Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality by Robert Hunter Wade explores the phenomenon of globalization and its influence on the poverty and inequality ratios all over the world.
• Analysis of a Social Problem: Poverty Furthermore, the World Bank predicts that both the number of people and the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty will increase in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
• Poverty in Orwell’s “Down and Out in Paris and London” The fact that the structure of society is discussed is especially interesting, and it is suggested that opinions of people that live in poverty are not acknowledged most of the time.
• Poverty: $2.00 a Day in America When conversations about the poor occur in the city of Washington, they usually discuss the struggles of the working poor, forgetting about the issues that the non-working poor face day by day.
• Poverty as Capability Deprivation In this paper, the importance of social justice manifests through the understanding of social deprivation, as opposed to the understanding of income levels in the achievement of social justice.
• Poverty in the Bronx: Negative Effects of Poverty South Bronx is strictly the southwestern part of the borough of Bronx and Bronx is the only borough in New York city in the mainland.
• Social Work at Acacia Network: Poverty and Inequality Around the 1980s, the number of older adults was significantly increasing in society; the local government of New York established a home for the aged and was named Acacia Network. The supporting staff may bond […]
• Economic Growth vs. Development: Dreze and Sen’s Analysis The majority of the poor people in the slums and villages use small capital to run their businesses. Good institutions enforce the property rights of the majority in the society, create constraints for the elites, […]
• How Poverty Contributes to Poor Heath The results show that poverty is the main cause of poor health. The study was purposed to assess the effect of poverty in determining the health status of households.
• Global Poverty Project: A Beacon of Hope in the Fight Against Extreme Poverty The organization works with partners worldwide to increase awareness and understanding of global poverty and inspire people to take action to end it.
• The Causes of an Increase in Poverty in Atlanta, Georgia The key causes of the high poverty rise in the city include housing policies and instabilities, the lack of transit services and public transportation infrastructure in suburban areas, and childhood poverty.
• Thistle Farms: Help for Women Who Are Affected by Poverty As I said in the beginning, millions of women need help and assistance from the community to overcome poverty and heal emotional wounds caused by abuse. You can purchase a variety of its home and […]
• Median Household Incomes and Poverty Levels The patterns of poverty in the Denver urban area show that rates are higher in the inner suburb and the core city and lower in the outer suburb.
• Poverty: The American Challenge One of the main problems in the world is the problem of poverty, which means the inability to provide the simplest and most affordable living conditions for most people in a given country.
• The Poverty Issue From a Sociological Perspective The core of the perspective is the idea that poverty is a system in which multiple elements are intertwined and create outcomes linked to financial deficits.
• Saving the Planet by Solving Poverty The data is there to make the necessary links, which are needed when it comes to the economic variations and inadequate environmental impacts of climate change can be distinguished on a worldwide scale.
• Anti-Poverty Programs From the Federal Government The programs provide financial assistance to low-income individuals and families to cover basic needs like housing and food. The anti-poverty programs that have been most effective in reducing poverty rates in the United States are […]
• Rural Development, Economic Inequality and Poverty The percentage of the rural population is lower for developed countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Thus, the objective of the proposal is to determine how the inhabitants of the country in […]
• Global Poverty: Ways of Combating For example, one of such initiatives is social assistance and social protection programs, which ensure the safety and creation of various labor programs that will help increase the number of the working population.
• Poverty and Homelessness as a Global Social Problem What makes the task of defining poverty particularly difficult is the discrepancy in the distribution of social capital and, therefore, the resulting differences in the understanding of what constitutes poverty, particularly, where the line should […]
• Poverty: Aspects of Needs Assessment The target neighborhood and population for the following analysis are women of reproductive age, defined as 15 to 49 years, in Elmhurst and Corona, Queens. 2, and the percentage of births to women aged over […]
• What Is Poverty in the United States? Estimates of the amount of income required to meet necessities serve as the foundation for both the official and supplemental poverty measurements.
• The Caribbean Culture: Energy Security and Poverty Issues Globally, Latin American and the Caribbean also has the most expensive energy products and services because of fuel deprivation in the Caribbean and the Pacific regions.
• Poverty: The Main Causes and Factors Because of the constant process of societal development, the concept of poverty changes rapidly, adapting to the new standards of modern human life.
• How to Overcome Poverty and Discrimination As such, to give a chance to the “defeated” children and save their lives, as Alexie puts it, society itself must change the rules so that everyone can have access to this ticket to success. […]
• Poverty and Homelessness in American Society It is connected with social segregation, stigmatization, and the inability of the person to improve their conditions of life. The problem of affordable housing and poverty among older adults is another problem that leads to […]
