Poverty and Government Policies
POVERTY: AN
OVERVIEW
STUDY
BY- utkarsh jaimini
ABSTRACT
This paper tries to summarise the current state of knowledge about poverty and identify the agenda for further research. It views chronic poverty in terms of severity, extended duration and multidimensional deprivation. It tries to identify the states and regions that have a high incidence of people with incomes severely below the poverty line so as to focus attention on areas that are spatial poverty traps. Those unable to access even two square meals a day are considered to be the most severely deprived and hunger exists even in the supposedly better parts of India. Policy action is needed to address this. Attention is also drawn to the importance of identifying those who are vulnerable to extreme poverty due to inability to absorb the impact of shocks.
Poverty is the sum total of a multiplicity of factors that include not just income and calorie intake but also access to land and credit, nutrition, health and longevity, literacy and education and safe drinking water, sanitation and other infrastructural facilities. The paper presents and analyses estimates of multidimensional indicators of poverty that reflect human and gender development and empowerment as also infant mortality estimates and female literacy. An attempt is made to see if areas suffering from a high incidence of severe income poverty also suffer deprivation in access to literacy, knowledge, nutrition, voice and infrastructure.
The disproportionately high incidence of chronic poverty among historically marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, the elderly, women and the disabled is analysed. The multiple deprivations suffered by these groups make it harder for them to escape from poverty. The paper briefly looks at policy interventions in the context of poverty reduction as also attempts by communities to demand accountability and transparency in government spending in the name of the poor. It concludes with
OVERVIEW
STUDY
BY- utkarsh jaimini
ABSTRACT
This paper tries to summarise the current state of knowledge about poverty and identify the agenda for further research. It views chronic poverty in terms of severity, extended duration and multidimensional deprivation. It tries to identify the states and regions that have a high incidence of people with incomes severely below the poverty line so as to focus attention on areas that are spatial poverty traps. Those unable to access even two square meals a day are considered to be the most severely deprived and hunger exists even in the supposedly better parts of India. Policy action is needed to address this. Attention is also drawn to the importance of identifying those who are vulnerable to extreme poverty due to inability to absorb the impact of shocks.
Poverty is the sum total of a multiplicity of factors that include not just income and calorie intake but also access to land and credit, nutrition, health and longevity, literacy and education and safe drinking water, sanitation and other infrastructural facilities. The paper presents and analyses estimates of multidimensional indicators of poverty that reflect human and gender development and empowerment as also infant mortality estimates and female literacy. An attempt is made to see if areas suffering from a high incidence of severe income poverty also suffer deprivation in access to literacy, knowledge, nutrition, voice and infrastructure.
The disproportionately high incidence of chronic poverty among historically marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, the elderly, women and the disabled is analysed. The multiple deprivations suffered by these groups make it harder for them to escape from poverty. The paper briefly looks at policy interventions in the context of poverty reduction as also attempts by communities to demand accountability and transparency in government spending in the name of the poor. It concludes with
Cited: in David Gordon, ‘Measuring absolute and overall poverty’, in D. Gordon and P. Townsend (eds.), Breadline Europe: The measurement of poverty, 2000, p4 [ 6 ]. Peter Townsend, Poverty in the United Kingdom, 1979, p31 [ 7 ] Room (ed.), Beyond the Threshold: The Measurement and Analysis of Social Exclusion, 1995 [ 9 ] Reality, Responses, ILO, 1995 [ 10 ] Employment and Opportunity, CASEpaper 4, 1998; [ 11 ] [ 12 ]. European Commission, Joint Report on Social Exclusion summarising the results of the examination of the National Action Plans for Social Inclusion (2003-2005), COM(2003) 773 final, 12 December 2003; [ 19 ]. See Baharaoglu and Kessides, 2002, “Urban Poverty” in World Bank, 2002, A Sourcebook for Poverty Reduction Strategies, Chapter 16. [ 20 ]. See for example B. Abel Smith and P. Townsend, The Poor and the Poorest, 1965. Between 1972 and 1985 the UK Department of Health and Social Security also published the ‘Low Income Families’ series Income Families 1985, DEP 3955, 1998. The series was replaced by ‘Households Below Average Income’ in 1988, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies continued to produce the figures for the House of Welfare policy in Britain: the road from 1945, 1999 [ 23 ]