Meaning of Poverty
Poverty is a social problem with the fact that most of the people have limited economic resources and their standard of living is low. The people have been deprived of modern facilities in education, health, communication and good food. Such people are worried due to lack of income resources and they are unable to fulfill their needs to live a life parallel to their neighbored. In this age of competition they feel deprived of their rights and inferiority complex prevails upon them. They feel shy in sitting with the well-off families. They are not given marital relations with well-off people because they are disliked due to poverty.
These people are mostly illiterate and their friendship is with the people of same type. That is why their standard of life does not rise without education and economic resources. It is a social problem because the poor people are unable to follow the new trends and they fail to adopt new modes in social life. It is a social problem because they have failed to increase their income resources.
Poverty is a social problem because these people lag behind the advancing people and do not understand the ways of progress. They are mostly frustrated when their needs of life are not fulfilled. In frustration they become aggressive and may commit such acts which are criminal in nature. Due to hatred by others they take reaction and get into criminal activities. They destroy the vehicles and property of rich people due to economic disparity. Sometimes a child of rich man is abducted. Sometimes his car is lifted and sometimes” .a dacoity is put in his house. This leads to more heinous crime like murder on the rich man. In this way being a social problem creates other social problems of serious nature.
Some Definitions of Poverty
Bargata & Borgata define: “the word poverty is derived from French word Pauvre meaning poor. Material possession of having little or no more means to support oneself is called poverty”.
Ian Robertson defines: “Poverty is the inability to maintain minimal standards of food, clothing, shelter and health care”.
Most comprehensive definition was given by Lewis: “It not only as economic privation, or the absence of something but also as a way of life, the personal of sub-cultural Values and attitudes passed down from generation to generation”.
