Poverty

An example of extreme poverty in this Slum in Jakarta, Indonesia

Poverty is the lack of basic human needs, such as clean water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter, because of the inability to afford them.^[1][2] This is also referred to as absolute poverty or destitution. Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country, or compared to worldwide averages. About 1.7 billion people live in absolute poverty; before the industrial revolution, poverty had mostly been the norm.^[3][4]

Poverty reduction has historically been a result of economic growth as increased levels of production, such as modern industrial technology, made more wealth available for those who were otherwise too poor to afford them.^[4][5] Also, investments in modernizing agriculture and increasing yields is considered the core of the antipoverty effort, given three-quarters of the world's poor are rural farmers.^[6][7]

Today, continued economic development is constrained by the lack of economic freedoms. Economic liberalization includes extending property rights, especially to land, to the poor, and making financial services, notably savings, accessible.^[8][9][10] Inefficient institutions, corruption and political instability can also discourage investment. Aid and government support in health, education and infrastructure helps growth by increasing human and physical capital.^[4]

Causes

Scarcity of basic needs

Hardwood surgical tables are commonplace in rural Nigerian clinics.

Before the industrial revolution, poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as economies produced little, making wealth scarce.^[3] In Antwerp and Lyon, two of the largest cities in western Europe, by 1600 three-quarters of the total population were too poor to pay taxes.^[11] In 18th century England, half the population was at least occasionally dependent on charity for subsistence.^[12] In modern times, food shortages have been reduced dramatically in the developed world, thanks to agricultural technologies such as nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides and new irrigation methods.^[13][14] Also, mass production of goods in places such as China has made what were once considered luxuries, such as vehicles or computers, inexpensive and thus accessible to many who were otherwise too poor to afford them.^[15][16]

Rises in the costs of living make poor people less able to afford items. Poor people spend a greater portion of their budgets on food than richer people. As a result poor households, and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in food prices. For example in late 2007 increases in the price of grains^[17] led to food riots in some countries^[18][19][20]. The World Bank warned that 100 million people were at risk of sinking deeper into poverty.^[21] Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by drought and the water crisis.^[22][23][24] Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields.^[25] Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded.^[26][27] In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to UNU's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.^[28]

Health care can be widely unavailable to the poor. The loss of health care workers emigrating from impoverished countries has a damaging effect. For example, an estimated 100,000 Philippine nurses emigrated between 1994 and 2006.^[29] There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Ethiopia.^[30]

Overpopulation and lack of access to birth control methods drive poverty^[31][32][33] The world's population is expected to reach nearly 9 billion in 2040.^[34] However, the reverse is also true, that poverty causes overpopulation as it gives women little power to plan childhood, have educational attainment, or a career.^[35]

Barriers to opportunities

Street children sleeping in Mulberry Street - Jacob Riis photo New York, United States of America (1890)

Homeless people living in cardboard boxes in Los Angeles, California.

The unwillingness of governments and feudal elites to give full-fledged property rights of land to their tenants is cited as the chief obstacle to development.^[36] This lack of economic freedom inhibits entrepreneurship among the poor.^[5] New enterprises and foreign investment can be driven away by the results of inefficient institutions, notably corruption, weak rule of law and excessive bureaucratic burdens.^[4][5] Lack of financial services, as a result of restrictive regulations, such as the requirements for banking licenses, makes it hard for even smaller microsavings programs to reach the poor.^[37]

It takes two days, two bureaucratic procedures, and $280 to open a business in Canada while an entrepreneur in Bolivia must pay $2,696 in fees, wait 82 business days, and go through 20 procedures to do the same.^[5] Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created.^[5] In India before economic reforms, businesses had to bribe government officials even for routine activities, which was a tax on business in effect.^[4]

Corruption, for example, in Nigeria, led to an estimated $400 billion of the country's oil revenue to be stolen by Nigeria's leaders between 1960 and 1999.^[38][39] Lack of opportunities can further be caused by the failure of governments to provide essential infrastructure.^[40][41].