• Private Sector’s Role in Poverty Alleviation in Asia The ambition of Asia to become the fastest-growing economic region worldwide has led to a rapid rise of enterprises in the private sector.
• Connection of Poverty and Education The economy of the United States has been improving due to the efforts that have been made to ensure that poverty will not prevent individuals and families from having access to decent education.
• The Opportunity for All Program: Poverty Reduction The limiting factors of the program may be the actions of the population itself, which will not participate in the employment program because of the realized benefits.
• Early Childhood Financial Support and Poverty The mentioned problem is a direct example of such a correlation: the general poverty level and the well-being of adults are connected with the early children’s material support.
• Discussion: Poverty and Healthcare One of the research questions necessary to evaluate this issue is “How do ethical theories apply to the issue?” Another critical research question worth exploring is “Which cultural values and norms influence the problem?” These […]
• Explosive Growth of Poverty in America The three richest Americans now own 250 billion USD, approximately the same amount of combined wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the country. Wealth inequality is a disturbing issue that needs to be at […]
• The Poverty and Education Quality Relationship Although the number of people living under the poverty threshold has decreased in the last 30 years, more than 800,000,000 people still have to live with insufficient money and a lack of food, water, and […]
• The Problems of Poverty and Hunger Subsequently, the cause in this case serves as a path to a solution – more social programs are needed, and wealthy citizens should be encouraged to become beneficiaries for the hungry.
• “Life on a Shoestring – American Kids Living in Poverty” by Claycomb Life on a Shoestring – American Kids Living in Poverty highlights the widening disparity between the poor and the wealthy in America and how the economic systems are set up to benefit the rich and […]
• Decreasing Poverty With College Enrollment Program In order to achieve that, it is necessary, first and foremost, to increase the high school students’ awareness of the financial aid programs, possibilities of dual enrollment, and the overall reality of higher education.
• Reducing Poverty in the North Miami Beach Community The proposed intervention program will focus on the students in the last semester of the 9th and 10th grades and the first semester of the 11th and 12th grades attending the client schools.
• Food Banks Board Members and Cycle of Poverty What this suggests is that a large portion of the leadership within these collectives aim to provide assistance and food but not to challenge the current system that fosters the related issues of poverty, unemployment, […]
• Poverty as a Social Problem in Burundi The rationale for studying poverty as a social problem in Burundi is that it will help to combat poverty through the advocacy plan at the end of this paper.
• Poverty: Subsidizing Programs Subsidizing programs are considered welfare and net initiatives that the government takes to aid low-income families and individuals affected by poverty.
• The Problem of Poverty in Chad Thus, the study of the causes of poverty in the Republic of Chad will help to form a complete understanding of the problem under study and find the most effective ways to solve it.
• “Poverty, Toxic Stress, and Education…” Study by Kelly & Li Kelly and Li are concerned with the lack of research about poverty and toxic stress affecting the neurodevelopment of preterm children.
• Poverty in “A Modest Proposal” by Swift The high number of children born to poor families presents significant problems for a country.”A Modest Proposal” is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift that proposes a solution to the challenge facing the kingdom.
• Life Below the Poverty Line in the US The major problem with poverty in the US is that the number of people living below the poverty threshold is gradually increasing despite the economic growth of the country. SNAP is not considered to be […]
• The Relationship Between Single-Parent Households and Poverty The given literature review will primarily focus on the theoretical and empirical aspects of the relationship between single-parent households and poverty, as well as the implications of the latter on mental health issues, such as […]
• Aspects of Social Work and Poverty In terms of work principle, both the poor working and the welfare poor have it to varying degrees, but it does not help them much because the only employment available is low paying and leads […]
• Poverty and Its Effect on Adult Health Poverty in the UK is currently above the world average, as more than 18% of the population lives in poverty. In 2020, 7% of the UK population lived in extreme poverty and 11% lived in […]
• Child Poverty in the United States The causes of child poverty in the United States cannot be separated from the grounds of adult poverty. Thus, it is essential to take care of the well-being of children living in poverty.
• Poverty in New York City, and Its Reasons The poverty rate for seniors in New York is twice the poverty rate in the United States. New York City’s blacks and Hispanics have a much higher poverty rate than whites and Asians in the […]
• “The Hidden Reason for Poverty…” by Haugen It is also noteworthy that some groups of people are specifically vulnerable and join the arrays of those living in poverty.
• Juvenile Violent Crime and Children Below Poverty The effect of this trend is that the number of children below poverty will continue to be subjected to the juvenile and criminal justice systems.
• Poverty and Homelessness as Social Problem The qualifications will include a recommendation from the community to ensure that the person is open to help and willing to be involved in the neighborhood of Non-Return.
