Exploring Poverty and Social Exclusion: Causes in the 21st Century

This essay delves into the complex issue of poverty and social exclusion in the 21st century. It begins by defining poverty, differentiating between absolute and relative poverty, and highlighting the concept of social exclusion. The paper explores the main factors contributing to poverty, including slower economic growth, inequality in accessibility to essential resources like healthcare and education, climate change, and disability. It also discusses social exclusion, its indicators, and its interrelation with poverty. The essay further examines responses and interventions to combat poverty and social exclusion, emphasizing the roles of government, non-profit organizations, and community involvement, particularly within the context of the United Kingdom. Strategies such as boosting income, reducing costs, and improving educational standards are presented as crucial elements of effective intervention plans. The work highlights the importance of social protection and addressing the root causes of exclusion to reduce poverty.

Running head: MAIN CAUSES OF POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN 21st
CENTURY
MAIN CAUSES OF POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN 21st CENTURY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The state of being deprived or lack of belongings or resources for acquiring various
conditions in life such as services, diets, amenities, and standards is known as Poverty.
Poverty can be of two forms, absolute and relative. Absolute poverty reflects the deprivation
from the basic necessity of life and relative poverty determines the deprivation from standard
materials and rights such as household amenities, clothing, standard diet and productive
environment (Smyth, Wrigley and Mclnerney 2018). There can be two forms of deprivation,
material deprivation and social deprivation, where material deprivation reflects the lack of
home amenities, dietary, clothing and housing and on the other hand, social deprivation
reflects the lack of employment and rights, recreation and education. Social deprivation
stimulates the conception of social exclusion, which indicates the exclusion from a prevalent
social system with the lack of privileges, rights and can be the outcome of minority groups or
poverty. The purpose of this paper is to understand the main causes leading to the outcome of
poverty and social exclusion, especially in the 21st century. The paper will extensively
include the factors responsible for the condition and the evidence involved.
Body
Poverty determines the condition lacking essential and financial resources amongst
the communities for sustaining the basic standard of living. The poverty-stricken individuals
can be deprived of housing, medical attention and amenities, clean water and health food
(Lewis 2017). The practice of the path of investigating poverty can be very difficult as
poverty determines a state without the existence of specific causes. Although the state lacks
specific causes there can be a number of factors that restrict the improvement of the current
situations of poverty, which can be considered as leading causes. The cycle of state of
poverty can be very challenging to break. The consequences of poverty can affect the
associated members and community from the individual or family as it can lead to concerns

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of mental health, alcoholism, poor living conditions and the risk of health issues (Mood and
Jonsson 2016). Poverty can be considered as the main causes of inequality, increased crime
rates, and social exclusion.
Poverty involves a high range of risk factors, which can influence the growth and
development of the community in various ways. Few primary factors of risks involve social
challenges; chronic and acute stress busters, safety and health concerns and cognitive lags.
The causes or influencers of the state of poverty can vary for different communities and
countries. The United Kingdom has been investigating effective ways of measuring and
understanding the rate of poverty in the nation. The investigation found a number of data and
figures during the period 2017-2018. The data reflected that around 14.3 million individuals
are considered under poverty in the country, approximately 22 percent of people fall under
the poverty line and around 34 percent are children (Mansour and Curran 2016). According
to the data of 2016-2017, around 49 percent of people amongst the people under poverty is
experienced to be at the persistent poverty level. Measuring poverty effectively leads to a
stand closer to understanding and responding to the condition.
The causes of poverty can be categorized as the factors that contribute to the elevation
of the rate. The influencing factors of poverty serve as the causal agents of poverty. The
slower growth rate is one of the causes of poverty (Brady 2019). Unmanageable and
insufficient investment in the development of the world by the authorities and businesses is
another cause for the prevailing poverty rate. These factors have been a major contributor to
the rising rate of poverty. According to the investigation conducted by researchers, if the
practices and activities of the businesses and national authorities are not transformed, the
world will be facing the extreme condition of poverty even by the year 2030. Equality
inaccessibility is another factor or cause, which can contribute to rising poverty. The lack of
accessibility to safe water, healthcare, educational amenities, and fuel energy limits the

