The Sociology of Poverty

All over the world, disparities between rich and poor, even in the wealthiest of nations are rising sharply. Fewer people are becoming increasingly "successful" and wealthy while disproportionately larger populations are becoming even poorer. There are many issues involved when looking at global poverty and inequality, it is not simply enough (or correct) to say that the poor are poor due to their own efforts and or lack thereof (or their government's) bad governance and management. In fact, you could quite easily conclude that the poor are poor because the rich are rich and have the power to enforce unequal trade agreements that favor their interests more than the poorer populations. Three perspectives that are often used when seeking causes for why people become poor are: The flawed perspective, restricted opportunity perspective and the structural perspective.
Perhaps the most common explanation of poverty focuses on what has been called the "flawed character" view of poverty (flawed perspective). …