TATA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

MA IN SOCIAL SCIENCE
POVERTY AND INEQUALITY: APPROACHES AND
MEASURES

ASSESSMENT-1

V. SAI KOUSHIK

SEMESTER: 3
POVERTY ASSESSMENT

Poverty can be defined in various multi dimensional ways but the core element of the concept poverty
relates to the income levels of an individual. There are various factors which are the part of poverty that
makes the individual or a section of society to remain under the poverty line access to limited resources
and not having enough capability to achieve a better life, better education and health management can all
cause the people to remain under the poverty line. The objective of the various approaches to assess the
poverty is to make the state or the individuals to make a better way and interventions to reduce the
poverty by increasing in the income generation and access to resources for a sustainable life.

1. MONETARY APPROACH: The monetary approach is basically defined in a way that the
consumption levels of the individuals depend upon their income levels. The approach assesses the
poverty by drawing a line to the individuals at their income levels people who did not meet the
poverty index line. This might fluctuate because the income levels of the individual may increase
or decrease in a period of time and this cannot make a base to consider individuals under the
poverty line.
2. CAPABILITY APPROACH: Capability approach which was defined by the Amartya sen says
that the capability and the resources should be available to the individual to overcome the
problems of low level incomes. The access to certain resources will make the people to live a
quality of life and therefore makes a way to live out of their freedoms and can generate the
growth levels to their needs and enjoys a sustainable life.
3. PARTICIPATORY APPROACH: The approach assesses the life of the individuals depending
upon their socio-economic participation and the way of they are leading in the section of their
society. The factors that are need to empower the individuals and the section of the poor are
needed to be developed so in that case there should be enough participation from them to
overcome the poverty levels.
4. SOCIAL EXCLUSION: The social exclusion approach explains the situation or the process
where the individuals who are excluded from the society by so that the benefits that are achieved
in that society cannot be enjoyed by them due to their limitations over the society and the
practices that hold them back to not achieve better goals. It is nothing much related to a being of
right that should everyone hold in order to maintain a better life style. There should be
opportunities created to everyone irrespective of ant caste, religion or gender.

The major differences in the each approach are related on how they work at an individual level or
the section of society that should be included. Monetary approach basically workouts on the
individual as it focus on the getting good prices or wages to the poor in order to overcome their
poor lifestyle. The capability approach also focuses on the individual capability and the
availability of resources that make the individual to choose the resources and maintain a quality
life. The participatory approach is much more related to the desicion making of the individual
whom should maintain good socio-economic relationships and to participate more in the
economic well developed activities to achieve a better human life. The social exclusion refers on
 the base of different exclusions that are like disability or the gender or caste that related to the
social and political environment. There should be a resistance in the people and all the barriers
must be excluded so that anyone can enjoy the benefits that are in the society.

PARTICIPATORY POVERTY ASSESSMENT (PPA): The PPA which was conducted in the
sohenkhera village, chittorgrah district of Rajasthan was to conduct a field work by collecting qualitative
and quantitative data on their livelihood basis and also the demographic profile of the individuals. This
will help them to assess the complete the work by including all the households into one cluster and then
by dividing them into different groups according to their income levels.

The information which was gathered from the households is directly comes under the primary data and
then there was some secondary data collected from the additional resources which are Agriculture
Department, Revenue Department, Panchayat Office, Veterniary Officer. This additional data made the
study to list the different individuals into different categories as then the wealth ranking can be made. So
the information which was collected by the team from the key informants was analysed and made four
categories they are:

1. Rich
2. Medium
3. Poor
4. Very poor.

The data collected from the primary sources and the secondary sources made the team to
divide such categories and there was understood that most of the people in the village are depended upon
the agriculture and allied activities that are related to agriculture. The data which was analysed and made
out some points from it, as there are different sections of people in the village the landholdings by the rich
are 9 times more the poor households the access to various resources and the cattle breeding are much
more easy to the rich category people. In this case there are less income levels to the poor and very poor
category people so that there are more income inequalities in the village. It also has to be observed that
most of the poor households are indebted to the large farmers and other money lenders which makes them
to undergo more problems. The livelihood analysis made the team to understand the exact situation in the
village by engaging various factors such as proper house, landholdings, crisis management and the cattle
available to them.

