Summary

The modern society faces many social, economic, political and other problems the most important of which are socio-economic inequality and poverty. The socio-economic inequality of human beings and nations has always been and remains to be a problem that is common to all countries and thus has a global character. Socio-economic inequality and poverty are one of the most important and ever-present problems in the modern world. An elimination of poverty is one of the biggest challenges of nowadays’ reality.

Among the seven global risks that the world will face to the nearest ten years, The Global Risks Report 2017 (Davos, January 11, 2017) mentions economic inequality and social stratification.

This paper offers to consider poverty from two positions: in the individualcontext (or micro-level position) and global context (or macro- and meso- level position).

Proceeding from global context of poverty, the answers to the next questions should be done:  Why some countries and nations are poor? What causes the poverty of the countries and nations? Why the rich nations become richer when the poor nations become poorer? What could be done for overcoming the poverty of the poor nations and in the poor countries?

Based on the individual approach the following questions should be asked: Why are people poor and what causes their poverty? Why people are unable to escape poverty? Why the rich people become richer when the poor become poorer? Who is responsible for the poverty of people – poor personsthemselves or society?

There are many reasons for poverty and the measures for the poverty overcoming largely depend on its causes. These reasons can be conditionally grouped as objective reasons and subjective reasons.

Among the objective reasons of poverty could be mentioned the following:

-   Adverse economic conjuncture that causes unemployment, inflation, low wages, etc.;

-   Political instability such as wars, ethnic conflicts, religious conflicts, etc.;

-   Incorrect policy of government agencies - inadequate or delayed response on the existing economic situation;

-   Ecological cataclysms - earthquakes, tsunami, avalanche, and others;

-   Regional and geographical differences (poor places) - unequal economic development of some territories and regions, uneven distribution of natural resources, low capability of land, etc.;

-   Climatic differences - deserts, drought and others;

- Seasonality of work – proceeding from the features of the job activity, an instability of revenue during a year, etc;

- Cultural differences – based on the religious-philosophical lifestyle of some separate areas (territories) or groups of people that reject the pursuit to a material well-being.

Among the subjective reasons of poverty could be mentioned the following:

-   Low level of education – that does not allow people to hold high income jobs;

-   Problems with health  - deterioration of a health could make people to be unable to take full advantage from labour market participation and, therefore, to get income;

-   Elderly - older generations can lose a capacity for work and, therefore, the possibility to get income (in case of a low retiring pension);

-   Low level of social capital (social networks) – those, who do not have the necessary social contacts are less aware of the existence of good jobs, they are less likely to be able to take good jobs and, therefore, get revenue;

-   Self-reproduction of poverty -  the low level of life of person, family or social group and its reproduction provokes so-called “vicious cycle of poverty”;

-   Asocial properties (asocial behavior of the individual) - drug use, drunkenness, laziness, parasitism and so on;

-   Inertia – a passive perception of a reality, lack of desire to change the existing (poor) lifestyle, maladjustment to life, etc.

The existence of a number of reasons of poverty invokes to group poor according to poverty reasons and to elaborate relevant approaches for its overcoming.