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opportunity of improving the state of living and restricts the boundaries of growing (Aitken,
Gilroy and Willis 2020).
From a multi-dimensional view, factors like basic health care amenities, security, and
educational programs demonstrate the state of poverty extensively. Significant causes of
poverty involve the elevating concerns regarding climate change, economic state, and issues
regarding food insecurity. Another unrecognized factor of poverty as indicated by the
government of the United Kingdom is a disability. Disability is considered to be the most
considerable predictors in measuring poverty as in the United Kingdom; near half of the
people under the poverty line have at least one person, who is disabled (Kojima 2017).
Social exclusion
Social exclusion can be defined as the state of being discriminated by the societal
practices of partially or fully excluding a group of people of community members for
participating in social, political and economic life in the community on the basis of being
associated with a specific class, group or category. There are in totality, three indicators or
features within social exclusion such as involving culturally defined societal categories,
values, norms and cultural perceptions along with the social interaction (Littlewood and
Herkommer 2017). Another feature is that social exclusion can be witnessed within social
relations. Social exclusion directly influences the entitlements and rights by being denied the
opportunities, which are needed for accomplishing and maintaining a universally approvable
standard of sustaining life.
Social exclusion and poverty
Poverty and social exclusion are known to have an undeniable influence over each
other, as social exclusion impacts poverty state of an individual or group by the experience of
being detached from the growth and development opportunities. Similarly, the degree of
poverty can also influence the enactment of social exclusion (Bernard et al. 2019). The lack

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of resources does not affect the socially excluded groups as they are experiencing the
challenge of discrimination of gaining resources.
According to the World Health Organization (2016), the social exclusion encircles
multi-dimensional and dynamic procedure driven through an unequal power-based
relationship within various main dimensions, economic, social, cultural and political as well
as inducing various degree based on the levels of target size such as household, community,
global levels, country, and individual level. According to the data examined by SEKN (Social
Exclusion Knowledge Network) by stimulating a relational procedure, which reports back to
specific groups from being engaged to be detached from the community life. The procedure
indicates the base of the operation at the macro-level with factors such as equal employment,
education, cultural norms, gender norms, and legislation as well as at micro-level such as
occupational status, income, and social network across gender, religion, and race. The data
also established a relation between the conceptions like integration, network and social
capital with social exclusion (Van Straaten et al. 2018). The significant indicators of social
exclusion are equality in opportunity, freedom in expression and denial in rights. Other
indicators are capital assets, credit, and accessibility in the labor market.
The unit of social exclusion in the UK stimulates various major factors, which contribute to
the state of social exclusion, demographic factors, labor market, and social policy. The
increasing unemployment rate, lone parenting, migration, and aging are few of the
constituents resulting in social exclusion (Barnes 2019). Fluctuations in income range within
the labor market and changing benefits and expenditure rates in social, health and housing
services elevate the financial concerns.
The causes or influencers that stimulate or elevates social exclusion are transportation,
housing, mental and physical health, discrimination, low-income, unemployment, and
education. The causes can be categorized in terms of four constituents, societal, community,

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relationship, and individual. The societal cause is driven by the mental models that stimulate
the exclusionary practice and attitude, negative-perception of others and policy and
legislation disparity (Mulvey, Boswell and Zheng 2017). Knowledge and understanding gap
between community groups constitute the community causes. The relationship caused depicts
the expectations in capability sheltering and over-protection, experiencing bullying, a sense
of stigma and an unfriendly environment. The individualistic causes involve mental and
physical health concern, security, personal safety and accessibility to networks and material
accessibility (Heslop and Emerson 2017).
Response and intervention for poverty
The response and strategic intervention for the concern of poverty need to eradicate
with the potential of a secure life. There are millions of people, who are experiencing
challenges regarding the accomplishment of needs. One of the major concerns facing poverty
is the ability to afford warmth or fuel bill for keeping their home warm. In the United
Kingdom, around 78 billion Pound of public spending is allocated towards controlling and
responding to the consequences and causes of poverty (Fahmy, Sutton and Pemberton 2018).
The investment is directed towards, education, justice, healthcare, social services, and
childcare. The United Kingdom has been a nation where there have been fewer opportunities
and uneven economic development. The dynamic state of economic conditions and
uncertainties caused by Brexit has implied a number of influencers, ultimately contributing to
poverty. Poverty in the UK can be responded by collaborative efforts of government, non-
profit organizations, volunteers and large organizations by not necessarily donating funds but
with expertise, technology, and human resource also (Wickham et al. 2018). The response
and intervention plan for the response needs to suffice a long-term strategy with funds and
engagement of community members. The objectives and strategies for responding to the
concerns of poverty are, boosting income, reducing costs, delivering effective benefit
framework, improving the educational standards and elevating skills. Other strategies can be

