Delivering Health

There was movie for this section which really helped put the issue of health care into prospective. There was one man from India who was interviewed about a disease he had which was tuberculosis. The interviewer asked him whether he knew he had the disease but he was not aware of it and did not care. All he knew was the he had was ill. He was also asked what he was taking or doing to heal himself but he often laughed and joked about the question as if it was not a serious issue. He then stated that he was taking pills whenever he remembered even though he was told to take them daily. The pills that were given to him were not meant to even be used for TB and the doctor that prescribed them was not a trained doctor.

Often people in poverty, such as those in rural India can not afford to pay for a ride into town and then again pay for a doctor visit with more than what they earn daily. For cultural reasons they also often ignore possibly deadly disease and do not seek treatment thinking that they've only been cursed with a bad eye and will often end up dying soon after. As long as their body can still function and they can still do work, some would not even bother going to get a check up until something serious occurs.

Watching this video ha really made me be very fortunate about the health care system we have in the United States. Even if its not the best,its still a lot better than what most people have in the world, if they have any. It has also really made my dream of becoming a doctor someday even more important. Working with the doctors without boarders program will allow me to be able to train doctors in rural areas such as in India to be able to accurately treat patients and subscribe medicine.

The Hidden Traps

This section discussed several possible early signs and starts of poverty traps. In particularly India, there has been a great trend in the decrease of calorie consumption. This is due to the fact that people are having fewer children than before, they're doing less intensive work, and most have moved to the urban areas where less labor strength is needed. You would think because of their increase in money because they are eating less they would purchase better and more nutritiousness food, but it is the complete opposite. People in India or who are in similar situations use that extra money that they now have available to purchases goods they were not able to before. A better alternative for them is to investing that money on their nutrion or their childrens' nutrition which is actually a huge benefit in the long run rather than just today or tomorrow. But why is that when you look at other countries such as Uganda, when their spending ability increases, their nutrition increases because they are buying better food. The answer to that question as quoted by the professor is that people in Uganda do not have very many options in spending their money as the people in India do. 

This made me hypothesize that the more options people are given in how to spend their month, especially the poor, the more likely they are going to substitute the already nutritiousnless food for even a worse option now that they are given the opportunity to spend it elsewhere. This leads to another poverty trap that effects the newly born children. Because their parents are less likely to spend more money to improve their nutrition in their early ages, they are instantly less likely to have strong bodies and are less likely to perform well in school- already causing them to be in a poverty trap at a young age. When they grow older, they are less likely to get a good job that pays a decent wage which continues the cycle of the generational poverty trap. 

Is There a Nutrition Based Poverty Trap?

During this section we discussed the possible poverty traps  in respect to food and also compared the similarities and differences different groups of people spent their money. In the last topic we discussed how people who are in poverty are sometimes trapped their because even the little work that they be able to obtain then and there is not enough to provide them with energy rich food to keep them productive. Pak Solhin-a poor unemployed father, even stated that lack of food impeded his productivity. That statement is very accurate because the first few calories a person has access to are the ones that are used for survival. Only when you start eating more will your body begin using it as energy. Which is is the reason why some as poor as Pak Solhin cannot be very productive in a really low paying job. The main point with this argument is that food prices are extremely high for the poor and what is suggested to be done is that either food prices are decreased or more jobs are created and wages are increased which I believe is the better alternative. Increasing wages would increase spending power for other necessities, not just food.

Another reason why the poor tend to fall into a nutrition based poverty trap is because when their spending power increases, instead of buying healthy energy rich food, they would  rather purchases things such as T.Vs, clothing, and other technologies. Increasing purchasing power is definetly as great thing which I definitely believe should happen but what is also needed is support from the government or an influential power/group. These people in poverty might not know the importance of having a nutritional diet.

This issue ties in well with my World Food Prize country because my rural family in Burma was definitely caught in a Nutritional based poverty trap. They mainly consumed rice and corn daily with no variety of other calories in their diet.

US Poverty Trap vs. Other Nations

While learning about how subsidizing bed nets, I thought about a really important question.

Should the government be responsible for subsidize food and education in developing countries?

The government who is responsible for the well-being if its people should definitely be responsible for subsidizing food and education for its people. Two of the leading causes of poverty traps are lack of nutrition and education. If these two areas are addressed, you wouldn't expect to see poverty eliminated but at least a decrease in poverty should be expected. An amount as small as even 5%  decrease in poverty can increase the productivity of a nation leading to a stronger economy and the creation of new jobs for the poor. This then creates a cycle in which for ever few that are out of poverty, a stronger economy will be built and more job opportunities will be provided.

