Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty

1. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty Anwara Begum Ph.D. Director (Research) CIRDAP

2. Poverty and it’s myriad facets • Contents of this discussion: • Poverty redefined and revisited • Multi-dimensionality of poverty • Problems of measuring its’ many facets • Sources of data • The nexus between Poverty and sub-set of migrants: Pavement or Street Dwellers • Child Poverty

3. Poverty redefined, revisited..1.1 • Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being where well-being can be measured by an individual’s possession of income, health, nutrition, education, assets, housing & certain rights in a society. • Poverty is also lack of opportunities, powerlessness and vulnerability. Lack of capacity to access commodities like food or basic needs & an abject absence of capability, creativity, which sustains deprivation and exclusion-from human entitlements

4. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty..2.1 • Poverty is multi-dimensional, irreducible to any one particular dimension- for eg. Income, education, health or social exclusion. Thus it should be measured multi-dimensionally, involving both income and non-income dimensions of well-being. • Imp. To study changes into and out of poverty- it will allow insights into the mechanisms that reduce or reproduce poverty.

5. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty..2.2 • Poverty is synonymous with multi-dimensionality: its heterogenous nature solicits multi-dimensional policy and program interventions- improved well-being • Poverty, when measured through monetary and non-monetary dimension reveals dimensions of inequality

6. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty..2.3 • Inequality is the distribution of attributes, such as income or consumption…… • Inequality between different sexes, between regions, among grps reveals the welfare status and level of vulnerability.

7. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty..2.4 • Vulnerability is defined as the probability or risk today of being in poverty, tomorrow • Vulnerability is a key dimension of well-being since it affects individuals’ behaviour (in terms of investment, production patterns, coping strategies) and their own assessment of particular situations

8. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty..2.5.Descent into poverty • Causes of descent into poverty • Family size increase without concomitant increase in labour • Lack of diversification into more productive non-farm work • Lack of fostering of dev. Of human assets. General decline in natural and financial assets • Crisis, life-cycle factors, structural factors…discrete shocks, natural disasters, ill-health etc.

9. Multi-Dimensional Nature of Poverty..2.6Ascent out of poverty • Reasons for ascent out of poverty: • Fast accumulation of diff. assets esp. human and physical assets • Diversification into higher income yielding non-agricultural assets, • Pooling of hh income from diff sources and adoption of risk-averse strategy • Adopting modern variety rice tech. high value added non rice crop eg. poultry, livestock, fisheries, migration strategy • Combining multiple routes out of poverty

10. Problems of measuring many facets of poverty..3.1. • Populations below poverty line would tend to vary (level and share) with the method of measurement of poverty • Even if one uses CBN method, its application procedure can be different: the base year, the price indices, choice of bundle of goods can give different results

11. Problems of measuring many facets of poverty..3.2. • Calorie requirement and poverty line: survey findings may vary on the actual poverty estimates depending on the poverty line and expenditure • Poverty lines may differ if different calories are used by different studies: so far most ‘lines’ used 2122. Recently 2400 or above are also being suggested

12. Problems of measuring many facets of poverty..3.3. • Qualitative data generation problems • Sampling problems • Interview quality • Respondents’ problems/non-cooperation • Problems in the questionnaire • Mismatch between official data and unofficial data • Lack of interactions between organizations generating data • Lack of coordination of surveys on similar topics • Donors’ support for poverty lacks coordination and continuity… and true for donor agencies as well

13. Problems of measuring many facets of poverty 3.4. • Long gaps between data collection and producing results…reduces relevance, credibility, usefulness-policy blind? • Role of NGO/CSOs… stock should be taken of data available with CSOs, their capacity and usefulness for policy and capacity building, awareness among poor etc.

14. Problems of measuring many facets of poverty..3.5. • Rural and urban has not been differentiated in Bangladesh while India uses separate urban and rural calorie measurements • Consumption pattern of types of food, quantity and quality of nutrition and even requirements (of food) differ between rural and urban areas

15. Sources of data 4.1. • Household based income –consumption surveys (4-5 years interval) • Child-Nutrition Surveys (2-3 years interval • Calorie intake data through Household consumption (calorie consumption) and income surveys • Food balance sheets (calorie availability based on food production?) • Core Welfare Indicators Surveys (CWIQ) in Africa and Pakistan, Indonesia’s SUSENAS: several hundred thousand hhs, rep. at the provincial level since many yrs

16. Sources of data 4.2. • CORE surveys are short surveys with a fixed core and rotating modules (on diff. topics, such as health, education, access to basic services, etc.), that are administered to a large sample (thereby providing representative statistics at the sub-national level), using simple data-collection protocols….useful for Bangladesh?

17. Pavement Dwellers 5.1. • If poorest sections of migrants were properly incorporated in surveys, it seems likely that the findings regarding migrant assimilation would be less positive. • Existence-of-survival of the pavement dwellers, their squalor, poor health and diet, poor education, marginal jobs and earnings.

18. Poverty and Pavement Dwellers, 5.2. • Bilsborrow et al.; (1983) observed that failure to include them in household surveys customarily results in biased samples of in-migrants……an example from the Ecuador migration survey shows that the education level of out-migrants was lower than that found in the urban sample of in-migrants.

19. Child Poverty: Definition 6.1 “Children living in poverty experience deprivation of material, spiritual, & emotional resources needed to survive, develop & thrive, leaving them unable to enjoy their rights, achieve their full potential or participate as full & equal members of society”(UNICEF 2005: State of the World’s Children). Material resources = income, food, access to education & health service, protection from health risks (associated with hard physical work & others). Spiritual resources = stimuli, meaningfulness, expectations, role models, peer relationships. Emotional Supports = love, trust, feelings of acceptance, inclusion, lack of abusive situations. 19

20. Child Deprivation 6.2 • Food • Education • Health • Shelter • Sanitation • Water • Information • Livelihood and Care 20

21. Correlation among Poverty Measures & Poverty Incidence 6.3 • Analysis of correlates of severe child deprivation reveals • About 54% (34 million) children are severely deprived of any one of the six indicators: shelter, sanitation, water, information, education, & health. • About 19% (12 million) children are suffering from at least two severe deprivations. • The more the household head is educated, the less it is likely that the children from the household will face at least one severe deprivation. This is true for facing at least two severe deprivations. 21

22. Livelihood Shocks (Acute, rapid on-set shocks or chronic, long-term stress) Livelihood Options Producing Food Generating Income Protecting Assets Building Assets Converting Assets H S Human Capital Social Capital Political Capital Financial Capital Physical Capital Natural Capital N P Social, Economic and PoliticalContext Improved Livelihood Security Basic Needs & Fundamental Rights F P Livelihoods’ Framework 6.4.

23. Thank You