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Topic

No Poverty

Noman Hassan
201860115
Instructor: Mam Maryam Zaheer

BS (Business Economics)

Sociology (SS-304) A

Semester: Fall 2020

Submission Date: 25/03/2021

School of Arts and Social Sciences

GIFT University Gujranwala

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Introduction

The word ‘poverty’ in English has been derived from an old French word
‘poverte’ or in Latin ‘paupertas’. According to the Oxford dictionary, poverty
means “the state of being extremely poor and the state of being inferior in
quality or insufficient in amount”. UN in 1998, argued that poverty in a
statement as a violation of human dignity whereby humans are denied having
choices and opportunities. The World Bank defines poverty as a pronounced
deprivation in well-being and it encompasses various factors.
People living in poverty might have low incomes and therefore unable to
purchase basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty
brings the poor to low levels of health and education, lack of clean water and
sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity
and opportunity to better one’s life.
Another definition of poverty provided by the World Bank’s Participatory
Poverty Assessment includes the perspective of the poor people themselves.
The poor have given five perspectives on poverty:
1) Poverty is complex and it consists of multiple components of facts.
2) Poverty is the deficiency in the basic need of human for example food or
shelter.
3) Poverty leads to the poor being exploited as they do not have a voice, are
powerless and independence.
4) The poor are deprived of essential infrastructures such as clean water,
health facilities and education.
5) Poor people are more concerned about what they own than employment,
and because they lack assets, they are therefore vulnerable.
Poverty in the context of Pakistani society
It is generally accepted that the declining trend in poverty in Pakistan
during the 1970s and 1980s was reversed in the 1990s. Poverty in Pakistan has
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historically been higher in rural than urban areas. Poverty rose more sharply in
the rural areas in the 1990s. Inequality also increased in Pakistan during the
1990s, in both urban and rural areas, which enhanced the negative impact on
poverty of the slowdown in growth during this period. While agriculture is the
predominant activity in rural society. In this regard, institutions that certainly
affect individual preferences are considered. Regions with low poverty are the
essential determinants of social policies as well as political struggles.
Looking at the diagram of Pakistan, institutional structures are
constructing individual preferences. Institutions are trying to work together to
provide future protection to their employees, but it divided the social structure.
Therefore, the state employees or employees belonging to social schemes may
have future protection. However, workers in rural or agricultural fields who do
not meet the criteria to join social schemes do not have future protection.
Pakistan does not have any general or universal social protection system that
covers all of its population. It does not even have an umbrella institution that
would extend social protection and social safety nets to the poor. However,
several programs targeted at improving governance and responsibility of public
institutions to be able to better respond to the needs of the poor.
The current situation in our society
Pakistan’s poverty rate has decreased in recent years. However, the
country’s current economic crisis, mixed with its fight against the COVID-19
pandemic, has put many Pakistani citizens out of jobs. This has further
increased the poverty rate. The government of Pakistan is doing its best to fight
both the COVID-19 pandemic and poverty in Pakistan. So far the government
has provided many social welfare programs at a scale that they have never done
in history until now. There is much more to do for the country to defeat poverty.
Objectives of the study
 To identify the causes and effects of poverty on people in Pakistan.
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 To find out the possible solutions or recommendations to eradicate