Opportunities in richer countries drives talent away, leading to brain drains. This is mainly caused by richer countries' restrictions on Freedom of Movement of the poor, uneducated class. Entry visas are granted with much higher probability to the rich and educated of developing countries. Brain drain has cost the African continent over $4 billion in the employment of 150,000 expatriate professionals annually.^[42] Indian students going abroad for their higher studies costs India a foreign exchange outflow of $10 billion annually.^[43]

Poor health and education severely affects productivity. Inadequate nutrition in childhood undermines the ability of individuals to develop their full capabilities. Lack of essential minerals such as iodine and iron can impair brain development. 2 billion people (one-third of the total global population) are affected by iodine deficiency. In developing countries, it is estimated that 40% of children aged 4 and younger suffer from anemia because of insufficient iron in their diets. See also Health and intelligence.^[44]

Similarly substance abuse, including for example alcoholism and drug abuse can consign people to vicious poverty cycles. Infectious diseases such as Malaria and tuberculosis can perpetuate poverty by diverting health and economic resources from investment and productivity; malaria decreases GDP growth by up to 1.3% in some developing nations and AIDS decreases African growth by 0.3-1.5% annually.^[45][46][47]

War, political instability and crime, including violent gangs and drug cartels, also discourage investment. Civil wars and conflicts in Africa cost the continent some $300 billion between 1990 and 2005.^[48] Eritrea and Ethiopia spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the war that resulted in minor border changes.^[49] Shocks in the business cycle affect poverty rates, increasing in recessions and declining in booms. Cultural factors, such as discrimination of various kinds, can negatively affect productivity such as age discrimination, stereotyping,^[50] gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and caste discrimination.^[51]

Max Weber and the modernization theory suggest that cultural values could affect economic success.^[52][53] However, researchers have gathered evidence that suggest that values are not as deeply ingrained and that changing economic opportunities explain most of the movement into and out of poverty, as opposed to shifts in values.^[54]

Effects of poverty

Again in a developed nation council houses in Seacroft, Leeds, UK have been deserted due to poverty and high crime.

The effects of poverty may also be causes, as listed above, thus creating a "poverty cycle" operating across multiple levels, individual, local, national and global.

Health

Hunger, disease, and less education describe a person in poverty. One third of deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes: in total 270 million people, most of them women and children, have died as a result of poverty since 1990.^[55] Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger or even starvation and disease.^[56] Those living in poverty suffer lower 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.^[57]

Every year nearly 11 million children living in poverty die before their fifth birthday. 1.02 billion people go to bed hungry every night.^[58] Poverty increases the risk of homelessness.^[59] There are over 100 million street children worldwide.^[60] Increased risk of drug abuse may also be associated with poverty.^[61]

According to the Global Hunger Index, South Asia has the highest child malnutrition rate of the world's regions.^[62] Nearly half of all Indian children are undernourished,^[63] one of the highest rates in the world and nearly double the rate of Sub-Saharan Africa.^[64] Every year, more than half a million women die in pregnancy or childbirth.^[65] Almost 90% of maternal deaths occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in the developed world.^[66]

Women who have children born in poverty cannot nourish the children efficiently with the right prenatal care. They may also suffer from disease that may be passed down to the child through birth. Asthma is a common problem children acquire when born into poverty.

Education

Great Depression: man lying down on pier, New York City docks, 1935.

Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This often is a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children. In the US educational system, these children are at a higher risk than other children for retention in their grade, special placements during the school’s hours and even not completing their high school education.^[67] There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. For children with low resources, the risk factors are similar to excuses such as juvenile delinquency rates, higher levels of teenage pregnancy, and the economic dependency upon their low income parent or parents.^[67]

Families and society who submit low levels of investment in the education and development of less fortunate children end up with less favorable results for the children who see a life of parental employment reduction and low wages. Higher rates of early childbearing with all the connected risks to family, health and well-being are majorly important issues to address since education from preschool to high school are both identifiably meaningful in a life.^[67]

Poverty often drastically affects children’s success in school. A child’s “home activities, preferences, mannerisms” must align with the world and in the cases that they do not these students are at a disadvantage in the school and most importantly the classroom.^[68] Therefore, 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.^[68] These illnesses could potentially restrict a child or student’s focus and concentration.

Housing

Afghan girl begging in Kabul.

