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Book No. – 17 (Sociology)
Book Name – Sociology (Yogesh Atal)
What’s Inside the Chapter? (After Subscription)
1. POVERTY OF NATIONS
2. POVERTY WITHIN A NATION: THE POOR REGIONS AND THE POOR FAMILIES
3. HOW TO IDENTIFY THE POOR?
4. MEASURING POVERTY: CONCEPTS AND METHODS
4.1. UNDP MEASURES FOR POVERTY
4.2. MEASURES EMPLOYED IN THE COUNTRIES-IN-TRANSITION
4.3. POVERTY LINE MEASURE IN INDIA
5. FINAL COMMENT
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LANGUAGE
Poverty and the Poor
Yogesh Atal
Chapter – 16
Table of Contents
- Societies distinguish between the rich and the poor, which are relative terms.
- A rich person in a poor society may be considered poor when compared to a richer society.
- Poverty can be understood at the level of a region or an individual family. The poverty of a region affects many families, but families can move in or out of poverty.
- Factors such as education, occupation change, migration, and charity can help families escape poverty.
- The strategies to address poverty of regions differ from those needed to address individual family poverty.
- The improvement of a region impacts everyone, but benefits are often unequal, with the rich exploiting resources.
- Families share available resources, and a nuclear unit may improve its situation but not share income within a joint family.
- Poverty of an individual (e.g., a widow or bachelor) signifies status as a non-familial unit.
- Relative poverty differs from absolute poverty, where the latter refers to the destitute lacking basic survival needs.
- Poverty of families refers to the lack of resources for survival, while societal poverty reflects a society’s overall economic condition.
- Societies are classified as rich, poor, or developing, but there are pockets of affluence and poverty within these categories.
- Poverty within a rich society may still lead to families being considered poor compared to wealthier societies.
- The World Summit for Social Development (1995) recognized the global prevalence of poverty, emphasizing area-specific strategies for development.
- In India, poverty eradication programmes are designed based on caste or tribe as units, focusing on Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
- Different regions in India are classified as rich or poor in terms of their natural endowment.
- India was once described as a ‘rich country inhabited by poor people’, meaning the country has resources that have not been properly used to eliminate poverty.
- Special packages are designed for poor regions in India, though not all in a poor region are necessarily poor.
- Poverty is multidimensional, influenced by economic, social, psychological, cultural, and political factors.
- People may be born in poverty and remain poor, while others may become poor due to external circumstances like war, natural disasters, or loss of business.
- Poverty solutions cannot be generic; strategies for poverty eradication need to be specific to the situation and society.
POVERTY OF NATIONS
- International concern on poverty is linked to development.
- Countries are classified as Developed, Developing, Underdeveloped, and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
- Priority for international assistance is given to LDCs due to their severe poverty and developmental challenges.
- In 2001, the United Nations created the Office of the High Representative for LDCs, Land-Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDs).
- LDCs are defined as low-income countries with long-term growth handicaps such as low human resource development and structural weaknesses.
- Criteria for LDC status include:
- Gross National Income (GNI) per capita: The threshold for inclusion is $745, and graduation is set at $900.
- Human Assets Index (HAI): Combines indicators for health, nutrition, and education, with an inclusion threshold of 58 and graduation threshold at 64.
- Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI): Measures risk from exogenous shocks, combining indicators such as population size, remoteness, and agricultural dependency.
- There are 49 LDCs: 33 from Africa, 15 from Asia and the Pacific, and 1 from Latin America.
- Poverty in these countries is not universal, and elite individuals in these regions may not be poor.
- Countries-in-Transition, such as those from Eastern Europe, now acknowledge poverty after denying it during the communist era.
- The transition from socialism to capitalism in Eastern Europe has led to a growth in poverty.
- Income poverty in Eastern Europe has increased, with 120 million people living below $4/day.
- Human costs of the transition included falling wages, growing crime, and loss of social protection.
- The UNDP Human Development Report (2009) indicates that Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) faced the greatest deterioration in poverty.
- In the socialist era, poverty was not recognized, and people were viewed as victims of capitalist systems or temporary workers.
- Poverty studies were neglected, as poverty was seen as denial of the system’s perfection.
- The collapse of socialism led to a recognition of poverty and a shift to market economies, resulting in greater poverty in Russia and other former Soviet Union states.
- Poverty in Eastern Europe is increasing across all indicators, while in developing countries, the number of poor is rising, but their percentage in the population is decreasing.
- Poverty in regions within a country varies and can be rated on a poverty scale.
- Regional backwardness can be measured by development indicators such as infrastructure and economic conditions.
- Regional development creates favorable conditions for poverty alleviation, but region-specific strategies are needed for poverty eradication, rather than focusing on ethno-specific strategies.