• Discussion of the Problem of the Poverty To help prevent homelessness for the woman in question and her children, I think it would be essential to provide mental support for her not to turn to alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism.
• Poverty Effects and How They Are Handled Quality jobs will provide income to the younger people and women in the community. The focus on developing and facilitating small and medium-sized enterprises is a great strategy but more needs to be done in […]
• Feminization of Poverty and Governments’ Role in Solving the Problem However, women form the greatest percentage of the poor, and the problem continues to spread. Furthermore, the public supports available are inaccessible and inadequate to cater for women’s needs.
• Free-Trade Policies and Poverty Level in Bangladesh The purpose of this paper is to examine the way in which the end of the quota system and introduction of a free-trade system for the garment industry in Bangladesh has impacted on poverty in […]
• Poverty and Risks Associated With Poverty Adolescents that are at risk of being malnourished can be consulted about the existing programs that provide free food and meals to families in poverty.
• Poverty and Inequality Reduction Strategies Thus, comprehending the causes of poverty and inequalities, understanding the role of globalization, and learning various theoretical arguments can lead to the establishment of appropriate policy recommendations.
• International Aid – Poverty Inc This film, the research on the impact of aid on the states receiving it, and the economic outcomes of such actions suggest that aid is a part of the problem and not a solution to […]
• Poverty Effects on American Children and Adolescents The extent to which poor financial status influences the wellbeing of the young children and adolescents is alarming and needs immediate response from the community.
• Progress and Poverty Book by Henry George George wrote the book following his recognition that poverty is the central puzzle of the 20th century. Thus, George’s allegation is inconsistent with nature because the number of living organisms can increase to the extent […]
• Vicious Circle of Poverty in Brazil The vicious circle of poverty is “a circular constellation of forces that tend to act and react on each other in such a way that the country in poverty maintains its poor state”.
• Global Education as the Key Tool for Addressing the Third World Poverty Issue Global education leads to improvements in the state economy and finances. Global education helps resolve the unemployment problem.
• Poverty, Partner Abuse, and Women’s Mental Health In general, the study aimed at investigating the interaction between poverty and the severity of abuse in women. The research question being studied in this article is how income intersects with partner violence and impacts […]
• America’s Shame: How Can Education Eradicate Poverty The primary focus of the article was global poverty, the flaws in the educational system, as well as the U.S.government’s role in resolving the problem.
• Global Poverty and Ways to Overcome It These are some of the strategies, the subsequent application of which would significantly reduce the level of poverty around the world.
• Poverty and Sex Trafficking: Qualitative Systematic Review The proposed research question is to learn how the phenomenon of poverty is connected to sex trafficking. To investigate the relationship between the phenomenon of poverty and sex trafficking.
• Political Economy: Relationship Between Poverty, Inequality, and Nationalism The prevalence of nationalism leads to changes in the education system, as the government tries to justify the superiority of the country by altering the curriculum.
• End of Extreme Poverty Importantly, the ability to remain the owners of a substantial amount of accumulated wealth is the primary motivation for such individuals.
• Poverty and Inequality in the US Despite the progress of civilization and the establishment of democratic values, in the modern United States, such problems as poverty and inequality persist, which is a significant social gap.
• The Problem of Poverty in the United States The problem of increasing poverty is one of the major political issues in the United States, which became especially agile after the appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the difficult economic situation all over […]
• Poverty and Unemployment Due to Increased Taxation The government on its side defended the move while trying to justify the new measures’ benefits, a move that would still not benefit the country.
• Poverty as a Global Social Problem For example, the research shows that Kibera is the largest slum in the country, and this is where many people move to settle after losing hope of getting employed in towns.
• Researching the Problem of Poverty However, the rich people and the rich countries reduce poverty to some extent by providing jobs and markets to the poor, but the help is too little compared to the benefits they get thus accelerating […]
• Poverty, Social Class, and Intersectionality I prefer the structural approach to the issue as I believe the created structures are responsible for the existence of diverse types of oppression.
• Wealth and Poverty: The Christian Teaching on Wealth and Poverty To illustrate the gap between the world’s richest and the world’s poorest, a recent UN publication reported that the wealth of the three richest persons in the world is greater than the combined wealth of […]
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• Child Poverty and Academic Achievement Association
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• Why Did Poverty Drop for the Elderly?
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• Why Were Poverty Rates So High in the 1980s?
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• Why Does Poverty Persist in Rural Ethiopia?
• Who Became Poor, Who Escaped Poverty, and Why?
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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Poverty in America — Argumentative Paper: Poverty in The United States

