Tania Shaheen Introduction to development economics BBA-3

FA13-BS (BA)-019 Assignment no. # 02 December 21, 2014.

To understand poverty through its indicators and dimensions

Poverty is a situation in which people are deprived of basic facilities like health, education,
nutrition and standards of living. Basically poverty is a relative term that is it is an
understanding developed by comparison of one person with another. Measuring the poverty is a
complex process because it is a relative term and cannot be calculated statistically. However
poverty line has been drawn to measure whether any person lies above or below the poverty line
and for Pakistan poverty line is at $ 1.25 per day. Anyone having income below $1.25 per day is
poor that is living below the poverty line. There are different dimensions and indicators of
poverty through which we can measure the poverty like household capital (education and health),
labor, household assets, social relations, household relations, standards of living, opportunity,
income, consumption, and nutrition, availability of basic necessities, empowerment and security.
Given below is a case study to examine the indicators and dimensions of poverty. Samina is 40
years-old women. She is a widow and lives in a village in Mansehra with her two daughters. Her
little daughter got affected by polio because she lives in backward area and facilities of polio
drops were not available to her. Samina’s family owns neither land nor their own house. She
lives in a small hut consisting of only one room without any toilet. They do not have clean water
for drinking. Her husband died in 2006 and her husband was working in the field of a local
farmer. She works on the fields of the same local farmer; who paid her only a small amount as a
wage. The farmer gives her 2500 rupees monthly as a wage. Nowadays she is earning her living
by working on fields. In their breakfast they use plain tea or simple chapatti left over from dinner
and even sometime they have nothing to eat. The field in which she works is at a distance of one
hour. She feels sad for herself for being uneducated. She desired to be an educated girl who
could be able to live a respectful life but due to unavailability of education facility, she and her
daughters remained uneducated. She is living in a miserable condition without any facility and
security. She lives in a house which is not furnished well; no bed, no matrices they use to sleep
on land, no electricity, no fuel for burning, she use woods (bushes) as a fuel for cooking the food
and those woods are collected by her elder daughter as little one is unable to take a single step.
The hut in which she live is owned by the farmer to whom she worked as a labor and farmer
gave this hut to her up till she is working in his fields. She wishes to have her own house and
wanted to live a life in which basic facilities are available.

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Tania Shaheen Introduction to development economics BBA-3
FA13-BS (BA)-019 Assignment no. # 02 December 21, 2014.

If we analyze the Samina’s life there are a lot of problems. She is deprived of education and
health; as she regrets upon herself because she wanted to study but due to unavailability of basic
facilities like education she remained uneducated and is living in a miserable condition. As for as
Samina’s income is concerned, her income is very low because in 2500 rupees she will have to
manage food, day to day basic commodities, homeopathic medicines and even sometime clothes
for herself and daughters. She does not have access to the health facility and in case of any
illness their major reliance is upon herbs that is homeopathic medicines rather than the
allopathic medicines. As for as household assets are concerned, they lack basic necessities like
unavailability of clean drinking water, and they do not have any assets which could help them for
maintaining their life. Food is also a good indicator of analyzing the situation. Samina’s family
does not have enough food for themselves and even sometime they have nothing to eat. As for as
empowerment is concerned, in the Samina’s village most of the people are against the women
work and they do not have good remarks about the Samina’s family and this thing act as a hurdle
for Samina. Instead of giving appreciation to her for maintaining their lives without anyone help,
they taunt at her and doubt her character. Samina and her daughters have thin physic with dull
pale faces and this is due to minimum calorie intake, they do not have sufficient food for
themselves. They are living in hand to mouth condition. As for as toilet is concerned, they do not
have access to toilet and they use side areas for toilet purpose. Due to this their lives are affected
because of not using an appropriate toilet and this causes serious diseases. As they live in a
backward area, far from the city so Samina has minimal level of opportunity because she had
two daughters especially little daughter who is unable to walk so she cannot do any work far
from the house. She has to take care of her daughters and cannot leave them alone so she is not
able to adopt any kind of job far from the house and in village the only work opportunity for her
is working in the fields so she has minimal level of opportunities to make their lives better. Their
standard of living is very poor; they are deprived of the basic facilities like availability of clean
drinking water, proper sanitation system, cooking fuel, security and many more. They are living
a miserable life. As for as social relations are concerned, behavior of Samina’s neighbors is not
well/good because they do not like, that Samina being a women work in the field and due to this
most of the time they avoid Samina and her daughters as they are not a part of their society. By
analyzing the overall situation we came to know that Samina is living poor life and is deprived
from basic facilities.