How Poverty and Socioeconomic Status Affect Human Development

How Poverty and Socioeconomic Status Affect Human Development
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Abstract
Human development is an essential aspect of any society. However, persistent inequality implies that some sections of the population have fewer external forces that limit or impede human development. The current paper describes what entails human development through the lens of existing theories. A key area in human development, and cognitive abilities development, in particular, is the childhood stage. Research shows that childhood outcomes shape future outcomes. Therefore, the paper intends to establish how persistent factors like poverty and differences in socioeconomic status impact the development of cognitive abilities and its short- and long-term outcomes. In MLK’s speech, the American government was challenged to address poverty and ensure that development was attained for all. This is because the government has the necessary resources and reach to address the different challenges through policies and regulations. It is impossible to realize changes without government intervention through the use of policies and regulations.
Keywords: Poverty, socioeconomic status, cognitive abilities, human development.
Introduction
Four days before his unfortunate demise, Martin Luther King gave a Sunday summon dubbed Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution. In the speech, he challenged the government to address the issue of poverty in American society, particularly for the African American community, who was then disproportionately affected. In his words, King said, “It is alright to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps” (WRN, 2014). Based on King’s phrase, the current paper premises that a poor person, with limited opportunities, may live their entire life in poverty, not because they are lazy, but because they lack the necessary means to take advantage of the opportunities that may come their way. Poverty, in other words, has far-reaching consequences to the human development process, especially in early childhood development. A child born in poverty will face significant challenges to their development compared to individuals in well-off families or societies. Therefore, the two individuals are more likely to experience different human development trajectories.
Human Development
Several theories strive to explain the concept of human growth and development from different perspectives (Lecture_Notes, Theories of Human Development: Psychosocial, sociocultural, Multicultural, biological, and learning theories Chapter 2). The Life Course Theory (LCT) focuses on how chronological age, relationships, life events, human agency, social change, and common life transition shape an individual’s life. The theory is based on the resolution of crises in different life stages (Lecture_Notes). According to Hutchinson (2014), LCT examines the multiple factors that shape people’s lives from birth to death, where families and individual development are placed in cultural and historical contexts. The theory has five fundamental aspects: cohorts, transitions, trajectories, life events, and the turning point. These essential aspects may form what is referred to as human development.
Another theory that attempts to capture the concept of human development is the Psychosocial Theory of Human Development (PTHD). The theory assumes that there are eight stages of human development that are experienced throughout the lifespan. The stages include Trust vs. Mistrust (from birth to 12 months), Autonomy vs. Shame (1- 3 years), Autonomy vs. Shame (1-3 years), Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years), Industry vs. Inferiority (6-12 years), Identity vs. Role Confusion (12-18 years), Intimacy vs. Isolation (20-40 years), Generativity vs. Stagnation (the 40s), and Integrity vs. Despair (mid-60s) (Orenstein & Lewis, 2020). According to Erik Erikson (1902-1994), each stage has unique challenges that each individual must face. In essence, positive navigation of each stage will result in the desired trajectory of human development. In contrast, negative outcomes in one or more stages will not result in the desired path of human development.
Each of the two theories discussed so far views human development as a process in which a person grows from a toddler into an adult equipped with all the necessary functionalities to navigate and survive life. Adding to this perception of development is the Biological Theory of Human Development (BTHD). The theory describes human development as the progressive changes in size, shape, and function during an organism’s life span (Russell & Russell, 2018). In this theory, genetic potentials (genotype) are transformed into mature and functioning systems (or phenotype). For instance, looking at brain development, research (Mackes et al., 2020) shows that early childhood (from birth to 5 years) experiences more dramatic growth and development than any other stage of development. Brain development in early childhood is essential because outcomes significantly impact subsequent stages, including adolescence, adulthood, and elderly stages of an individual’s lifespan.
