The new face of poverty
To eliminate poverty we first have to investigate what poverty actually is. Some people say that poverty is a necessary evil and that providing government assistance to the poor is an important task for every society.
What kind of people are more likely to fall into poverty? Most people's stereotype is that poverty only afflicts the old, the weak, and the disabled. In fact, the face of poverty has changed along with rapid changes in society and the economy.
According to statistics from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, Taiwan had 70,417 low-income households in 2002, representing a 60.8% rise on the 43,780 registered ten years earlier. In ten years, low-income households rose from 0.8% to 1% of the total number of households. In Taipei alone there are approximately 15,000 low-income households, which is considerably more than the 7,000 there were five years ago.
Taiwan's low-income households are divided into three categories. From 1992 to 2001, the number of households in category 3 (whose average family income is less than an individual's minimum monthly expenses) rose 1.4-fold.
In other words, the working poor have become a new class of poor people in modern society. In Taipei, 40% of low-income households are composed of low-wage earners.
Cheng Li-chen, associate professor at the Department of Social Work, National Taiwan University, says, "As a result of global economic polarization and the East Asian financial crisis of 1997, Taiwan's poor went from being predominately people who were old, weak, or in poor health to being predominantly working poor." Many people who are low-skilled or have service-industry jobs work long hours and endure appalling working conditions, but they earn too little to support their families. If they have an accident or another serious misfortune, they can easily sink into poverty.
What makes people fall into the poverty trap?
According to figures from the Ministry of the Interior, the main reasons why low-income families fall into poverty are infirmity in old age, death of the main wage earner, too many non-working mouths to feed, prolonged illness, and physical or mental disability. Social background, life events, and personal problems are the three principal contributing factors.
It is worth noting that an ever-increasing number of single-parent families are sinking into poverty because they lack a support network. Studies indicate that 23.5% of low-income households in Taiwan are single-parent families and that there are eight times as many single mothers as fathers. In Taipei, a third of subsidized apartments are occupied by single-parent families, more than half of which are headed by women.
Being down on your luck doesn't mean that you'll never get back up on your feet again.The important thing is not to give up and to keep in mind that spring follows winter.