poverty based on the causes.
Literature Review
To have a clear picture of poverty, it is necessary to examine it as a
multidimensional phenomenon and capture the actors around it. It is important
to assess the social, economic and political context of a specific country and
examine the practices of different institutions of the state that either tries to
reduce or aggravate poverty. Khan (2001) observed that the scourge of poverty
cuts across ethnic lines, gender, location, age, and income sources. In most
cases, women, children, and people with disabilities suffer more than other
groups. Minority groups, depending on the political context, usually suffer the
most. These religious, cultural, indigenous, or gender-based groups.
Deprivation or poverty can be viewed concerning material possession,
social, cultural, and political aspects of life. Other definitions of poverty
emphasize the resources or space of utility and this view is usually adopted
when using the different versions of the monetary approach. The monetary
approach entails economic growth and resource approaches (Dini & Lippit,
2009). Poverty can also be viewed from a participatory approach. This approach
is the same as social exclusion and capability approaches. It contends that
poverty is a multifaceted condition that has to do with the organization and
structure of power (Dini, 2009).
This approach considers the exclusion of an individual from society as a
source for chronic poverty but mainly focuses on the issues such as not allowing
the poor to participate in policy design, implementation and monitoring as the
principal causes of poverty (Dini, 2009). The participatory approach advocates
for a breakdown of the dominant political structure that serves to exacerbate
poverty so that the system that would be put in place can value local knowledge
and perspectives of the poor (World Bank, 2006).
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The participatory approach recognizes that poverty is aggravated by elites

who ignore local knowledge and adopt a top-down approach to policy-making
and pay no attention to the power of the bottom-up approach (Annamalai et al.,
2016). Sen (1983) associates the definition of poverty with human entitlements.
These are the various bundles of commodities, goods, and services that one has
access, command, and control over. How those entitlements are acquired is
usually considered when defining poverty (Adeyeye & Ajakaiye, 2002).
The entitlements also extend to the availability of the needed goods such
as electricity, house rent, water, food, money, and clothes (Townsend, 1962).
Poverty occurs when some people in a country or society are unable to achieve
a level of material well-being that constitute a minimum standard in society
(Ravillion, 1992). Poverty is also defined in terms of income. In this sense, it
refers to a situation where an individual does not have enough money to satisfy
his/her basic needs simply because such a person is either unemployed or
underemployed (Baylis et al., 2011).
Absolute poverty lines are often based on a measurement of the minimal
consumption of needs and the number of goods needed to fulfil those needs
(Ravallion, 1992). For instance, the World Bank considers people to be poor if
they are living on less than $1.90 (US dollar) per day (Naidoo, 2019).
Causes of poverty
Among the numeral causes of poverty citied in the literature, the following
stand out:
 Political instability and civil strife.
 Corrupt politicians together with the rent-seeking bureaucrats.
 Systematic discrimination and exclusion of some groups based on gender,
age, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, or religion.
 Policies that make access and control of land difficult for certain groups
such as women and the youth.
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 Unfair and ill-defined property laws or the poor enforcement of the laws
in place, especially those about agriculture and the use of natural
resources.
 Economic policies excluding and discriminating against women, youth,
and marginalized groups in their development processes (Khan, 2001;
Kali, 2018; Kali, 2020a).
The World Bank (1996) assessed the scope and nature of poverty in Sub-
Saharan Africa and came out with the following causes:
 Inadequate access to employment.
 Inadequacy of physical assets and minimal access to financial assets by
the poor.
 Low access to the means which support rural agriculture in regions that
are regarded as poor.
 Poor access to markets by the poor who have goods and services to trade.
 The human capital not well endowed due to inadequate access to
education and other facilities.
 The failure to protect natural resource endowments from destruction.
 The inability to access assistance by victims of transitory poverty due to
natural disasters and wars.
 The inadequate participation of the citizens in designing development
programs.
Solutions of Poverty
The causes of poverty are multifaceted hence the solutions to it must take
a multidimensional approach. Its causes are traceable to economic, social, and
political conditions of life. The nature of a political system, the economy of a
country, and socio-cultural aspects should be taken into consideration when a
government designs policy that seeks to combat poverty. Any government that
makes an effort to improve the health care system, education sector, political
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climate, traditional practices, and create employment opportunities is

