Poverty in South America

Poverty is a result of people's inability to attain food, shelter, money, clothing, education, and any other essentials towards the well being of living. Many people that are suffering from poverty live in rural, low income areas.

Overview

Poverty in South America is high. All of the countries in South America are greatly affected by poverty to some extent. The countries that have the highest rates are Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. All of these countries are trying to reduce poverty, with varying degrees of effort and success. However, in recent years most South American countries have experienced great economic growth. Thanks to this improvement in the economy, action is being taken by most South American countries to reduce poverty and improve the life quality of the people. New infrastructure is being built and more housing is being provided. Education is also a major concern, and the governments are spending millions of dollars in funding schools.

There are many different reasons why a greater proportion of a country's population may be in poverty than in others, and there are a variety of factors that may explain poverty in South America. Each country has their own internal problems, which leads to their high percentage of poverty, and an overview of poverty in each of these countries in South America follows in the section below.giant mothertfucking platypus.

Conditions by nation

Argentina

Poverty, particularly absolute poverty, is less evident in Argentina than in the continent as a whole; absolute poverty affected 3.7% of the Argentine population (around a third of that in the remainder of South America), per the UN Human Development Report in 2009, and income poverty affected 13.2% of the population in the same period.

The relatively low poverty rate is shared with the country's neighbors to the west and east, Chile and Uruguay; but contrasts with most of Argentina's northern neighbors (Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru), and has resulted in a wave of immigration from these latter to Argentina since the 1960s, mainly to Buenos Aires and its environs. Poverty rates, measured by Argentine parameters, are higher than those reported by the UN, however. "Structural poverty", based on substandard housing, affected 17.7% of the population as of the 2001 Census. Income poverty is also higher, and unlike structural poverty (which has gradually declined over the decades), has varied sharply between Argentina's economic cycles. This proportion rose sharply, for instance, during the 1989 currency crisis (from 26% to 47%), while the early success of the Convertibility Plan cut the rate to 16% by 1994; income poverty rose again in the ensuing years, to 35% by 2001, and reached 54% during the depths of the crisis in 2002.

The incidence of income poverty declined markedly during the subsequent economic recovery, and as of the end of 2009, reached 9.0% of households and 13.2% of the population. Income poverty, as of the first half of 2010, officially includes adults living with a monthly disposable income of around 370 Argentine pesos (US$ 95) per person, and children for whom monthly expenditures total no more than around 200 pesos (US$ 51) each; a family of two adults and two children were considered poor in early 2010 if their monthly family expenditures were less than around 1,140 pesos (US$ 292).

Critics of the official INDEC survey charge that both the inflation rate used to measure poverty and the official baseline household budgets themselves are understated, however. The official income poverty line increased 150% between 2001 and early 2010; but most private surveys of household conditions in Argentina estimate it at half again as much as the official threshold, and the effective poverty rate at around 30% of the population. Absolute poverty estimates, as measured by the inability to meet a minimum nutritional budget, also differ: this condition includes 3.5% of the population officially, and around 10% per private estimates.

Poverty in Argentina varies widely according to region, and provinces in the north have historically shouldered the nation's highest poverty rates. Estimates of income poverty in this region ranged from around 20% officially, to over 40% in private estimates; substandard living conditions affected around 30% of this region's population in the 2001 Census. The city of Buenos Aires proper, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego Provinces typically benefit from the nation's lowest poverty rates (around 7 to 14%, depending on the measurement). Buenos Aires, in particular, has been increasingly blighted by shantytowns, however, as it continues to be a magnet for the impoverished from both northern Argentina and neighboring countries to the north.

The majority of Argentina's public social programs, aside from those related to health, are administered by the National Social Security Administration (ANSES). Argentines in the labor force earning less than 4,800 pesos (US$1,230) monthly, are entitled to benefits upon marriage, birth or adoption of a child, for maternity leave or prenatal care, and for a disability in a child, as well as to a modest unemployment insurance benefit for up to 6 months. The most important poverty relief program administered by the ANSES is the Universal Childhood Entitlement. The benefit, of 180 pesos (US$ 46) a month per child, is assigned to 3.7 million children under age 18 (30% of the nation's total), and includes the deposit of 20% of the check in a savings account accessible only upon certification of the child's enrollment in school.

The health needs of the poor in Argentina (and of a sizable proportion of the working class) is attended to by the public hospital system, which received funding of around US$8 billion in 2009, and whose quality of care typically falls short of the systems relied on by the nation's middle and upper classes (health cooperatives and private health insurance); health care for poor (and most non-poor) senior citizens is overseen by PAMI. The National Housing Fund (FONAVI) and its successors, the Provincial Housing Institutes, have also benefited the poor by facilitating access to affordable housing, and since 1976, has completed over a million housing units. The socio-economic crisis at the time prompted the enactment of the Program for Unemployed Heads of Households in early 2002, and at its height in 2003, around 2 million beneficiaries received debit cards worth 150 pesos (US$ 50) for part-time work; by 2010, the plan's impact on employment had become negligible.

Birth control among the poor, especially access to contraceptives, has long been discouraged by a succession of Argentine governments, as well as by figures in the influential Roman Catholic Church. Government policy instead rewards large families with subsidies that rise disproportionately with the seventh child, and though Argentine women have long had among Latin America's lowest birth rates (averaging 2.3 births per woman in recent years), the policy has tended to encourage higher birth rates in the lowest strata of society (including women least able to afford large families).

