Introduction

The society is vast and one of the most complicated aspects today. Sociology attempts to study and explain the society in terms of relationships, social interaction, and culture. In a bid to understand these aspects of society, sociology explanations may range from concrete interpretations to specific events. One of the most common issues in the world today is poverty which involves different elements such as social, economic and political. According to research, more than half of the people in the world today live on less than 2.5 dollars per day which is very little. These numbers show the extent of poverty in the world today. This paper will, therefore, analyze poverty from a functionalist perspective.

Functionalist perspective

According to this perspective, each group of society has a contribution to how society is as a whole. Therefore, regardless of how irrelevant or distinct something may seem, it greatly contributes to how society functions. Therefore, if something is eliminated the natural order of things in society result in the instability of society. This means that all things are interconnected in either big ways or small ways which then gives life to society right now. For instance, the government is tasked with providing education for citizens in a state who will in future make money or create job opportunities which provide taxes for the government to provide other services. Families or citizens of a country also depend on schools to educate their children who become responsible and pay taxes in the future. As a result, there is order and stability. However, if things do not work in cohesion to produce good results, society adapts and recaptures a new order. This perspective has also received criticism because it leaves out the negative functions of things such as divorce and it also discourages people from taking active roles of changing negative things in the society as their efforts are seen as insignificant.

Poverty

As earlier states, the functionalist approach views everything in society as important and with a purpose. Therefore, poverty is not an exception of this perspective, and it is viewed to have a function. According to this perspective, poverty has two main functions. First, poverty motivates people to work hard. The common denominator in most people who are working is to avoid being poor or to escape from poverty. Therefore, poverty pushes people to success regardless of their objectives while working. The second function of poverty is that it creates a process of happiness and enjoyment when people achieve their objectives. While some people may lose, there are those that gain which offers different lessons along the way. Even though everyone may be focused on eradicating poverty, society would not be the same without poor people.

From the understanding of the functionalist perspective, poverty is not a negative as most governments look at it. For instance, there are thousands of people who gain from poverty as there are careers that are developed from poverty. For instance, there are people who specialize in providing services to the poor or dealing with consequence arising from poverty. For instance, most non-governmental organizations focus on poor individuals and these organizations employ a large number of people who irk a living from serving the poor. Therefore, without poverty such people would not be having jobs. Poverty also helps human beings show love and act humanely towards others. For example, when a poor person is unable to afford quality healthcare services due to lack of funds there are people some people may offer to pay for the services which is an act of kindness as a person is not compelled to help another in such a situation but out of compassion they do.

This functionalist approach can also be used to show how poverty is a consequence of things not working well in society and thus, a change is needed. For example, the functionalist approach can point out that there are insufficient job opportunities today and as a result, there is a high number of people who are unemployed. High unemployment levels would mean that people do not have enough money to cater for their needs which is poverty. Also, without enough job opportunities, the government goes short of taxes and is unable to provide its citizens with quality services such as education, infrastructure and healthcare. Therefore, poverty is as a result of this systematic malfunction and if the malfunction would be eliminated, then poverty can be eradicated. This also shows that society is interconnected in that if one part is not working, the other areas also fail and result in negative consequences such as poverty.

Conclusion

Social issues such as poverty will always be complicated and cannot be fully explained using one theory. However, it is important to acknowledge how poverty affects society and how it is of benefit using the functionalist approach. For instance, it motivates people to work hard and improve their quality of lives and also creates happiness after the achievement of goals. Therefore, without poverty, there are also other things that would stall.

 
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