When superimposed against each other, the three discussed theories could be mapped into five core stages of human development: childhood, adolescence, young adults, adults, and the elderly. For instance, in the PTHD, the first four stages (from birth to 11 years) describe the childhood stage. A similar aspect is captured in the chronological age aspect of the LCT. Essentially, the lifespan chronological age describes the different stages (age-wise) that distinguish between stages of human development: such as the difference between children and adults. The BTHD does on such a theoretical map because it helps to place different physical and mental changes that occur over a lifespan in each of the stages described by the preceding theories. When the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) is added to the presumed map, it expands the number of lenses through which human development can be perceived. The SCT premises that behavior, environment, and cognitive factors influence learning (Renshaw & Power, 2003). In other words, the environment in which a person lives has a significant outcome on how they handle the challenges of each step of development outlined by Erikson.
Therefore, what is common across theories is that external factors influence how an individual navigates each stage of life. This point of view shaped Martin Luther King’s speech mentioned earlier; how the government shapes policies that affect poverty is key to human development. More specifically, external factors have a significant impact on the cognitive development of individuals in the early-childhood stage of life. The core factors that significantly impact human development and cognitive development in early childhood are poverty and socioeconomic status in the external environment. Thus, the following section looks at poverty as a shaper of human development and its impact on cognitive development in early childhood.
Poverty
Extreme poverty is when an individual’s daily expenditures (on basic needs) are equal to or less than $1.25. The figure is also referred to as the national poverty line. On the other hand, severe poverty is when a person spends $0.70 per day to meet their specific basic needs. Thus, according to Shepherd et al. (2015), chronic poverty is when extreme poverty persists over a long time and is often transmitted across generations. The same way generational wealth can persist is the same way poverty can persist across generations. The generational persistence of extreme poverty can be partially explained because poverty impedes human development, leading to persistence. People who face extreme poverty have little or no access to quality healthcare, quality nourishment, and education. Further, such populations tend to live in a neighborhood full of health risk factors. Given the importance of early childhood development on future outcomes, deprivation of the said factors means people living in extreme poverty have little or no chances of social mobility. When early childhood development is impeded, future outcomes are more likely to be negative.
This notion has been captured across multiple studies. Evans (2004), for instance, argued that poor children are exposed to widespread environmental inequalities. Such children are exposed to more violence, family turmoil, chaotic households, separation from families, and instability. In agreement with these sentiments, an earlier study by Evans and English (2003) concluded that children living in poverty face elevated risks of socioemotional difficulties in several ways. For instance, such children experience less social support, and their parents tend to be less supportive and more authoritative. Such children may have emotions expressed through anger, fear, or sadness (Lecture_Notes, Emotional, and Social Development in infancy and toddlerhood years Chapter 6, Section 1, Emotional Development). They live in homes that are more likely to be of low quality and located in areas with elevated risks of air and water pollution, crime, and substance abuse increasing their health risk factors. The social cognitive theory captures this aspect when it states that the external environment impacts human development, particularly in the early childhood stages when the child’s brain cells are drastically multiplying as part of brain development. What children learn from their environment shapes how they navigate the subsequent stages of life. Further, such children have little or no access to books and tend to watch TV more often (Evans & Schamberg, 2009). Thus, based on the Psychosocial Theory of Human Development, children living in chronic poverty have more early-childhood challenges to navigate compared to their counterparts in wealthy families.
The problem of challenges faced in early childhood due to poverty is that outcomes can affect the quality of life in subsequent development stages. According to Chen and Parker (2011), when people are exposed to major psychological stressors early in life, they are more likely to suffer from elevated risks of morbidity and mortality from chronic illnesses related to aging. In essence, childhood stress becomes programmed into macrophages through tissue remodeling, epigenetic mapping, and posttranslational modifications. Consequently, childhood stressors have an impact on behavior and hormones. In the former, children who experience extreme stressors develop excessive vigilance to threat, impaired self-regulation, unhealthy lifestyle choices, poor social relationships, and mistrust of others. In the latter, early childhood stress results in altered patterns of autonomic and endocrine hormones (Miller et al., 2011). Further, Evans and Schamberg (2009) found that childhood poverty and stress significantly impact working memory in subsequent stages of human development. Thus, for instance, such children are more likely to post poor academic outcomes regarding education. While these children can pull themselves up by the bootstraps, the reality is that they lack boots in the first place due to poverty.
Socioeconomic Factors
Apart from poverty, socioeconomic status also influences how individuals navigate different stages of life. Early childhood is the most important among these stages because outcomes affect adulthood and elderly stages. Socioeconomic status refers to an individual’s social standing measured bas...