Generational Poverty Essay

Special populations refers to â€Å"disadvantaged groups† in our society. It examines the effects society has on person or persons. This can consist of generation poverty, the aged or elderly, and women. These populations face complex challenges in their daily lives. Economic instability, lack of resources, lack of education and lack of unity from society keeps special population groups in hardships. Generational poverty involves special population of poor people. It is cycle of poverty wherein two to three generations were born and lived in poverty. Complex factors are involved that hinders them from striving to attain advantages that other groups may enjoy. People in generation poverty focus on survival and live in the now. They do not plan because they live in the present time and do not plan for the future. They live on day to day survival and live in the moment. Any situation that they are exposed to is met with a reactive mentality. This leads to lack of organization and planning their life and their family’s life for proactive living. Further, their money is for entertainment and to entertain others. They sometimes create and accomplish short term outcomes for immediate gratification. People become their possession, on the other hand, in middle and upper class, they focus on material security. The middle class plans for the future and the wealth plans for the future and involved themselves into politics. Due to lack of a good solid education, many people of generational poverty are unable to communicate effectively therefore they become anger. Parents of poverty do not want their children to receive an education, because they might leave home if they are educated. In addition they have a lack of value in education. Poverty learns from poverty whereas they all adopt the poverty norm. Most parents only have an elementary education and cannot read or do math. They raise their kids not empathizing the importance of an education. Many students do not assign value to school work or to their education. School tardiness and absences are excessive due to transportation issues or parents lack of involvement. Parents who did poorly in school do not put a great emphasis on their children to succeed in school. Students have access to poor quality school resources. They are less likely to find out about the world, obtain job skills, and relying heavily on peers and parents for social and emotional support. Investing in good schools, teachers, lunches, exposure to a structure lifestyle, and relationships could help poor students break the cycle of poverty. As for the lack of an education, families of generation poverty rely heavily on body language to communicate with others and the men constantly display a defensive stance when in public. They do not use specific jargon as like educated people who uses specific words and extensive vocabulary to display their intelligence. Emotions are usually openly displayed. Conflict resolution for the poor is usually physical fighting than verbal fighting or going to court. Likewise, parental poverty effects the motivation of the children. Tools are very limited or do not exist in the socio-environment, so the concept of repair and fix it does not carry any priority in the day to day life activities. Also, food becomes a necessity and valued for its quantity rather than is quality. Many people living in poverty consume a lot of cheap junk food which contributes to childhood obesity. The middle and uppers class eats for quality and presentation. Furthermore, there are a lack of low skill jobs for the poor. They work in manual labor jobs with low wages that do not require specific skills. Due to industrialization, mining and the auto line industry are closing down. Economy shifted from manufacturing to a service economy, those who could not shift to the shift were left behind. Due to lack of education they are unable to perform in the mainstream job market to conduct business transactions, count, and resolve complex problems. Also, culture and genes interact with one another to influence people’s learning and the ability to make a living. Many children are third or fourth generation of poverty. Many just settle for the status quo instead of not taking the education opportuni ty. Some become teenage mothers, drop out of school, and/or drink or take street drugs. On the other hand, many rely on welfare to live and take pride on needed assistance. Some want get a job or do not think they need a job. Also they feel that society owes them a living. Many do not have the access to resources to locate or search jobs as the middle class and the upper class. ————————————————- Must be given the opportunity and resources to break the cycle of poverty. One must be motivated, hopeful, and willing to learn for a better future. A good solid education provides the poor the steps necessary for to open doors they would never been able to open before for a successful life. ——————————– Another special population group is the aged or elderly. The aged or elderly population faces an array of challenges when there is lack of access to employment. The aged are faced with ageism. Many employers are looking to hire younger employees to replace the aged or elder employees with cheaper salary. Younger employees are usually hired for their fresh perspective and eagerness to learn. Many aged workers are solicited by their employers for early retirement with sometimes a substantial payout. Many are retiring before the normal Social Security age of 65-67 years old. Once the aged is retired or laid off it is difficult to find work elsewhere due to active age discrimination. Many employers view the old employers especially the baby boomers as too rigid, failing health, lack of enthusiasm, afraid of new technologies, do not want to learn new training (stuck in old ways), and expensive to keep. Many aged people are viewing job advertisements with pictures of younger employees. In addition, the aged are facing high cost of medical insurance and healthcare. With the obstacles in the job market, the aged could possibly experience social isolationism, low self-esteem, and financial hardship. ————————————————- On the same token, women face unique challenges that throughout their different life stages that places them into the Special Population group when compared to men. Women still face challenges today in areas of social, economic, sports, political and cultural despite the fact that there has been success in empowering women and shattering the glass ceiling for employment promotions. They live 7 years longer than men, make up majority of the world’s population but yet they are greatly ignored. Some women are subjected to part time jobs and lower wage position than their male counterparts. Likewise, women face ageism and sexism in the media on the average profile of a woman. —————————————- Singled and divorced women are most likely to have low paying jobs than men. This causes a financial strain on the women to pay for households bills and to pay for childcare. Women still earn less than their male counterparts. A man would be hired most likely to be promoted and/or receive a managerial or executive position than a woman. ————————————————- In regards to young girls they face ageism whereas people may think they are untrustworthy, shifty and unreliable. Girls who want to play sports especially on a boys team may be assessed by the players and coach as incapable of keeping up too weak to play the sport. In school, boys are judged as good in math and girls are not. ————————————————- If a woman is in her child rearing age, she could face pregnancy discrimination. With 12 weeks paid leave, the woman could face repercussions from co-workers or administration. Some women feel that having a baby would be putting their career on hold. Most women have to take on the role of raising and caring for the children. Most single parent household are run by women. ————————————————- Also, women in their 20-30s are subjected to domestic violence. Domestic abuse is on a decline, however, women are still at a high risk for abuse. Women in this age group are usually majority of the time victims or assault and battery and rape. ————————————————- Women married for 30 plus years are unable to provide for themselves if they spouse leaves them. For years that have adopted their husband’s identity as their own. Therefore, these women have difficulty with self-independence. If a women because ill, it is more likely that her spouse will abandon her. Women mostly likely will stay and provide health care and nurturing to their ailing spouse. In addition women over 50 will most likely care for their ailing parent and handle the parent’s finances. Older women are seen as unhealthy and sexless. After age 50, women are seen as invisible. They start to believe that their voice or concern is no longer valuable. However, they are viewed as ineffective and dependent on others during their later years. Women have more chronic illnesses than men; men usually acute illnesses. Medical coverage usually covers health care treatment for acute illnesses that men usually acquire. Therefore if a women requires long term care in a nursing home, medical coverage may run out or does not cover the stay. All in all, Special Populations could be apply to any person; everyone has unique needs and advantages/disadvantages from another person or group. We all have challenges; some people are apparent, whereas others are not. Their challenges affect their life adversely. My perspective is that I am going to be cognizant of everyone’s physical challenges and establish cultural competence. My goal will get them to live a more vigorous, productive, and striving lifestyle. I have to effectively assess the needs of my clients and how they are underserved in their community to utilize the tools necessary to address their needs. I want to relate to my clients that having and education and a productive lifestyle is attainable. Everyone is accorded the same rights and opportunities regardless of your challenges. Some people may requires special services to help them attain those rights.