contributing to poverty reduction strategies and efforts (Stapleford, 1919).
For poverty to be reduced, economic growth must take place. When the
economy is not growing and jobs are not being created, the persistent levels of
poverty among a substantial portion of the population can stifle the possibility
of economic development (Khan, 2001). Also, when the distribution of wealth
and income is unequal and favour a small segment of the population at the
expense and exclusion of a larger population, these dampen the prospects of
economic growth (Khan, 2001; Kali, 2020b). Empirical studies demonstrate that
there is a positive relationship between GDP growth and gender wage inequality
(Seguino, 2000). Income inequality significantly slows down economic growth
and prospects of poverty reduction (Sen, 1983; Seguino, 2000).
Research Methodology
Kumar R. (2018) describes research methodology as a systematic way of
bringing what is sought for to an end. Simply put, it is the way of solving
research problems.
Methods and Procedures
The purpose of this paper is to examine the causes of poverty and
solutions taken to combat it in Pakistan. For this purpose, the data was collected
randomly form of journals, books, reports, internet sources, and newspapers and
employs content analysis to assess the explanations put forward to explain why
Pakistan is poor. The paper views poverty from the monetary approach, the
social exclusion approach, participatory approach, and the capabilities
approach.
The analysis excludes natural and external sources of poverty such as
disasters, geographic factors, and colonialism. The objective of this paper is to
explore the causes of poverty in Pakistan and assess the solutions taken by the
government to reduce poverty in the country. The first part of this study is an
introduction followed by a methodology section and a literature review. The
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subsequent parts present the causes of poverty and strategies put in place to
combat it. The last part of the paper presents the conclusion.
Data Analysis
Pakistan is a large country by area as well as population therefor, facing
poverty for many years. Its population is estimated at 212.48 million with a
65% literacy rate and an achievement of gender parity in many aspects of life.
According to Mokhothu (2004), Basotho view poverty as constituted or defined
by the following:
 Lack of food and clothing
 Unemployment of lack of money
 Lack of livestock and agricultural assets
 Illness, poor metal and physical health
 Having no descent or secure shelter
 Lack of adequate water
The country has a lot of challenges and impediments thwarting it from
fighting poverty. Omole (2003) believe that poverty in Lesotho is caused and
aggravated by:
 Loss of employment
 Low income of family head and members of the family
 The largeness of family size
 Poor economic conditions
These findings showed that the urban areas of Pakistan society have lower
poverty, rather than in rural areas of Pakistan. As a result of fact that the citizens
search for many opportunities of work in the factories, workshops, various
industries, education sectors, and hospitals, on the other hand, there are no such
facilities for rural people. One other reason due to large family size in the cause
of the rural area of poverty.
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Conclusion
The study has highlighted the causes of poverty in Pakistan. It has
explained the dimensions of poverty affecting the country and confined itself to
the causes that are not natural. The findings of the study reveal that the country
embraced some detrimental policies like the SAPs without prior assessment of
their repercussions. Poverty in the country is caused mainly by the
government’s negligence. These disregards of the welfare of citizens have
resulted in high unemployment and dire poverty.
However, the government has maintained some of the gains. Moreover,
the government provides loans to universities to students and has managed to
attain more enrolment of females among males at the universities. Although this
does not translate into equal economic opportunities since females account for
more unemployed citizens while males less unemployment account.
Besides, Pakistan has created a robust social protection system to fight
poverty. Its programme covers child protection which creates a protective
environment for children. It also covers women’s empowerment strategies that
helped it to close the gender gap in education. The government also offers child
grants and old age pension and developed programmes for people living with
disabilities and migrants.
The paper concludes that Pakistan is in the right direction to reducing
poverty through various perspectives like jobs, loans, Ehsas special program,
Benazir Income support and different scholarships to students. The most
appropriate solving method perhaps is to examine the dimensions highlighted
by the poor from the respective location. The root causes of poverty faced by
the community need to be identified so that the efforts to eradicate poverty will
give sustainable progress.
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Annamalai, T. R., Devkar, G., Mahalingam, A., Benjamin, S., Rajan, S. C., &
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Deni, A., & Lippit, V. (2009). Poverty, from Orthodox to Heterodox

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Khan, M. H. (2001). Rural poverty in developing countries: Implications for

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Kumar, R. (2018). Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners.

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