CASE STUDY RELATED TO THE POVERTY ASSESSMENT MADE IN CHINA AND INDIA:

The study deals with the different approaches made to collect the data from various sources that are later
related with the socio-economic participation of the people and their income levels. China is a pre
dominating country where the GDP levels are at a higher level because of the participation of the urban is
more and the investment levels are better than the rural this makes the urban people to make more savings
because of the resources that they are getting is in better means. It is observed that there are much urban-
rural gap was raised in between them, since the income levels are different in each other way the other
sources of free medical checkup, school pensions and the living allowances are not available to the rural
people. This has led the rural people to socially excluded from the society itself. There are regional
inequalities occurred as there was growth in the country’s GDP but the poverty reduction was still makes
the first place to achieve complete development in the country. The country’s structural reforms are not in
a better place to reduce the poverty the policies that are taken by the country did not meet the inclusion of
all the people into one cluster. There are fur approaches which are taken to assess the poverty in a set of
rural households in the Yunnan province. They are basically the monetary approach, PPA and the use of
various multi dimensional factors to calculate the poverty levels.

1. The monetary approach was conducted by taking all the households into the
survey and collected the primary data related to the individuals. Then wealth
ranking was made accordingly.
2. The participatory approach was also conducted and observed in different ways
that how much participation was made in the village, non-participants
observation and the data collection of local economic and social situation.
3. There are different key findings that are listed out from the information collected
through the structured and semi-structured interviews. It is observed that
different approaches had resulted in different percentages in calculating the
poverty. This is because of the each approach has its own way in calculating the
data, where as the monetary approach people with no formal employment treats
the household under poor and the same participatory approach people with
smaller households and less land holdings are considered to be poor this is
because of the estimation of poor in different dimensional ways.

MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY AND IDENTIFICATION OF POOR HOUSEHOLDS: A

CASE FROM KERALA, INDIA:

There are different multidimensional approaches to identify the poor but the GOI because of the expert’s
recommendation used indicator method for the poverty estimation and list them into the BPL. There are a
total of 13 indicators which are to be identified from each household level they are size of landholding,
type of house, availability of clothing, food security, sanitation, ownership of consumer durables, literacy
Status, status of labor, means of livelihood, status of children, type of indebtedness, reasons for migration
and assistance preferred from the government. The approach may not be effective because of the income
based approach might not give results in a efficient way. The Kerala Government always used
multidimensional methods of approach to identify the poor there are different categories which are need
to be satisfy each individual to outcome from the poverty line like food, security, housing, water,
sanitation and income sources if any of them at least four categories are not meet then the individual/the
household comes under the poverty. The processes of identifying the poor are firstly done by the local
data collection and compare the data with the BPL at the national level.

1. The identification of the poor in the Kerala by using different multidimensional methods was
collected through the local participation and that where the Panchayats and the other village heads
are participated. The decentralized system of Kerala made the local bodies strengthen and made
them to take decisions at their own.
2. The feature of collecting data through the local methods is that there will be community
participation and all the households are included and the involvement will be more through such
process. Then there will be a ranking method where the local data is compared with the BPL
 scores and will measure each and different household’s income levels by compared with BPL
data.
3. The local method of identify the poor is then categorized into different forms they are likely to be
 Very poor
 Poor
 Non-poor/better off
 Secure-well off.
4. The wealth ranking may will identify the poor households as it is an participatory approach and
the various methods may not able to identify it. The social indicators which are included to
identify the poverty was the better and efficient one as the vulnerable situations which are faced
by the poor should be identified by the Government and should consider the under the poverty.
The Kerala local method by then comparing the local collected data with the BPL at national
level have differences in between them as there was a degree of convergence in this category is
limited due to the BPL does not have any poverty cut-off.
5. The three methods which are used here is that the BPL method (indicators), the local method
(livelihood insecurity) and the Kerala method which focus on the basic needs and necessities.

CONCLUSION:

There are different ways of approaches that are there to assess the poverty as we went through four
different ways and also through some multidimensional approaches which are limited to the state and
some at the national level. There are basic differences in each approach as some of them focus on the
individual some are targeted to a section of society. In the first example the Rajasthan case the
participatory approach was used to identify the poor but the inclusion of various indicators that are
included in the Kerala method can be suggested to the Rajasthan case where the exact scenario can be
understand but the comparison with the other methods would be a better one to address the household
which comes under the poverty. The social indicators which are required to the individuals for daily
purpose should be assessed so that the income levels can be compared and any inequalities identified can
be shown. The process of assessing the poverty through these approaches should be participatory more
because the individuals can be involved more in the process so that the level of data collection would be
easier without any structured interviews. The probability of identifying the poor is much more in the
Kerala than that is compared with the China’s assessment to poverty because the formulated structure and
the policies are way differed from our country and the data that collected is not assessed in a better
manner and the strategies to reduce the poverty also should be make better. The GDP levels are may be a
high but the income inequalities are also at a higher level in china.

(BEJOY K. THOMAS, july 2009)

(M.V. Sajeev1, 2012 june)

(Ghosh, January 2010)

(Rahman, 2013).