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Poverty as a public policy concern, whether at the global, national or

community level, is now widely considered to be a multidimensional


problem. Over the last few decades, new perspectives on poverty have
challenged the focus on income and consumption as the defining
condition of poor people. Studies of the problems of poor people and
communities, and of the obstacles and opportunities to improving their
situation, have led to an understanding of poverty as a complex set of
deprivations.

These alternative perspectives have refocused the concept of poverty


as a human condition that reflects failures in many dimensions of
human life – hunger, unemployment, homelessness, illness and health
care, powerlessness and victimization, and social injustice; they all add
up to an assault on human dignity. Strategies to eradicate poverty
require not only economic growth and redistribution but also direct
intervention in many areas such as expanding education, removing
discrimination and securing social injustice; different types of
deprivations in human lives are interrelated and reinforce one another.
For example, lack of education often defines the condition of a poor
person but it is also an obstacle to other important aspects of a
person’s wellbeing, e.g. employment and income, good health and
health care and other basic amenities such as clean water and
sanitation. These are also interrelated with discrimination and lack of
access to justice.

INCOME POVERTY:

Income is a key concept in almost all definitions and studies of


poverty; however, ‘income’ is an extremely difficult concept to define
and measure. The term is sometimes used loosely to refer only to the
main component of monetary income for most households – that is,
wages and salaries or business income. Others use the term more
widely to include all receipts including lump-sum receipts and receipts
that draw on the household’s capital. Much of the debate has centered
on whether:

• Income should include only receipts that are recurrent (that is,
exclude large and unexpected, typically one – off, receipts);
• Income should only include those components that contribute to
current economic well-being, or extend also to those that
contribute to future well-being;

• Whether the measure of income should allow for the


maintenance of the value of net worth.
Poverty and social exclusion in Britain, The millennium survey Edited by Christina
Pantazis, David gordan and Ruth Levitas, the Policy press University of Bristol,
January 2006

The first of annual Opportunity for all (OFA) reports in 1999 on tackling
poverty and social exclusion defined poverty as follows:

Poverty affects different aspects of people’s lives, existing when


people are denied opportunities to work, to learn, to live healthy and
fulfilling lives, and to live out their retirement years in security. Lack of
income, access to good-quality health, education and housing, and the
quality of the local environment all affect people’s well-being. Our view
of poverty covers all these aspects.

Income poverty happens when a household takes in less than one US


dollar per day. This means that people will not have enough food or
medicine and they will have poor clothes and houses. Income poverty
is due to people not having access to money or other assets. If people
do not have any other assets like land to grow their own food, then
income poverty can result in stunted growth and early death.

The best way to reduce income poverty is to encourage and support


the development of effective businesses (small, medium and large)
which make good use of our natural resources and talents to create
wealth and jobs.

Different people think about poverty in different ways. Some people


think that poverty is about being able to buy and sell but other people
think about getting a fair share of education and health care or about
being given respect, and having some influence over what happens in
their life. Because of these differences it is useful to think about two
main types of poverty – they are,

• Income poverty
• Non-income poverty

Leads to income poverty are:

 The unemployment

 Over population

 Inability to meet high standards of living

 Inadequate education employment opportunities

 Environmental degradation

 Certain economic and demographic trends and Welfare


incentives

Key Facts on Poverty Reduction

• 27.5 percent of Indians live below the national income poverty line

• More than 60 percent of women are chronically poor, as are 43


percent of Scheduled Tribes and 36 percent of Scheduled Caste
groups

• More than 90 percent of the overall workforce is employed in the


informal economy; 96 percent of women are in the informal
economy

• 48.6 percent of farmer households are in debt, and only 27 percent


have access formal credit

• 296 million people are illiterate and 233 million are undernourished

• 254 per 100,000 live births is the maternal mortality rate and is an
indicator not only of the quality of maternal health care services
but also of the level of empowerment of women.
Sources: Poverty Estimates for 2004-2005, Government of India; Report of the 11th Plan
Working Group on Poverty Alleviation Programmes, Planning Commission, 2006; Report on
the conditions and promotion of livelihoods in the unorganized sector, National Commission
for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS), 2007;11th Five-Year Plan 2007-2012,
Volume 1- Inclusive Growth, Planning Commission, 2008; Human Development Report
2007/2008, United Nations Development Programme, 2007; Maternal Mortality in India, 1997-
2003, Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, 2006

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