Many people have thought that globalization will bring about the end of poverty, as countries and people gets richer. While this is certainly true for many countries, such as Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, there are many countries that are still in poverty even though we are currently still in the age of globalization. In fact, I think that the problems faced by those in poverty will escalate further, as the poorer countries are manipulated by the richer countries, the current global financial crisis that affects everyone and the widening relative income gap between citizens in a country. In this essay, I would be focusing more on poverty in poor countries.
The problems of poverty can only get worse in the current climate because of the manipulation of the poorer countries by the richer countries. With globalization, many countries become wealthier due to the improvements brought about by technological advances and trading. The rich countries have outsourced their labour to overseas countries to reduce their cost of production and hence increase their profits. Some of these countries which the rich countries have outsourced for labour are China, India and also the continent of Africa. The people often worked long and hard, and they are paid meagre wages. Children exploitation occurs as a result of parents roping in their children to help to contribute to the family income. Child labour is hence common in India and Africa. Instead of being educated, these children are forced to work and they are denied the opportunities to improve their quality of lives as they do possess the academic qualifications to pursue a suitable career. This causes a never-ending cycle of poverty as they are unable to break out of their poverty. In addition, many rich countries have exported their goods to these poor countries. Many times, the goods are heavily subsidized by their government, and therefore the rich countries are able to export their goods at a low price to other countries. It would seem beneficial to those foreigners, as they are able to purchase cheap goods. However, the producers of the same goods in those poor countries would suffer as they are unable to compete with the cheap imports from the richer countries, and this would result in a huge amount of losses, and hence aggravate the condition of their poverty.
Besides being manipulated by richer countries, there may be some countries that are unwilling to embrace globalization and technology. These countries may feel that globalization and those technological advances are harmful to their society, and they would prefer to continue with their own way of life than to accept the changes brought about by globalization. In my opinion, countries that are unwilling to accept globalization could be because they fear that with globalization, it would become “Americanization” and their countries would lose their own identity. It is not surprising to see that countries envision globalization to be “Americanization” as America has been at the front line of technological advancements. Fearing of losing their own identity, these countries may end up worsening the problems of poverty in their countries because they would lose out to the other countries which have accepted and embraced globalization as part of their way of lives. With globalization, communication and transport have become faster, goods of higher quality are being produced at larger amounts and in shorter times, and hence trade volumes between countries increase tremendously. Without globalization, countries’ efficiency and output would be of low quality and takes a long time to produce. This will then worsen the problems of poverty in those countries as the people’s quality of lives did not improve at all.
This situation would only occur if countries are unwilling to adopt globalization into their lives. However, in this present time, it is rather unlikely that any country will fully reject globalization altogether. The only difference is that the extent of globalization varies from countries to countries. The world is much more interconnected now with each other; via the internet and the trades with each other, and countries affect each other in more than one way. If poor countries open up their economies more and specialize in what they have a comparative advantage in, these countries welfare will improve for the better. It might not happen in the short run, but in the long run, there will be some rewards for these countries, in terms of skills, labour or revenue gained. Therefore it is not entirely possible that the problems of poverty can only get worse in the current climate, as long as people are willing to see things from a different perspective and change their lifestyles. There are also many foreign aids from other countries to poor countries in present-day lately. These aids usually arrive with the aim of liberating children from labour and grant them education opportunities, providing the people with basic necessities and also for the adults’ chances to find jobs. Hence, there might be a chance that the problems of poverty can improve in the present climate.
Poverty can also be defined as relative poverty when individuals within a society are compared to each other, and relative poverty usually refers to citizens of the lower-end of that society’s income group. In this current climate, with the global financial crisis, the recession has hit many countries, including Japan and Singapore. Many individuals become unemployed and hence add to the problems of relative poverty in their society. In addition to the benefits, globalization has also brought about many problems as well. This is due to the fact that mostly those who are able to afford technological advances are those who truly benefit, while those who are unable to do so are crowded out. Hence, the income gap between the relatively richer and the relatively poorer widens. If this trend continues, there would be more people who will be relatively poorer and this increase the problems of poverty.