Argumentative Paper: Poverty in The United States

• Categories: Poverty in America

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Published: Mar 16, 2024

Words: 510 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

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Root causes of poverty, impact on individuals and society, potential solutions.

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The impact of poverty on early childhood

For most parents, bringing a baby into the world and nurturing a young child brings both great joy and intense love, but it also comes with many changes, and sometimes stress, pressure and anxiety. Those pressures and stresses are likely to be much greater for families who are struggling to make ends meet.  In the UK today, more than one in four families with a child under five are living in poverty .  

Experiencing poverty can cause harm at any age, but particularly for the youngest children. This is when the foundations for their physical, emotional and social development are being laid. A substantial body of research shows that family poverty is associated with and can cause poorer academic attainment and social and emotional development. Perhaps not surprisingly, poverty can be highly detrimental if it is persistent, experienced in the first three years of life and combined with other disadvantages. Given this, addressing early childhood poverty is a vital part of the jigsaw of support needed to enable young children to flourish.

The harm that poverty can inflict begins during pregnancy and is shaped by the health and well-being of parents and their socio-economic status. Gaps in development between disadvantaged and advantaged children emerge very early on. Poverty impacts are also not the same for everyone and are further compounded by inequalities in relation to parents’ ethnicity, health and economic status. By the time a child reaches 11 months there are gaps in communication and language skills, and by the age of three inequalities in children’s cognitive and social and emotional skills are evident. A large body of analysis shows how these early disadvantages can go on to affect children’s development in later life.

Importantly, this is not to say that economic disadvantage inevitably leads to poor long-term outcomes; other factors – family circumstances, wider family support, social networks and connections, educational resources and public services - all play a vital role and can mitigate the effects of poverty.

Younger children are more likely to be in poverty than other groups 

Poverty here is defined as not having enough material resources such as money, housing, or food to meet the minimum needs - both material and social – in today’s society. While there have been some key changes over the last two decades, there is one constant – children are markedly more likely to experience poverty than adults or pensioners and it is younger children who are most at risk .

This is the result of a combination of factors including the costs of children and that households with younger children are less likely to have two parents in full-time work parents. The latest figures show that there are some 4.2 million children living in poverty in the UK, a rise of 600,000 over the last decade.

Most worryingly deep poverty has been rising, particularly affecting lone parents, large families, and people living in families with a disabled person. The Runnymede Trust found that Black and minority ethnic people are currently 2.2 times more likely to be in deep poverty than white people, with Bangladeshi people more than three times more likely.  The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report on Destitution in the UK 202 3 found that over 1 million children had experienced destitution at some point over 2022.

Poverty affects children’s material, social, educational and emotional well-being

Poverty affects young children’s experiences directly. Parents have less money to meet children’s material and social needs. The sharply rising costs of providing the basic essentials – food, warmth, lighting, housing costs, nappies, baby food, clothing - has created acute pressure for many families. Drawing on a survey of their service users, in 2022 Barnardo’s reported that 30% of parents said their child’s mental health had worsened in the previous four months, 16% said their child/ren had to share a bed with them or a sibling, and 30% were concerned about losing their home/being made homeless.

Recent research (Ruth Patrick et al. 2023 ) looked at the effects of benefit changes on larger families. It shows the many hardships that families are dealing with, the inability to meet their children’s needs and the stress and worry they feel as a result. But it also shows the resilience, strength and skills they employ to give their children the best possible life in the circumstances. Families spoke about the sheer amount of time it takes to manage on a very tight budget and its direct impact on children – from missing bath time to reading a bedtime story. This is affecting children’s educational outcomes. 95% of teachers surveyed by Kindred Squared believe that the cost-of-living crisis is going to impact school readiness next year.

Poverty gets under your skin; it takes a toll on the mental health of mothers, fathers, and wider family. The Family Stress Model, underpinned by research, shows the way in which economic stress - poverty, hardship, debt - creates psychological distress, lack of control and feelings of stigma. Not surprisingly, these stresses affect family relationships, both between parents and with children. Hardship, debt, deprivation and ‘feeling poor’ is linked to poorer maternal mental health and lower life satisfaction and this can make it more difficult to find the mental space to be an attentive and responsive parent. This in turn can affect young children’s social and emotional development and outcomes.

What can we do?

Explaining how poverty affects young children’s well-being and outcomes is important when it comes to developing effective responses: addressing poverty and hardship directly, supporting parents’, especially mothers’, mental health, and providing support for parenting.

The research also helps identify the protective factors that help to reduce the detrimental impact of poverty: wider family and neighbourhood support, good maternal and paternal mental health, access to high quality early education, warm parent-child interaction and financial and housing stability.

Early years professionals, health visitors, family support workers and many others are in the front line of the difficulties that families with young children are facing. They are responding to the legacy of the Covid pandemic and the rise in cost of living, working across service boundaries and in new ways, despite budgetary pressures.

