Poverty

Presented By :
Nupur Jaiswal
1805140014
BBALLB(H)
Poverty is the deprivation of food, shelter, money
and clothing when people can’t satisfy their
basic needs. Poverty can be understood simply
as a lack of money or more broadly in terms of
barriers to everyday human life.
According to Mobile Orshansky who developed
the poverty measurements used by the U.S.
government, “ Poor is to be deprived of those
goods, services and pleasures which others around
us take for granted.”
According to David Kurten , Poverty also involve
social disintegration and environmental
degradation which he describe as forming the
threefold human crisis in the world today.
Poverty is the other economic problem
facing most of the
nations in the world. There is no unique
definition of poverty.
This is based on the national definition as well as
the international standards of US $1/day/person
and US $2/day/person. Lately poverty definition is
changed to US $4/day/person.
 Types Of
Poverty
(1) Absolute Poverty : (Destitution) It refers to the
state of severe deprivation of basic
human needs.

(2) Relative Poverty : It is defined contextually as

Economic inequality in location or society in
which people live.
 Poverty line
 The poverty threshold or poverty line is the
minimum level of incomedeemed adequate in a given
country.
 In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or
common understanding of the poverty line is significantly
higher in developed countries than in developing
countries.
 The common international poverty line has in the past
been roughly $1 a day. In 2008, the World Bank came out
with a revised figure of $1.25 at 2005 purchasing-power
parity (PPP).
 Determining the poverty line is usually done by
finding the total cost of all the essential resources that
an average human adult consumes in one year.
 The largest of these expenses is typically the rent
required to live in an apartment, so
historically, economists have paid particular attention
to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong
poverty line affector.
 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.
 According to the World Health Organization, hunger
and malnutrition
are the single gravest threats to the world's public health
and malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child
mortality , present in half of all cases.
Almost 90% of maternal deaths during childbirth
occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to
less than 1% in the developed world.
(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.
• Poor children have a great deal less healthcare and
this ultimately results in many absences from the
academic year.
• Additionally, poor children are much more likely to
suffer from hunger, fatigue, irritability, headaches,
ear infections, flu, and colds. These illnesses could
potentially restrict a child or student's focus and
concentration.
(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.
 (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.
 Measures of poverty
There are Various measures of the extent of
poverty .
 The head count index.
 The poverty gap index.
 The squared poverty gap (poverty severity) index.
 Head count index
• The most widely used measure is the headcount
index.
• It simply measures the proportion of the
population that is counted as poor.

Head count index = No. of poor

/Total no. of
p
o
p
u
 Significance
The most common method of measuring and
reporting poverty is the headcount ratio, given as the
percentage of population that is below the poverty
line.
 One of the undesirable features of the headcount
ratio is that it ignores the depth of poverty; if the
poor becomes poorer, the headcount index does not
change.
Poverty gap index provides a clearer perspective on
the depth of poverty.
 Poverty Reduction
 Increasing supply of basic needs.
 Increasing supply of food and other goods.
 Increasing supply of healthcare and education,
water and energy utilities.
 Removing constraints on govt. services
 Reversing brain drains.
 Controlling overpopulation.
 Increasing personal income.