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.^[69]

Most of the children living in institutions around the world have a surviving parent or close relative, and they most commonly entered orphanages because of poverty.^[70] Experts and child advocates maintain that orphanages are expensive and often harm children’s development by separating them from their families.^[70] It is speculated that, flush with money, orphanages are increasing and push for children to join even though demographic data show that even the poorest extended families usually take in children whose parents have died.^[70]

Violence

According to a UN report on modern slavery, the most common form of human trafficking is for prostitution, which is largely fueled by poverty.^[71][72] In Zimbabwe, a number of girls are turning to prostitution for food to survive because of the increasing poverty.^[73] In one survey, 67% of children from disadvantaged inner cities said they had witnessed a serious assault, and 33% reported witnessing a homicide.^[74] 51% of fifth graders from New Orleans (median income for a household: $27,133) have been found to be victims of violence, compared to 32% in Washington, DC (mean income for a household: $40,127).^[75]

Drug abuse

Unemployment and distance from rural areas are where most drug abuse occurs. Drug abuse can result in a community shouldering the impact of many nefarious acts such as stealing, killing, theft, sexual assault, and prostitution. Drug abuse is synonymous with poor performance in school & work, and a general malaise of intra-personal intelligence. People who have abused drugs and have spent all of their money buying substances—i.e. heroin, alcohol, methamphetamines etc.—become addicts. This induces a downward spiral in the functionality of most addicts, as the drugs and poverty can be cyclical. When an addict has no other way to support their addiction they result to illegal measures to obtain income. This is where a community becomes affected by drug abuse. The urge—or “Jonesin”—for many different substances begins to take over an addict’s life.

Poverty reduction

Historically, poverty reduction has been largely a result of economic growth.^[4][5] The industrial revolution led to high economic growth and eliminated mass poverty in what is now considered the developed world.^[3][5] In 1820, 75% of humanity lived on less than a dollar a day, while in 2001, only about 20% do.^[5] As three quarters of the world's poor live in the country side, the World Bank cites helping small farmers as the heart of the fight against poverty.^[7] Economic growth in agriculture is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country’s population as growth generated in non-agricultural sectors.^[76] However, aid is essential in providing better lives for those who are already poor and in sponsoring medical and scientific efforts such as the green revolution and the eradication of smallpox.^[36][77]

Economic liberalization

Information and communication technologies for development help to fight poverty.

Ian Vásquez, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Global Economic Liberty, wrote that extending property rights protection to the poor is one of the most important poverty reduction strategies a nation could take.^[5] Securing property rights to land, the largest asset for most societies, is vital to their economic freedom.^[5][36] The World Bank concludes increasing land rights is ‘the key to reducing poverty’ citing that land rights greatly increase poor people’s wealth, in some cases doubling it.^[10] Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has estimated that state recognition of the property of the poor would give them assets worth 40 times all the foreign aid since 1945.^[5] Although approaches varied, the World Bank said the key issues were security of tenure and ensuring land transactions were low cost.^[10]

In China and India, noted reductions in poverty in recent decades have occurred mostly as a result of the abandonment of collective farming in China and the cutting of government red tape in India.^[78] However, ending government sponsorship of social programs is sometimes advocated as a free market principle with tragic consequences. For example, the World Bank presses poor nations to eliminate subsidies for fertilizer even while many farmers cannot afford them at market prices.^[79] The reconfiguration of public financing in former Soviet states during their transition to a market economy called for reduced spending on health and education, sharply increasing poverty.^[80][81][82]

Trade liberalization increases the total surplus of trading nations. Remittances sent to poor countries, such as India, are sometimes larger than foreign direct investment and total remittances are more than double aid flows from OECD countries.^[83] Foreign investment and export industries helped fuel the economic expansion of fast growing Asian nations.^[84] However, trade rules are often unfair as they block access to richer nations’ markets and ban poorer nations from supporting their industries.^[79][85] Processed products from poorer nations, in contrast to raw materials, get vastly higher tariffs at richer nations' ports.^[86] A University of Toronto study found the dropping of duty charges on thousands of products from African nations because of the African Growth and Opportunity Act was directly responsible for a "surprisingly large" increase in imports from Africa.^[87] However, Chinese textile and clothing exports have encountered criticism from Europe, the United States and some African countries.^[88][89]

