Poverty (also called penury) is deprivation of those things that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, but also "intangibles" such as the opportunity to learn and to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens.

Causes of Poverty

Environmental Factors

• Erosion. Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields and thence increased poverty.
• Deforestation as exemplified by the widespread rural poverty in China that began in the early 20th century and is attributed to non-sustainable tree harvesting.
• Geographic factors, for example access to fertile land, fresh water, minerals, energy, and other natural resources. Presence or absence of natural features helping or limiting communication, such as mountains, deserts, navigable rivers, or coastline.
• Drought and water crisis.

Economics

• Unemployment.
• Capital flight by which the wealthy in a society shift their assets to off-shore tax havens deprives nations of revenue needed to break the vicious cycle of poverty.
• Communists see the institution of property rights itself as a cause of poverty.
• Unequal distribution of land. Land reform is one solution.

Health Care

• Poor access to affordable health care makes individuals less resilient to economic hardship and more vulnerable to poverty.
• Inadequate nutrition in childhood, itself an effect of poverty, undermines the ability of individuals to develop their full human capabilities and thus makes them more vulnerable to poverty.
• Disease, specifically diseases of poverty: AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis and others overwhelmingly afflict developing nations, which perpetuate poverty by diverting individual, community, and national health and economic resources from investment and productivity.
• Similarly substance abuse, including for example alcoholism and drug abuse when not properly treated undermines resilience and can consign people to vicious poverty cycles.

Governance

• Lacking democracy in poor countries.
• Weak rule of law can discourage investment and thus perpetuate poverty.
• Failure by governments to provide essential infrastructure worsens poverty.
• Poor access to affordable education traps individuals and countries in cycles of poverty.

Demographics and Social Factors

• Overpopulation and lack of access to birth control methods. Note that population growth slows or even become negative as poverty is reduced due to the demographic transition.
• Crime, both white-collar crime and blue-collar crime, including violent gangs and drug cartels.
• Individual beliefs, actions and choices.
• Brain drain

source: wikipedia.org