The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

                One of the points brought to attention by Kahn is the increasing gap between rich and poor.  According to Kahn, in 2000 the ratio was 1:72, meaning that for every one rich person there are 72 people living on less than $2 per day.  The increasing gap between the poor and the rich is also directly related to the population. 

Just looking in the United States, it’s a well-known fact that when couples make more money, they tend to have fewer children and couples who fall below the poverty line tend to have multiple children.  Many different factors go into this such as the lower class unable to afford birth control or needing extra help around the house or farm.  Back when science wasn’t fully developed, it was normal for a woman to have around a dozen children. This was because she knew that not all of them would live past the age of 4 and she and her husband needed as much as possible on the farms.  In this day and age, it’s impractical to have so many children because farms are no longer as common and modern medicine has made the complications of child birth and caring for infants much safer. 

Because of the fact that the poverty stricken have many children who then grow up to have even more children – more children that rarely escape the poverty level, it’s inevitable that the gap between the upper and lower class will increase at a steady rate.  So how do we stop this?  First, we have to educate everyone, let the young girls know that just because they were born to a teenage mother they too don’t have to become a teenage mother.  Not only do we have to educate, but we also must encourage the use of contraceptives.  The population of the world is already exceeding the Earth’s limit as is, it’s about time we cut back on the reproduction rate.