The Poverty Of The United States - 1547 Words

Scotland today is a divided society in many different aspects. These vary from housing to education however the basis of all social divides today is poverty. In recent years many social policies have been introduced to tackle these inequalities however some of which have been much more effective than others. Poverty in Scotland is at a higher level than any other part of the UK, although falling it is clear that as one in five children still live in poverty today that it is a serious problem. Children are most at risk of living under the poverty line when they live in a single parent household – 43% of all lone parent families lived under the poverty line in 2014. The risk of living in poverty also increasing as the number of children†¦show more content†¦However, government strategies have helped to some extent as figures show that poverty is decreasing, children living in relative poverty has fell by 60,000 between 2008 and 2012. There is also a rise in people undertaking collage and university courses in Scotland. This will mean that in years to come that there will be more and more adults able to get well paid skilled jobs and in turn this will reduce the numbers living in poverty. The reason for this may be because that these fees are paid by the government, this mea ns that people from all areas of society are able to aim to go to university. Thus, social divisions are reduced as you do not need to be from an affluent family to gain access to further education. Overall, poverty is still a very significant divide in todays society. In particular child poverty is still at a very high rate still although haven fallen in recent years. Other areas such as pensioner poverty has also fallen alongside all those living in relative poverty. However, although these have all fallen in statistics the minority still own the majority share of wealth – the wealthiest 10% of households in Scotland owned 44% of private wealth in 2010/1012. This is clearly showing that Scotland is still divided to a large extent. Another way which poverty causes a social divide is in though education - â€Å"Who you are in Scotland