On Myopic Perceptions of Poverty
Despite a presence so devastating that it makes war seem trivial, poverty is often ignored in our supposedly connected world. Global Issues estimates that half of the world’s population, or around 3 billion people, live in dire poverty. In other words, half of humanity can barely survive. But how often do you think about that? Probably not much if you live in a developed country. Daniel Little recently wrote about the middle class ignorance of poverty in America, something I often observed when living in Australia. It seems like a case of narrow experience over-riding a wider understanding of the world and how it works.
Little offers an important set of questions that we should be asking, all designed to tease out what we really know about poverty. He also asks how people who are not poor can gain experience of poverty, and suggests that portrayals in poetry and fiction are important in providing a sense of what less fortunate people might be thinking and feeling. But, ultimately, a “cognitive version of myopia” prevents many people from extrapolating that vicarious experience into their own social circumstances, stops them from seeing what is happening around them.
This problem has been worrying me lately as I’ve worked with and talked to Filipino migrant workers in Hong Kong, seeking justice for Vicenta Flores’ family following her disappearance and death. There is often a somewhat narrow perception amongst those with more money and better lifestyles that because a domestic helper earns more money in Hong Kong than she could in the Philippines, she should be happy because she is no longer in poverty.
That might sound reasonable, but it leaves aside any confounding factors such as how many people a small Hong Kong dollar wage can support in the Philippines – or Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand or Nepal for that matter. It also ignores how much money is owed to an employment agency for illegally gathered placement fees and the sheer amount of hours per day that the woman is expected to work. And how do these critics, so ready to pronounce happiness, bother to define poverty?
Posted by Mike Poole 