Deals can also be negotiated to favor developing countries such as China, where laws compel foreign multinationals to train their future Chinese competitors in strategic industries and render themselves redundant in the long term.^[90] In Thailand, the 51 percent rule compels multinational corporations starting operations in Thailand give 51 percent control to a Thai company in a joint venture.^[91]

Capital, infrastructure and technology

World GDP per capita

Investments in human capital, in the form of health, is needed for economic growth. Nations do not necessarily need wealth to gain health.^[92] For example, Sri Lanka had a maternal mortality rate of 2% in the 1930s, higher than any nation today.^[93] It reduced it to .5-.6% in the 1950s and to .06% today while spending less each year on maternal health because it learned what worked and what did not.^[93] Cheap water filters and promoting hand washing are some of the most cost effective health interventions and can cut deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia.^[94][95] Knowledge on the cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions can be elusive but educational measures to disseminate what works are available, such as the disease control priorities project.^[92]

Human capital, in the form of education, is an even more important determinant of economic growth than physical capital.^[4] Deworming children costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces non-attendance from anemia, illness and malnutrition and is only a twenty-fifth as expensive to increase school attendance as by constructing schools.^[96]

UN economists argue that good infrastructure, such as roads and information networks, helps market reforms to work.^[97] China claims it is investing in railways, roads, ports and rural telephones in African countries as part of its formula for economic development.^[97] It was the technology of the steam engine that originally began the dramatic decreases in poverty levels. Cell phone technology brings the market to poor or rural sections.^[98] With necessary information, remote farmers can produce specific crops to sell to the buyers that brings the best price.^[99]

Such technology also makes financial services accessible to the poor. Those in poverty place overwhelming importance on having a safe place to save money, much more so than receiving loans.^[8] Also, a large part of microfinance loans are spent on products that would usually be paid by a checking or savings account.^[8] Mobile banking addresses the problem of the heavy regulation and costly maintenance of saving accounts.^[8] Mobile financial services in the developing world, ahead of the developed world in this respect, could be worth $5 billion by 2012.^[100] Safaricom’s M-Pesa launched one of the first systems where a network of agents of mostly shopkeepers, instead of bank branches, would take deposits in cash and translate these onto a virtual account on customers' phones. Cash transfers can be done between phones and issued back in cash with a small commission, making remittances safer.^[9]

Aid

Local citizens from the Janabi Village wait their turn to gather goods from the Sons of Iraq (Abna al-Iraq) in a military operation conducted in Yusufiyah, Iraq. (U.S. Army photo by Spc Luke Thornberry)

Aid in its simplest form is a basic income grant, a form of social security periodically providing citizens with money. In pilot projects in Namibia, where such a program pays just $13 a month, people were able to pay tuition fees, raising the proportion of children going to school by 92%, child malnutrition rates fell from 42% to 10% and economic activity grew by 10%.^[101][102] Researchers say it is more efficient to support the families and extended families that care for the vast majority of orphans with simple allocations of cash than supporting orphanages, who get most of the aid.^[70]

Some aid, such as Conditional Cash Transfers, can be rewarded based on desirable actions such as enrolling children in school or receiving vaccinations.^[103] In Mexico, for example, dropout rates of 16-19 year olds in rural area dropped by 20% and children gained half an inch in height.^[104] Initial fears that the program would encourage families to stay at home rather than work to collect benefits have proven to be unfounded. Instead, there is less excuse for neglectful behavior as, for example, children stopped begging on the streets instead of going to school because it could result in suspension from the program.^[104]

Another form of aid is microloans, made famous by the Grameen Bank, where small amounts of money are loaned to farmers or villages, mostly women, who can then obtain physical capital to increase their economic rewards. For example, the Thai government's People's Bank, makes loans of $100 to $300 to help farmers buy equipment or seeds, help street vendors acquire an inventory to sell, or help others set up small shops. While advancing the woman and her household's position economically, microloans empower women and enable them to voice their opinions in general household decisions.^[105]

Aid from non-governmental organizations may be more effective than governmental aid; this may be because it is better at reaching the poor and better controlled at the grassroots level.^[106] Critics argue that some of the foreign aid is stolen by corrupt governments and officials, and that higher aid levels erode the quality of governance. Policy becomes much more oriented toward what will get more aid money than it does towards meeting the needs of the people.^[107] Supporters of aid argue that these problems may be solved with better auditing of how the aid is used.^[107] Immunization campaigns for children, such as against polio, diphtheria and measles have save millions of lives.^[77]

