Edmonton Social Planning Council - The Impacts of Living in Poverty

The Impacts of Living in Poverty

A 2005 study of women living below the Low Income Cut Off found that the experience of living in poverty had direct impacts on emotional well-being and physical health.

Decreased emotional well-being included:

Exhaustion (dominant aspect of life)
depression and despair
anger and frustration
stress (little chance of relief from stress)
thoughts of death
challenges to self esteem (decreased feelings of self-worth)
isolation (lack of money leads to social isolation and marginalization)

Decreased physical health included:

low energy, due to:

lack of nutritious food
high emotional demand
high physical demands (lack of transportation options, for example)

unhealthy weight, either:

overweight due to unhealthy “welfare diet”, or
underweight due to lack of food, not eating enough

Excerpt from Poverty and Policy in Canada, by D. Raphael – Original source:
Ocean, C. (2005). Policies of exclusion, poverty and health. Duncan, BC: WISE Society.

This study leads to many more questions:

What aspects of poverty create these emotional and physical impacts?
What are some other impacts of poverty?
How do adult’s experiences in poverty affect their children?

What do you think about this issue?

Comments

Add New

justin

| 24.71.223.149 | 2008-09-26 21:08:42

hi if you have lived in poverty
for a long time you have the
right to sue the Alberta
Government for not giving AISH clients
enough money

Reply | Quote

AnetteK

| Administrator | 2008-10-02 10:41:57

Thanks for your comment, Justin.
The value of AISH payments has definitely eroded and made it harder for AISH clients to maintain a decent quality of life. :(

That is why our recommendations from our Renters' Survey report providing increases to government assistance that are linked to the Consumer Price Index.

Reply | Quote