Poverty and Social Stratification Essay

Absolute poverty corresponds to the situation wherein the individual person cannot survive or live due to lack of basic needs or resources such as food, water, clothes, medicines and the likes. On the other hand, Relative Poverty is the situation wherein the person could not satisfy his personal wants but this does not imply that the person is not going to survive. Social Stratification simply denotes the systems of layers and/or divisions made in the society that shall reflect their relative poverty or wealth. It is not focus in the individual person but instead refer to a larger group of people. The different kinds of Social Stratification are class systems, caste system and slavery systems. Today a so-called Global Stratification exist that categorizes each country according to their economy, population and wealth or national income. The most industrialized countries relatively are the wealthiest, their economy are mostly capitalist. The industrializing or otherwise known as developing countries have much lower standard of living and income than the industrialized. The least industrialized countries are the most poverty stricken. It includes majority of the South East Asian, Latin America and most of Africa. Most analyst believes that the economic growth of a country lies on raising the social standing of women, because in most industrialized countries women are given equal opportunity like men while in the least industrialized countries women are commonly regarded to have lower social status and capabilities than men. Uplifting the standing of men in a society would generally increase the labor force. Educating women would create women who are as much competitive as that of men. This type of women would be able to compete with men in a capitalist setting. Only when there is an equal treatment between men and women could a society fruitfully developed. Otherwise, women would be stagnant part of the economic system. The more players there are in an economic system the faster is the economic progress since there are more participants. References Relative and Absolute Poverty. Retrieved on November 9, 2006. Retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://www. qvctc. commnet. edu/brian/soc/sld027. htm Global Social Stratification. Retrieved on November 9, 2007. Retrieved from the World Wide Web: http://72. 14. 253. 104/search? q=cache:jmq-xfTAm0UJ:www. ilstu. edu/~jeweinz/soc106/notes/ch7notes. doc+global+social+stratification&hl=tl&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ph