📖 Course: Sustainability Grand Challenges
📚 Programme: MSc Global Business and Sustainability
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"The challenge that remains for the Netherlands, is to resolve this GC through equating opportunities across municipalities" . Poverty among young adults in the Netherlands is an even more complex challenge than perhaps meets the eye. Among other reasons, because there is no universal solution. Solving poverty requires different approaches in different local contexts, whether in urban or rural areas, or in more and less privileged neighborhoods. In this essay, Global Business & Sustainability student Borja Martin Barbera discusses how difficult it will be to tackle youth poverty in the Netherlands as long as it remains a highly unequal matter across municipalities.
“Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.” – Muhammad Ali
To map change, poverty needs to be defined, understood, and addressed. Yet its wickedness, complexity, long-term, and large scale continue to demonstrate that it is, in fact, a sustainable grand challenge (GC). While poverty exists worldwide, the underlying disseminating and propagating factors of poverty can differ by region due to the geological or sociological differences that may exist across nations (OECD, 2016). This paper presents how the eradication of poverty among young adults in the Netherlands is a sustainable GC.
Wickedness
To understand the scale of complexity, the issue of youth poverty in the Netherlands has been analyzed by utilizing the wickedness scale developed by Rittel & Webber (1973), which shows the issue as a wicked problem across almost all of its variables (Appendix A). While poverty has become a common term that describes a fraction of the population, the definition of poverty in the Netherlands differs significantly across different sources. The Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau, for example, considers poverty among the youth in the Netherlands by establishing two reference budgets and assign a monetary value, which is identified as the poverty line (SCP, 2020). However, other perspectives differ from the poverty line, such as that adopted by the National Institute of Statistics, which analyzes poverty not only by household income, but also by the household assets divided between property and debt (CBS, 2019). However, even this latter definition has been criticized by those that believe the definition of poverty should include access to opportunities and mental health indicators (van Gerven, 2021; OECD, 2016). The lack of a definition suggests difficulty in finding definitive solutions for youth poverty. As a characteristic of wicked problems, poverty is not exclusively definable and therefore it has no stopping rule.
Evaluative characteristics of the GC
Grand challenges are defined to have three distinct facets. These facets state grand challenges should be complex, uncertain, and evaluative (Ferraro et al., 2015). The evaluative facet of youth poverty in the Netherlands can vary depending on the frames utilized and the stakeholders involved (Vossen & Gorp., 2017; Ferraro et al., 2015). Its scope includes a multitude of distinct stakeholder groups. While we concentrate on poverty within young adults aged 16-27, policy makers, educational workers, family members, and NGOs have different perspectives on how to confront the notion of poverty among this demographic (Adetiloye & Matthew, 2013). These ontologies differ across different stakeholders and between them. Most young adults in poverty in the Netherlands reside in urban areas, and consist of students and ethnic minorities (van Gerven, 2021; CRRSC, 2009). Yet the perspectives on solutions to poverty that this group may have is very different to the youth in rural areas of the country (van Gerven, 2021). Tine (2017) finds the cognitive difference associated between rural and urban young adults, and recognizes unique solutions are necessary for each case to ensure efficacious support. These needs cross economic, social and political needs, which demonstrates that the issues among young adults are not discretely social, political, or economic (OECD, 2016).
Long term and Large-scale
Intergenerational poverty that exists in the Netherlands continues to be an example of how youth poverty is at large a large scale and long-term GC (Visser, 2019). Poor young adults lack the same opportunities compared to young adults from middle class origins. More specifically, the large scale of spatial segregation in the Netherlands is demonstrated when analyzing the 5-6% lower incomes between youth that grew up in disadvantaged areas and youth that grew up in rather affluent neighborhoods (OECD, 2016). This study also suggests poor neighborhoods have lower quality of public services, that ultimately “undermines opportunities” (OECD, 2016). Teachers for underprivileged youth are said to grade their students based on lower expectations, indicating lower quality education for poor students (van Gerven, 2021). This systematic bias reveals a failure of the municipalities to meet the needs of the poor and to equate the opportunities across neighborhoods. The solutions to these issues often times have delayed effects. Policies to make education equal across neighborhoods, will not have immediate effects, and their improvements and shortcoming will most likely not be visible until the youth is at a working age. The long-term effect of poverty is not only present within the complexity of trial and error of solutions, yet it also is present in the health issues that come as a consequence of being a poor young adult, such as obesity or depression (OECD, 2016; CBS, 2019; van Gerven, 2021). Further complexity arises when analyzing the redistribution of the governments revenue to fit educative and social needs.
Barriers to change
The national government’s system correctly attempts to solve some issues that relate to poverty by allowing municipalities to directly deal with potential solutions, such as debt counselling or by giving out discount vouchers. However, a lot is left to desire to solve the problem. The lack of equal opportunities across municipalities, suggests the educational system has hindered young adults across generations (OECD, 2016). As an imperative part that relates to poverty, the lack of equal opportunity in the Netherlands across poor and rich municipalities is something that continues to act as a barrier to poverty solutions and continues to perpetuate the long-term effect of poverty (OECD, 2016; CBS, 2019i). In addition to the flaws within the system, the shame inflicted on young adults by poverty, can be considered a barrier to the solutions that are attempted to be brought by the municipalities. While debt counseling programs can be beneficial, accessibility to these programs is not enough for individuals to confront their phycological or financial problems, and actively attend them (Reynders et al., 2014; Chase et al., 2013).
After all, poverty among young adults in the Netherlands is a GC, and grand challenges do have solutions. This GC is wicked, evaluative, long-term and of a large scale. The challenge that remains for the Netherlands, is to resolve this GC through equating opportunities across municipalities and helping individuals through their phycological barriers.
References
Adetiloye, K. A., & Matthew, O. (2013). Community Stakeholders' Perspectives on Poverty
Alleviation in a University Town. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention, 3(7), 178-186.
CBS. (Central Bureau of Statistics). (2019). Poverty and social exclusion. The Hague: Central
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CBS. (Centraal Bureau of Statistics). (2019i). Welvaart in Nederland. Armoede en
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Chase, E., & Walker, R. (2013). The co-construction of shame in the context of poverty: Beyond a threat to the social bond. Sociology, 47(4), 739-754.
CRRSC. (City of Rotterdam Regional Steering Committee). (2009). “The City of Rotterdam,
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Ferraro, F., Etzion, D., & Gehman, J. (2015). Tackling grand challenges pragmatically: Robust action revisited. Organization Studies, 36(3), 363-390.
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Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy
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SCP. (Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau).(2020). Kansrijk Armoedebeleid. Central Planbureau. Retrieved from: https://canvas.eur.nl/courses/33315/files/36713113?module_item_id=543060.
Tine, M. (2017). Growing up in Rural vs. Urban poverty: contextual, academic, and cognitive differences. Poverty, Inequality and Policy.
Van Gerven, M. (2021). Sustainability Grand Challenges. Lecture 2. SDG1 Alliantie. [lecture
recording]. Available upon request.
Visser, S. (2019). Mechanisms of and interventions in intergenerational poverty: A literature review. University of Groningen
Vossen, M., & Van Gorp, B. (2017). The battle of ideas about global poverty in the United
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