Local services are working to meet the needs of families with young children in the round – including support for maternal mental health, parental conflict, parenting and the home learning environment. There are many voluntary initiatives, such as Save the Children’s Building Blocks, which combines giving grants to reduce the impact of material deprivation with supporting parents to play and learn with their children at home, initiatives to use local authority data to increase the take-up of benefit entitlements, and thebaby bank network, providing essential products and equipment as well as practical support for parents who are struggling.

Tackling early childhood poverty rests both on public policy which takes a holistic and joined up approach, as well as action at local level, whether that’s through local authorities, early years services in health and education, local businesses and community and voluntary initiatives.

In the Nuffield Foundation’s Changing Face of Early Childhood , we set out some core principles to address early childhood poverty including:

A multi-dimensional approach that reflects the range of socioeconomic risks and intersecting needs faced by families with young children.

Money matters - a financial bedrock for families with young children living on a low income, through improved social security benefits and access to employment, which takes account of the care needs of the under-fives.

Greater attention and investment in policies to support parental mental health and parenting from the earliest stage of a child’s life.

A more coherent, joined up and effective approach to early childhood would help to address the inequalities between children by supporting them early on in life and establishing deep roots from which they can grow and flourish.

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.

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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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Amartya Sen

Thomas w. lamont university professor, and professor of economics and philosophy, poverty and famines: an essay on entitlement and deprivation.

New York: Oxford University Press, 198l; New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982.

• Short Bio & CV

Recent Publications

• Poverty, War and Peace
• Is Nationalism a Boon or a Curse?
• Violence, Identity and Poverty
• Children and Human Rights
• Asian Immensities
• What Do We Want from a Theory of Justice?

Iowa Law Review

Distinguishing family poverty from child neglect, 109 iowa l. rev. 1541 (2024)  .

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Family courts and child protective services (“CPS”) agencies surveil, regulate, and separate hundreds of thousands of families for neglect annually. These families are overwhelmingly poor, and the history of this legal system reveals an expectation, if not an intention, to intervene in poor families. This raises the question whether family courts and CPS agencies are “confusing poverty and neglect” or if they intervene for more than “just poverty,” as a raging debate in the field is framed.

The law fails to help resolve this debate. Instead of distinguishing poverty from neglect, or providing nuanced examinations of what social science has long shown to be a complex relationship between poverty and neglect, the law assumes away the problem. The law asserts that neglect and poverty are distinct, so the legal system’s decision to label parental behavior as neglectful frames the case as about some parental fault or pathology and not about poverty. Consistent with that frame, the law has separated anti-poverty financial supports from interventions available in neglect cases, so neglect interventions largely avoid providing such supports, even though much empirical evidence shows they can reduce family court and CPS system involvement. Moreover, family court and CPS agency intervention can trigger a variety of steps which make poor parents poorer, undermining their ability to reunify with their children.

This Article identifies a range of changes which would improve the legal system’s ability to distinguish poverty from neglect, by both eradicating long-standing legal rules which confuse poverty and neglect, and establishing more radical rules that would reverse the historical division between neglect cases and anti-poverty financial supports.  These proposals recognize how deeply intertwined poverty and neglect are currently, and the absence of any easy test to determine which families could stay safely together if they were not poor and which could not. Absent such a test, the best solution is to provide families the income or the supports that would replicate the experience of families who are not poor.

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Women at Work, and With Their Families Too

More from our inbox:, mythologizing trump, mentally ill and in prison, say no to more offshore drilling.

To the Editor:

Re “ An Act of Defiance Can Improve Things for Working Moms ,” by Toby Kiers (Opinion guest essay, May 4):

I am a woman nearing the completion of my B.A. in philosophy, and I have the absurd hopes of going on to get my Ph.D. and work in academia and also have a family.

Dr. Kiers’s essay both shed light on the frustrating reality of the discrimination that mothers face in the world of academic research, and provided a shining beacon of hope to counteract it.

The false binary that women are presented and that so many people (including Dr. Kiers’s own child, she noted) assume is that we must decide: our research, our careers, our academic endeavors, or our children. One or the other.

Dr. Kiers has called this out; this is not actually a choice we have to make. Motherhood is not a detriment to our academic abilities and research contributions; it actually strengthens it in new and unexpected ways.

Dr. Kiers, in her refusal to choose between her research pursuits and her family, is helping to forge an exciting path forward. It is a path to a world where women can be celebrated, respected and supported with all that they are and all that they contribute, including their children.

That is the academic world I hope to enter into someday.

Megan Clancy Washington

Kudos to Dr. Toby Kiers! Her story is shared not only by fellow scientists, but by women at large. I admire her courage in bringing her 3-week-old son to work, and in pondering the advice of an older woman who discouraged her from being self-deprecating.

“What can feel like an inconvenience is often a blessing in disguise,” she writes. Amen to that! As far as detachment and vulnerability creating meaning? I now see vulnerability being valued and detachment being questioned in health care, via narrative prose and poetry by nurses and physicians.

