Progress and Poverty in Industrial America: Essay

Poverty is one of the major causes of illness and bad health among poor people. It limits the access of people to attain health facilities and care that they require. This provides a context that poverty and health are in relationship with each other and possess a very strong correlation among them. As the World Bank states, the poor are unable to afford what they need to maintain their health and to attain healthcare goals and the underpinned reason behind this is the financial resources (Spicker, 2007). Poverty does not only have one factor but it has other potential factors that limit the person's access to good healthcare such as lack of information regarding the healthcare needs or the lack of a platform to raise their voice for their health needs.

Not only health is affected by poverty, but the poverty is also caused by bad health. This is because ill health requires finances to meet the health care requirements such as the cost incurred for consultancy and medications. Also, the healthcare providers charge for the services they are providing which causes poverty. The reason is the loss of income level which is continually being involved in healthcare (). Some more evidence shows that several people leave their jobs and education to look after their loved ones (). Often the families that are involved in bad health issues with them or their relatives are substantially facing poverty or the people who are poor state poverty as the cause of their illness. According to the layperson's point of view, people belonging to lower socioeconomic backgrounds are being neglected in terms of providing health and have to bear with the circumstances that make them poor and sick (Dickerson et al., 2020).

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In the 19th century, there have been several norms emerged for relative poverty that provided that explanation for poverty. Considering the two types of poverty; absolute and relative, absolute poverty says that a person is poor if he is unable to meet his food requirements. However, this is a narrow perspective and for this, the definition of relative substituted the idea of absolute poverty. Relative poverty has defined the attainment of food as compared to other people who are attaining food. Moreover, it does not only count food as the measure of poverty but considers the standard of living as the measure of poverty. Harrington (1962) explained relative poverty as a tragedy by mentioning the example of a bowl. He mentioned poverty as a tragedy that if one person has more than the other person, then the person with a lower level of the amount is in poverty. In support of this phenomenon, Karl Marx also stated about poverty and said that poverty is a social norm and it is emerged from the society (Bowden et al., 2008).

Layperson's point of view provided that health and poverty are the socioeconomic domain, therefore, it can also be explained under the sociological theories. The condition of not having access to material resources due to income or wealth. Some sociologists have contributed to explaining poverty from a social perspective. The two main sociological theories or approaches for poverty are structural and culture of poverty approaches. These theories are interlinked with each other in terms of their purpose. Poverty can be explained by the sociologically developed culture and structure, with the potential involvement of people (Small et al., 2010).

The 19th century was developed with lots of destruction and left many of the people helpless. This was carried out through the years when the poor were becoming poorer and the rich people becoming richer. The theory proposed by Oscar Lewis in 1970 developed a cultural explanation of the poverty in Mexico. According to him, extreme and long-lasting poverty creates a culture of living. This culture is shared, transmitted, and learned throughout the group of people. He explains that certain practices are adopted by poor people which are unrelated to the mainstream or middle-class people. These are the practices that they adopt to survive in difficult economic circumstances. The drawback of these practices is that the people have adopted them and apply them even after they are no longer potential.

Lewis enhanced the understanding of being culturally deprived by poverty. The poor children are taught the values and norms of mainstream society. Fatalism is a common attribute found in poor people. It indicates that the children are taught to accept the situation in which they were born, rather than putting efforts to bring change. Another common element found in poor people is immediate gratification. This is the developed culture found among poor people that they do not save any amount and spend whatever they earn or get immediately. Hence, this developed culture of poverty is the reason poor children are brought up as poor adults in society. The willingness to bring change and improve their standard of living in society is omitted by the poor people.

Individuals are motivated enough to improve and enhance their abilities and capabilities of living in a society. It is assumed under the structural theory of poverty that there is strong motivation within the individual to succeed. Unfortunately, the people below the poverty line are unable to succeed due to the structural barriers. However, some evidence has proved poverty is a useful element for society. This is because the functions possessed by poor people are highly motivated to do work to remove their poverty to a certain level. Several tasks in society are dangerous and low-paying; the people who belong to the middle class are unwilling to perform those tasks. But the poor people are motivated to attain such jobs because they consider such jobs as more rewarding than having no jobs.