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strengthening the community and family health conditions for being able to frame a
productive workforce. The promotion of health programs is also very crucial along with long-
term benefit plans (Fahmy 2017). With the cohesive efforts of bringing businesses, local
government, national authorities and resources, organizations and UK citizens together can
efficiently and responsibly respond to the resolution of the UK poverty rate. For instance
institutions like JRF, Joseph Rowntree Foundation aims at preparing the nation suitable for
children education, especially for the people under the poverty line, which will certainly help
them in reaching adulthood within 2030 within a country where, there is no discrimination,
lesser population under the poverty line and no one will be in poverty more than two years
maximum (Schmuecker 2017).
Response and intervention for social exclusion
Individuals from marginalized groups lack access to resources and lack opportunities for
becoming productive members. They are even deprived of their basic health and education
services. This causes the same has already been discussed above. The question is whether
these causes can be worked upon and the condition can be prevented or not. Poverty and
social exclusion are inter-related. Social exclusion at a high level provides the policymakers
with a reality where poverty is also higher. In order to reduce poverty in the country, social
exclusion needs to be addressed primarily. Social protection is one such step that can be taken
in order to deal with the situation. Social protection can help in tackling inequality and will
help in reaching out to most of the marginalized people within society. The action of social
protection is also monitored by a specialized institution STEP (The Strategies and Tools
against Social Exclusions and Poverty). In order to deal with social exclusion, the
Government has prepared three goals –
i. Reduction of risk factors and preventing social exclusion (Luchenski et al. 2018)
ii. Reintegration of the people who have become socially excluded

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iii. Providing the minimum necessities to every people in terms of education, health,
crimes, and employment.
Several other initiatives like-
i. Assessment of the initiatives that are already in the place, at a national level.
ii. Prioritizing social investment on people. This can be done by providing education
benefits to the children who are deprived of education and providing the
marginalized sections with health facilities and access to health issues at a
subsidized rate. This will help in breaking the disadvantage cycle between the
normal people and the socially excluded ones.
iii. The social scoreboard can be created for determining the progress across the
nation and the quality and rate of development. This will not only ensure steady
development but also ensure that the money is utilized properly for the sole
purpose of social protection.
Cultural and intellectual inclusion needs to be supported. Inclusivity in the society can
be made only with the help of civic engagement. The spirit of diversity needs to be
recognized and investments should be made on everyone’s ability to do something for the
society (Alcock 2018). It will not only help and individual to grow but also help the whole
nation with better economic growth and development.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that poverty and social exclusion are a
major issue in the modern era and the problem has been ever increasing since the past.
Poverty and social exclusion are interrelated. The one who is poor is socially excluded and
the one who is socially excluded will definitely be poor. People are excluded because of the
deliberate actions of other people within society. Factors like demography, labor market
condition, social policy, lone parenting, increased rate of unemployment and migration and

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aging contribute to social exclusion. This, in turn, leads to inequality in society and a lack of
access to basic necessities, health services, and education. Poverty is, therefore, the result of
these factors. Unequal power relation not only leads to poverty but also death. These factors
are of grave concerns and if these problems are not addressed properly it deteriorates the
country's economical condition. These issues can only be resolved with the help of strong
administrative policies and social protection schemes.

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