I am a seasoned nurse. This article brought me back to the AIDS epidemic. In terms of science, we really had no idea what we were dealing with. I was on maternity leave and had come to know “brain fog” intimately. I received a call asking if I would open a new department for AIDS. After a day thinking about it, I accepted. My two boys went with me into the wilderness of men dying of a virus we knew little about.

My sons are now 40 and 50. The older one still recounts stories of things he learned and joy he felt at a party that those dying men held for us nurses on Mother’s Day. Vulnerability informing the work? You bet!

Pamela Mitchell Bend, Ore.

Since I am a woman who walked across the medical school graduation stage holding my toddler, while eight months pregnant with No. 2, I can certainly identify with Toby Kiers’s essay about managing a career as a scientist while parenting.

It was extremely trying for me to charge into residency with very small children at home. But I am blessed to have a wonderful husband who loved fathering, and was able to take a sabbatical for some of my residency.

As a result, our two daughters, now young adults, are very close to their father. I think that this is the real win in how things are evolving for women in the workplace. Partners get to join in on the nitty-gritty as well as the glorious moments of parenting.

I do believe I missed out on the sort of lovely parenting my mother gave me as a stay-at-home mom. But I was also able to show our daughters what commitment to an intellectual and humanistic goal looks like.

I certainly think medical residency programs are over the top in terms of workload and emotional toll; this needs to evolve. But I think enjoying the participation of both parents in the up-close-and-personal part of child-rearing makes all of our children stronger.

Susan Ferguson Berkeley, Calif.

Re “ Trump Embraces Lawlessness in the Name of a Higher Law ,” by Matthew Schmitz (Opinion guest essay, April 4):

Mythologizing Donald Trump — either Mr. Schmitz fancifully comparing him to outlaws like Robin Hood, Billy the Kid and Jesse James, who titillated people with their challenges to authority, or Christian evangelicals’ even more far-fetched casting of Mr. Trump as King Cyrus or even Jesus — fails because most of us see him for what he is, a narcissist with no positive agenda and no respect for the law.

If we must make comparisons, it’s to David Duke, the Klansman who ran for president, or Gov. George Wallace, standing in the schoolhouse door to block integration. The only people who saw them as rebels with a cause were themselves defending a lost cause, much like those who flock to MAGA now.

Steve Horwitz Moraga, Calif.

Re “ Inmate’s Death Highlights Failures in Mental Health ” (front page, May 6), about the troubled life and death of a prisoner, Markus Johnson:

As a social worker who has worked in the field of mental health for more than 50 years, I read with interest and sadness yet another article about a mentally ill individual who was not provided with adequate treatment and subsequently died in prison.

This article highlights the failure of deinstitutionalization. It demonstrates how our prisons have become the institutions replacing those that formerly housed the mentally ill. Not only are the mentally ill being ill served, but so too is the public, which is at risk of harm from those hallucinating on the streets.

Our shelter system is also not in a position to manage needed services and supervision. The last resort is a cell. I believe that providing long-term residential programs with highly supervised step-down programs would provide a solution to the tragedies we currently read about daily. Certainly the cost would be less than incarceration.

Let’s look to providing real help rather than punishment for our mentally ill population.

Helen Rubel Irvington, N.Y.

“ Offshore Oil Production Expands as Companies Cite Energy Needs ” (Business, May 10) lays out Big Oil’s plan for the Gulf of Mexico. Let’s be real: We’re in a global climate crisis. The last thing we need is for the fossil fuel industry to expand offshore drilling.

If climate change, rising ocean temperatures and the risk of horrific events like the Deepwater Horizon disaster weren’t enough reason to stop offshore oil expansion, we also know that this industry cannot be counted on to clean up its mess when the wells have run dry.

There is a huge backlog when it comes to plugging defunct or abandoned wells, removing old oil platforms and remediating the seafloor damaged by drilling operations. Oil and gas companies have already littered the Gulf of Mexico with more than 18,000 miles of disused pipeline and over 14,000 unplugged wells , which can leak chemicals like methane into the ocean.

It also comes with financial risks: If offshore oil and gas operators file for bankruptcy (as 37 have done since 2009 ), U.S. taxpayers could be forced to foot the bill for cleanup.

Enough is enough: We cannot afford more offshore drilling.

Andrew Hartsig Anchorage The writer is senior director, Arctic conservation, for Ocean Conservancy.

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Asia and the pacific, europe & central asia, latin america & the caribbean.

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What is climate change mitigation and why is it urgent?