The explained theories are unique in their ways and have potential differences from each other. Cultural and structural poverty contrast with each other regarding several elements the nature of cultural poverty theory considers poor people as responsible for their poverty while structural poverty believes that poor people are the victims of societal barriers and inequality. It is the culture of poverty that they spend the money they have in hand and do not worry about the upcoming times, while the structural aspect in contrast to this theory says that people lack education and, therefore, are not eligible for good jobs. Cultural poverty limits poor people from growth and development as they have the nature of fatalism in their culture. Poor people are illiterate, and cannot thus work within a good job, but the structural aspect of this point is that there are people who have no skills to get out of poverty as well. The explanation of the culture of poverty theory is also known as the right-wing explanation or dependency explanation. While the structural theory is the left-wing societal explanation of the theory. The culture of poverty is explained by the New Right perspective or the Theory of culture of poverty. Whereas, the Marxists, social democrats, and the cycles of deprivation theory agree with the structural theory of poverty (Himmelfarb, 1984).

Since poverty and health have a relationship with each other, therefore, the poverty has potential to affect the health of people. There has been evidence that has shown the history of the following relationship. The 19th century was the century of industrial growth and development in Great Britain. Unfortunately, this growth brought an unpredictable impact on the health and welfare of the workforce of industries; this was unique because, in previous times of growth, it was unidentified that the growth affected the health and welfare of the workforce. According to the evidence death registration in the mid 19th century among industrial urban workers was caused by to experience of a catastrophic crisis. It was clear that the workforce was hired on a minimal wage and certainly had a low level of living in terms of standard and health. The unhealthy diet and hard work made the laborers ill and they did not have enough money to treat themselves (Shildrick and Russell, 2015).

The urban and rural poor had a lot of common things in the first half of the 19th century. There was an increased population, fewer paid employees, poor diet, no job security, and dreaded effects of illness and old age. However, the census of 1851 has shown that the urban population is greater than the rural and town population but the range of uneducated, unemployed, and unskillful people were in a great number in the rural and town areas. The historians are divided by the nature, extent, and impact of the debate around industrialization and poverty. It is argued by 'optimists' that industrialization is the source of higher wages and a better standard of living, while 'pessimists' believe that workers' life quality was compromised due to industrialization, especially in the 1850s. It was observed at the end of the 19th century that industrialization improved the standard of life of the labor class at a certain level as the laborers began to rise, the prices started to fall, and more housing and health facilities were provided to the people (De Pennington, 2011).

A different system was being operated with the voluntary contributions distributed within the governance of the minister and elders of the Kirk in 1752. The laborers were miserable and vulnerable at that time. Aid in Scotland was provided by voluntary contributions and the able-bodied poor had no automatic right to relief. A central board of supervisors and parochial boards was created under the Scottish Poor Law Amendment Act of 1845. This authority raised local and, essential, and decided fund and their distribution among the people below the poverty line. Moreover, in 1868, the Local Government Board was created by the Scottish which made them much closer to England (Szreter and Woolcock, 2004).

Health is the fundamental concern of every individual regardless of which class he belongs. Poverty has an impact on health. There must be some potential actions taken for the people surviving in poverty. There is the social theory presented that can be used to create knowledge of interventions among policymakers and sociologists. Health issues are the major concern of this entire article and it must be intervened by the medical approaches, but this case is not of simple health issue. It also has the aspect of poverty with it which is a sociological aspect. Therefore, the issues regarding poverty and health can be resolved by medical sociology. It is the analysis of the knowledge and selection of methods taken by the medical organizations in the healthcare profession. This also includes the social and cultural effects of practicing clinical interventions. Medical interventions are as old as the existence of human beings but medical sociology is a newly emerged concept. This concept was first introduced in the 19th century with the attention towards sociology. The poor people need attention of the society, therefore, the policymakers must focus on providing interventions to improve the living standard along with their healthcare. Therefore, medical sociology can play its part in ensuring the well-being of people, especially those who are below the poverty line.