Bolivia

Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which published an in depth report in December 2009, the latest poverty data available is from 2007. It shows that 60.1% of the population live in poverty and 37.7% in extreme poverty. 80.2% have no access to electricity, 86% have no access to running water, and 50.8% have no sewage system connections.

The socialist government of Evo Morales, which came to power in 2005, has introduced a number of measures to combat poverty.

The Bono Juancito Pinto gives school children grants of approximately USD 29 (200 bolivianos) a year as an incentive to continue education to the 6th grade of primary school. It was introduced in 2006.

The Renta Dignidad was introduced in 2008 to prevent extreme poverty amongst the elderly. It gives all citizens over 60 a grant of USD 258 (1800 bolivianos) or USD 344 (2400 bolivianos) to those not receiving social security payments.

The Bono Juana Azurduy provides new mothers with small financial incentives to seek pre and post natal medical care with the aim of reducing child mortality rates. It began in May 2009.

The above measures, along with increased provision of health and education services, are expected to result in reduced poverty rates for 2008 onwards.

Brazil

Main article: Poverty in Brazil

Brazil is the largest country in South America, and is also known to have a high poverty rate. Poverty in Brazil is more focused in the north-eastern region of the country: 60% of poor people live there, and the majority of them are of Afro-Brazilian heritage. Over 40 million Brazilians live on less than $2 a day, and about 20 million are making less than $1 a day. This is due to low government funding for poverty reflief programs, and problems of income distribution; Brazil has one of the most unequal distributionsof income in the world.

Colombia

Main article: Poverty in Colombia

Despite Colombia having the 4th largest economy in Latin America, this country suffers from extreme urban poverty. Suffering from both urban and rural poverty, Colombia has one of the highest levels of extreme poverty in South America. Since this country has extreme poverty they have a relatively high crime rate, though its crime rate has been halved since 2001 and the country enjoys overall safety and is much safer than it used to be in previous years. Furthermore, the government is trying to reduce the poverty rate by putting together social programs so that the poor have better and new opportunities to improve their lives. Their poverty reduction strategy focuses on three components a) rural development, b) social and infrastructural services and c)decentralization. This country feels that if they put their main focus on these particular issues then maybe it could end poverty in this country. Since Colombia's economy has been increasing steadily for the past decade, poverty is being reduced steadily as well, and today the government is giving priority to this issue, especially by funding education and creating many new jobs.

Ecuador

This country benefited from an oil boom during the 1970s, and despite this, 21% of the population live in poverty, and another 12% that are vulnerable to it. One million out of its 13 million inhabitants can not meet the proper standards of living. This country a high rural poverty. However its malnutrition rate is relatively low, and Health care is provided by the state so it prevents from causing high child mortality rates.

Paraguay

20% of the population is poor and 4% is very poor, per national surveys; the proportion of Parguayans living in absolute poverty was 10.5%, as measured in the UN Human Development Index. The problems associated with poverty that this country deals with is migration, language and that there is no standard welfare system. Water and sanitation conditions are also poor and this leads to the poor getting sick from the unsanitary way of living.

Peru

The country's total poverty is 30.2%, which includes 13.7% in extreme poverty. It is high in the rural areas of this country, with 64.6% and among them, of which 32.9% are extremely poor. This country suffers from low income jobs, poor teaching skills in the rural areas, no full benefits for the primary health care and chronic problems that the country has. The poor people are at greater risks for health illness because of the rural area that they live in due to the lack of clean water and sanitation.

The population has grown, and this is causing more poverty because the country's cities are becoming over crowded. Over the last few years Peru is showing a little improvement with the social welfare system and the consumption poverty rates. The social welfare system is reaching more out to the poor because the government is receiving more funding. The consumption poverty rates are slightly lower from 19% to 15%, but there are still millions of Peruvians suffering from severe poverty.

Uruguay

Income poverty in Uruguay, historically low by regional standards, had increased substantially during that country's struggle with chronic stagflation from the 1960s until the mid-1980s; from 1986 to 1999, however, income poverty declined sharply, from 46% to 15%. Fallout from an earlier financial crisis in neighboring Argentina helped lead to a resurgence in poverty, to 27%, by 2006, though by 2008, a reduction of the rate to around 24% was measured, while 2.2% of the population remained in absolute poverty; as in many other nations, the poor in Uruguay suffer from far higher rates of unemployment than the population at large (27%, compared to an average of 7.5%). The rate of absolute poverty in Uruguay, measured as part of the UN Human Development Index, was 3.0% in 2009, and was the lowest in Latin America.

Venezuela

This country is rich in resources, largely because of its oil sector. The downside is that the agriculture and manufacturing is decreasing. Their labor productivity is decreasing making a low economic growth and this is leading to higher unemployment rate. There are 11 million poor people, of which about 5 million are extremely poor. This means that 70% of the population is poor, of which 88% live in urban areas; rural poverty is also widespread, and these areas suffer from a lack of running water and electricity. These rates, among the highest in South America, also reflect the nation's higher poverty threshold, however, since the proportion absolute poverty in Venezuela as measured as part of the UN Human Development Index (7.3%), is somewhat below the average for the continent.