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• Climate change mitigation involves actions to reduce or prevent greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.
• Mitigation efforts include transitioning to renewable energy sources, enhancing energy efficiency, adopting regenerative agricultural practices and protecting and restoring forests and critical ecosystems.
• Effective mitigation requires a whole-of-society approach and structural transformations to reduce emissions and limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
• International cooperation, for example through the Paris Agreement, is crucial in guiding and achieving global and national mitigation goals.
• Mitigation efforts face challenges such as the world's deep-rooted dependency on fossil fuels, the increased demand for new mineral resources and the difficulties in revamping our food systems.
• These challenges also offer opportunities to improve resilience and contribute to sustainable development.

What is climate change mitigation?

Climate change mitigation refers to any action taken by governments, businesses or people to reduce or prevent greenhouse gases, or to enhance carbon sinks that remove them from the atmosphere. These gases trap heat from the sun in our planet’s atmosphere, keeping it warm. 

Since the industrial era began, human activities have led to the release of dangerous levels of greenhouse gases, causing global warming and climate change. However, despite unequivocal research about the impact of our activities on the planet’s climate and growing awareness of the severe danger climate change poses to our societies, greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. If we can slow down the rise in greenhouse gases, we can slow down the pace of climate change and avoid its worst consequences.

Reducing greenhouse gases can be achieved by:

• Shifting away from fossil fuels : Fossil fuels are the biggest source of greenhouse gases, so transitioning to modern renewable energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power, and advancing sustainable modes of transportation, is crucial.
• Improving energy efficiency : Using less energy overall – in buildings, industries, public and private spaces, energy generation and transmission, and transportation – helps reduce emissions. This can be achieved by using thermal comfort standards, better insulation and energy efficient appliances, and by improving building design, energy transmission systems and vehicles.
• Changing agricultural practices : Certain farming methods release high amounts of methane and nitrous oxide, which are potent greenhouse gases. Regenerative agricultural practices – including enhancing soil health, reducing livestock-related emissions, direct seeding techniques and using cover crops – support mitigation, improve resilience and decrease the cost burden on farmers.
• The sustainable management and conservation of forests : Forests act as carbon sinks , absorbing carbon dioxide and reducing the overall concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Measures to reduce deforestation and forest degradation are key for climate mitigation and generate multiple additional benefits such as biodiversity conservation and improved water cycles.
• Restoring and conserving critical ecosystems : In addition to forests, ecosystems such as wetlands, peatlands, and grasslands, as well as coastal biomes such as mangrove forests, also contribute significantly to carbon sequestration, while supporting biodiversity and enhancing climate resilience.
• Creating a supportive environment : Investments, policies and regulations that encourage emission reductions, such as incentives, carbon pricing and limits on emissions from key sectors are crucial to driving climate change mitigation.

Photo: Stephane Bellerose/UNDP Mauritius

Photo: La Incre and Lizeth Jurado/PROAmazonia

What is the 1.5°C goal and why do we need to stick to it?

In 2015, 196 Parties to the UN Climate Convention in Paris adopted the Paris Agreement , a landmark international treaty, aimed at curbing global warming and addressing the effects of climate change. Its core ambition is to cap the rise in global average temperatures to well below 2°C above levels observed prior to the industrial era, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

The 1.5°C goal is extremely important, especially for vulnerable communities already experiencing severe climate change impacts. Limiting warming below 1.5°C will translate into less extreme weather events and sea level rise, less stress on food production and water access, less biodiversity and ecosystem loss, and a lower chance of irreversible climate consequences.

To limit global warming to the critical threshold of 1.5°C, it is imperative for the world to undertake significant mitigation action. This requires a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent before 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century.

What are the policy instruments that countries can use to drive mitigation?

Everyone has a role to play in climate change mitigation, from individuals adopting sustainable habits and advocating for change to governments implementing regulations, providing incentives and facilitating investments. The private sector, particularly those businesses and companies responsible for causing high emissions, should take a leading role in innovating, funding and driving climate change mitigation solutions. 

International collaboration and technology transfer is also crucial given the global nature and size of the challenge. As the main platform for international cooperation on climate action, the Paris Agreement has set forth a series of responsibilities and policy tools for its signatories. One of the primary instruments for achieving the goals of the treaty is Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) . These are the national climate pledges that each Party is required to develop and update every five years. NDCs articulate how each country will contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhance climate resilience.   While NDCs include short- to medium-term targets, long-term low emission development strategies (LT-LEDS) are policy tools under the Paris Agreement through which countries must show how they plan to achieve carbon neutrality by mid-century. These strategies define a long-term vision that gives coherence and direction to shorter-term national climate targets.

