2. Definition by United Nations
• Fundamentally, poverty is the inability of getting choices
and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means
lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It
means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not
having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on
which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not
having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness
and exclusion of individuals, households and communities.
It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies
living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to
clean water or sanitation
3. Definition by World Bank
• Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and
comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes
and the inability to acquire the basic goods and
services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty
also encompasses low levels of health and education,
poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate
physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient
capacity and opportunity to better one’s life.
4. Another Definition
• Robert McNamara, the former President of the
World Bank, described absolute or extreme
poverty as, "...a condition so limited
by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid
surroundings, high infant mortality, and
low life expectancy as to be beneath any
reasonable definition of human decency"
5. Types of Poverty
1) Absolute Poverty
Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the
deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly
includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, health
care and education.
6. Types of Poverty
Absolute Poverty Lines
These lines reflect the value of the resources needed to maintain a
minimum level of welfare. The aim is to measure the cost
involved in purchasing a basket of essential products (goods and
services), which allow a person to reach minimum levels of
satisfaction in terms of basic needs.
1. The food energy intake method
2. The cost of basic needs method
3. Less than $1 per day method
7. Types of Poverty
Food Energy Intake (FEI)/Caloric Approach
A monetary expenditure necessary to reach the
minimum calorie intake, and it also includes a
minimum expenditure of non-food items)
2350 calories per adult per day
8. Types of Poverty
Less than $1.25 and $2.50 per day
One of these absolute lines that is widely used fixes a
dollar per capita a day as the value of minimum
resources needed for a person
• Now, the World Bank defines extreme poverty as
living on less than US$1.25 (PPP) per day, and
moderate poverty as less than $2 or $5 a day
9. Types of Poverty
The cost of basic needs method
• a poverty line using a basket of products made up of all those
essential goods and services needed to meet the minimum
sustenance requirements in households. The poverty threshold is set
using the monetary value of this basket plus a fixed amount of
money aimed at covering other types of expenditure, such as petrol
or rent. Every household whose income is less than this figure will
be classified as poor.
• The poverty line for 2010-11 is calculated at Rs1745 per adult
equivalent per month
10. Types of Poverty
2) Relative poverty
Views poverty as socially defined and dependent
on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of
income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured
as the percentage of population with income less than
some fixed proportion of median income. There are
several other different income inequality metrics, for
example the Gini coefficient.
11. Indicators For To Measure Poverty
Incidence of poverty (headcount index):
• This is the share of the population whose income or
consumption is below the poverty line, that is, the share of the
population that cannot afford to buy a basic basket of goods.
• Suppose the proportion of the population whose line is Z
[poverty line]
• Suppose we have a population size n in which q people are
poor, then the headcount is defined as
H = q/n
• To be able to do so, we make a critical assumption that all
household members enjoy the same level of well-being. This
assumption may not hold in many situations.
12. Indicators For To Measure Poverty
Poverty gap :
• Is the mean shortfall of the total population from the poverty line expressed
as a percentage of the poverty line. This measure reflects the depth of
poverty as well as its incidence.
• The indicator is often described as measuring the per capita amount of
resources needed to eliminate poverty, or reduce the poor’s shortfall from
the poverty line to zero, through perfectly targeted cash transfers.
PG = 1nƩ[(z – yi) z]
• where the poverty gap (z - yi) is the difference between the poverty
line (z) and income or consumption for those who are poor
13. Characteristics of Poverty
• Effects of poverty also be causes and creating a ―Poverty
cycle‖ operating across multiple levels, individual,
national, global
1. Health : one third of deaths are due to poverty related
causes. . Those living in poverty suffer from life expectancy.
• Almost 90% of maternal deaths during childbirth occur in
Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in
the developed world.
14. (2) Hunger : Rises in the living cost making poor people less able to afford
items. Poor people spend most of the portion of their budget on to food than
richer person.
(3) Education : Poor children are suffering from hunger,
irritability,headache,viral infection, colds. It is safe to state that children who
live at or below the poverty level will have far less success educationally than
children who live above the poverty line.
(4) Housing : Poverty increases the risk of homelessness. Slum-dwellers, who
make up a third of the world's urban population, live in a poverty no better, if
not worse, than rural people, who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the
developing world , according to a report by the United Nations. There are over
100 million street children worldwide.
15. (5) Violence : According to the reports, many women become
victims of trafficking. The most common form of which is
Prostitution as a mean of survival and economic desperation.
• Deterioration of living conditions can often compel children
to abandon school in order to contribute family income.
E.g. Slavery and Human trafficking.
6. Lack of adequate governance
7.Feudalism
8.Poverty and Islamic militancy
9.Inequality and natural disasters
16. Facts About Global Poverty
• Nearly half of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live
on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty (less
than $1.25 a day).
• 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF,
22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
• More than 1 billion people lack adequate access to clean drinking water
and an estimated 400 million of these are children. Because unclean water
yields illness, roughly 443 million school days are missed every year.
• In 2011, 165 million children under the age 5 were stunted (reduced rate of
growth and development) due to chronic malnutrition.
• 870 million people worldwide do not have enough food to eat.
• Preventable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia take the lives of 2
million children a year who are too poor to afford proper treatment.
• As of 2011, 19 million children worldwide remain unvaccinated.
• A quarter of all humans live without electricity — approximately 1.6 billion
people.