Questions and Answers

1. Since 2005, food prices in Indonesia have been:

- Increasing

2. How does Pak Solhin rationalize the fact that his employer, a local farmer, cut his job rather than his wages?

- If his employer cut his wages below a certain level, Pak Solhin would not be able to afford enough food to give him the strength to work

3. Where do poverty traps stem from?


- Biological Mechanisms


4. Which of the following variables can be represented on a capacity curve’s y-axis?


- Future Income, Work Capacity


5. If the returns to education were high for low levels of schooling, but were low for all higher levels, what shape would we see on our graph between education today and income tomorrow?


- An inverted L shape


What conditions might lead to an s-shaped poverty curve? (Hint: think back to the examples discussed in lecture.)

The S shaped curve is made up of the relationship between wage and nutrition-how much better do you eat if you have a little more income-and the relationship between nutrition and productivity-how much stronger to do you become if you have a bit more to eat.  Low wages and very little food consumption are obviously the main cause for an s-shaped poverty curve. When the poor have very little wages, they are less likely to spend a great proportion of that on food leading to low nutrition and productivity. 

Poverty Trap - Burma

The concept of poverty trap is very relateable to the people of Burma and the rural family I have chosen for my World Food Prize research. As supported by my research, Poverty trap is very common in Burma and there are very little economic opportunities provided that allow families to dig themselves out. As a matter of fact, they face similar problems that Pak Solhin, an unemployed Indonesian immigrant, faced in which wages were so low that he was not able to afford enough food to give him the strength to work leading him to completely stop working.

When people are not only given very low wages but also very little varieties of food to sustain a healthy diet, then their productivity greatly decreases leading to poverty and eventually a trap. This trap can usually last for generations. An example of that is when uneducated parents who have low paying jobs remove their intelligent child from school because they saw the opportunity cost of the child going to school a lot less then if he could work and make money to support the family. Eventually when the child reaches his adult years, he will most likely face a similar problem and may deal with it in a similar way leading to a generational poverty trap.

SUBSIDIZING BEDNETS: THE CLASSIC ECONOMIC ARGUMENT/POVERTY

This lecture has by far been my favorite. We discussed bed nets and vacations for malaria, poverty on a global scale, and reasons why conditions are not improving. The question explored was, are those in poverty willing to aid themselves? or are they only depending on the help of others? Through research done by MIT it shows that when families are provided an incentive such as a small portion of rice, they are willing to come and get their children vaccinated. As for bed nets, when one family is given a bed net and they discover the benefits of having one, they are more than willing to purchase one or several in the future. Their neighbors or close friends are also most likely to purchase one which continues the contagious effect.The professor made a quote that I thought was really interesting. She said,

 "If we are willing to impose taxes on cigarette smokers to discourage them from smoking then why can't we subsided bed nets to encourage the uses and purchases of them?
So by using prices and taxes this way, you can try and align the private incentive to the social benefit."

I more than agree with what she is saying.

Another topic we talked about is, "What encourages or discourages people from helping aid those in poverty?" There is not just one correct answer but one of the possible reason is that when people are faced with a large or general problem they are less likely to help because they believe they cannot solve the issue but when the issue is broken down into smaller units and addressed one at a time, the issue is no longer impossible and the mission becomes very specific. People like being given very few specific problems to deal with rather than one major problem. There was a specific research that was done on this topic. I will research and try to provide the results. 

edX Entrance Survey/What is a Poverty Trap?

Why did you decide to register for this course?

I registered because I have been very interested in learning about global poverty and food insecurity. I have learned about poverty and food insecurity in one specific country (Burma) and now I would like to be able to learn about the issues on a global scope. 

What is a poverty trap?

This was the first question addressed in the video lectures. Poverty trap is a spiraling mechanism which forces people to remain poor. It is so binding in itself that it doesn't allow the poor people to escape it. Although I have heard about something very similar to this concept, I was not aware of how impactful it is on a community. For the rest of the lecture we looked at reasons for which create a conditions that cause these poverty traps to emerge. Some reasons that were brought up were increasing food prices, unpredictable economic activities, and changes in wage. The main point of this lecture was to try to better understand poverty traps and possibly help identity other causes by the end of the course.