Photo: Mucyo Serge/UNDP Rwanda

Photo: William Seal/UNDP Sudan

At the same time, the call for climate change mitigation has evolved into a call for reparative action, where high-income countries are urged to rectify past and ongoing contributions to the climate crisis. This approach reflects the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which advocates for climate justice, recognizing the unequal historical responsibility for the climate crisis, emphasizing that wealthier countries, having profited from high-emission activities, bear a greater obligation to lead in mitigating these impacts. This includes not only reducing their own emissions, but also supporting vulnerable countries in their transition to low-emission development pathways.

Another critical aspect is ensuring a just transition for workers and communities that depend on the fossil fuel industry and its many connected industries. This process must prioritize social equity and create alternative employment opportunities as part of the shift towards renewable energy and more sustainable practices.

For emerging economies, innovation and advancements in technology have now demonstrated that robust economic growth can be achieved with clean, sustainable energy sources. By integrating renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind and geothermal power into their growth strategies, these economies can reduce their emissions, enhance energy security and create new economic opportunities and jobs. This shift not only contributes to global mitigation efforts but also sets a precedent for sustainable development.

What are some of the challenges slowing down climate change mitigation efforts?

Mitigating climate change is fraught with complexities, including the global economy's deep-rooted dependency on fossil fuels and the accompanying challenge of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. This reliance – and the vested interests that have a stake in maintaining it – presents a significant barrier to transitioning to sustainable energy sources.

The shift towards decarbonization and renewable energy is driving increased demand for critical minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth metals. Since new mining projects can take up to 15 years to yield output, mineral supply chains could become a bottleneck for decarbonization efforts. In addition, these minerals are predominantly found in a few, mostly low-income countries, which could heighten supply chain vulnerabilities and geopolitical tensions.

Furthermore, due to the significant demand for these minerals and the urgency of the energy transition, the scaled-up investment in the sector has the potential to exacerbate environmental degradation, economic and governance risks, and social inequalities, affecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and workers. Addressing these concerns necessitates implementing social and environmental safeguards, embracing circular economy principles, and establishing and enforcing responsible policies and regulations .

Agriculture is currently the largest driver of deforestation worldwide. A transformation in our food systems to reverse the impact that agriculture has on forests and biodiversity is undoubtedly a complex challenge. But it is also an important opportunity. The latest IPCC report highlights that adaptation and mitigation options related to land, water and food offer the greatest potential in responding to the climate crisis. Shifting to regenerative agricultural practices will not only ensure a healthy, fair and stable food supply for the world’s population, but also help to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

Photo: UNDP India

Photo: Nino Zedginidze/UNDP Georgia

What are some examples of climate change mitigation?

In Mauritius , UNDP, with funding from the Green Climate Fund, has supported the government to install battery energy storage capacity that has enabled 50 MW of intermittent renewable energy to be connected to the grid, helping to avoid 81,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. 

In Indonesia , UNDP has been working with the government for over a decade to support sustainable palm oil production. In 2019, the country adopted a National Action Plan on Sustainable Palm Oil, which was collaboratively developed by government, industry and civil society representatives. The plan increased the adoption of practices to minimize the adverse social and environmental effects of palm oil production and to protect forests. Since 2015, 37 million tonnes of direct greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided and 824,000 hectares of land with high conservation value have been protected.

In Moldova and Paraguay , UNDP has helped set up Green City Labs that are helping build more sustainable cities. This is achieved by implementing urban land use and mobility planning, prioritizing energy efficiency in residential buildings, introducing low-carbon public transport, implementing resource-efficient waste management, and switching to renewable energy sources. 

UNDP has supported the governments of Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Indonesia to implement results-based payments through the REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries) framework. These include payments for environmental services and community forest management programmes that channel international climate finance resources to local actors on the ground, specifically forest communities and Indigenous Peoples. 

UNDP is also supporting small island developing states like the Comoros to invest in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. Through the Africa Minigrids Program , solar minigrids will be installed in two priority communities, Grand Comore and Moheli, providing energy access through distributed renewable energy solutions to those hardest to reach.

And in South Africa , a UNDP initative to boost energy efficiency awareness among the general population and improve labelling standards has taken over commercial shopping malls.

What is UNDP’s role in supporting climate change mitigation?

UNDP aims to assist countries with their climate change mitigation efforts, guiding them towards sustainable, low-carbon and climate-resilient development. This support is in line with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to affordable and clean energy (SDG7), sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), and climate action (SDG13). Specifically, UNDP’s offer of support includes developing and improving legislation and policy, standards and regulations, capacity building, knowledge dissemination, and financial mobilization for countries to pilot and scale-up mitigation solutions such as renewable energy projects, energy efficiency initiatives and sustainable land-use practices. 

With financial support from the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund, UNDP has an active portfolio of 94 climate change mitigation projects in 69 countries. These initiatives are not only aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but also at contributing to sustainable and resilient development pathways.

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