A major proportion of aid from donor nations is tied, mandating that a receiving nation spend on products and expertise originating only from the donor country.^[108] For example, Eritrea is forced to spend aid money on foreign goods and services to build a network of railways even though it is cheaper to use local expertise and resources.^[108] US law requires food aid be spent on buying food at home, instead of where the hungry live, and, as a result, half of what is spent is used on transport.^[109]

One of the proposed ways to help poor countries has been debt relief. Many less developed nations have gotten themselves into extensive debt to banks and governments from the rich nations and interest payments on these debts are often more than a country can generate per year in profits from exports.^[110] If poor countries do not have to spend so much on debt payments, they can use the money instead for priorities which help reduce poverty such as basic health-care and education.^[111] For example, Zambia began offering services, such as free health care even while overwhelming the health care infrastructure, because of savings that resulted from the rounds of debt relief in 2005.^[112]

Good institutions

Efficient institutions that are not corrupt and obey the rule of law make and enforce good laws that provide security to property and businesses. Efficient and fair governments would work to invest in the long-term interests of the nation rather than plunder resources through corruption.^[4] Researchers at UC Berkeley developed what they called a "Weberianness scale" which measures aspects of bureaucracies and governments Max Weber described as most important for rational-legal and efficient government over 100 years ago. Comparative research has found that the scale is correlated with higher rates of economic development.^[113]

With their related concept of good governance World Bank researchers have found much the same: Data from 150 nations have shown several measures of good governance (such as accountability, effectiveness, rule of law, low corruption) to be related to higher rates of economic development. ^[114] The United Nations Development Program published a report in April 2000 which focused on good governance in poor countries as a key to economic development and overcoming the selfish interests of wealthy elites often behind state actions in developing nations. The report concludes that “Without good governance, reliance on trickle-down economic development and a host of other strategies will not work.” ^[115]

Examples of good governance leading to economic development and poverty reduction include Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Vietnam, which tend to have a strong government, called a hard state or development state. These “hard states” have the will and authority to create and maintain policies that lead to long-term development that helps all their citizens, not just the wealthy. Multinational corporations are regulated so that they follow reasonable standards for pay and labor conditions, pay reasonable taxes to help develop the country, and keep some of the profits in the country, reinvesting them to provide further development. In 1957 South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana,^[116] and by 2008 it was 17 times as high as Ghana's.^[117]

Funds from aid and natural resources are often diverted into private hands and then sent to banks overseas as a result of graft.^[57] If Western banks rejected stolen money, says a report by Global Witness, ordinary people would benefit “in a way that aid flows will never achieve”.^[57] The report asked for more regulation of banks as they have proved capable of stanching the flow of funds linked to terrorism, money-laundering or tax evasion.^[57]

Empowering women

Empowering women has helped some countries increase and sustain economic development.^[118] When given more rights and opportunities women begin to receive more education, thus increasing the overall human capital of the country; when given more influence women seem to act more responsibly in helping people in the family or village; and when better educated and more in control of their lives, women are more successful in bringing down rapid population growth because they have more say in family planning.^[119]

Demographics

Percentage of population living on less than $1.25 per day. UN estimates 2000-2006. Percentage of population suffering from hunger, World Food Programme, 2006 Life expectancy. The Human Development Index. The Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality. Life expectancy has been increasing and converging for most of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa has recently seen a decline, partly related to the AIDS epidemic. Graph shows the years 1950-2005.

Absolute poverty

Poverty is usually measured as either absolute or relative poverty (the latter being actually an index of income inequality). Absolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 (PPP) per day, and moderate poverty as less than $2 a day. It estimates that "in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day."^[120]

Six million children die of hunger every year - 17,000 every day.^[121] Selective Primary Health Care has been shown to be one of the most efficient ways in which absolute poverty can be eradicated in comparison to Primary Health Care which has a target of treating diseases. Disease prevention is the focus of Selective Primary Health Care which puts this system on higher grounds in terms of preventing malnutrition and illness, thus putting an end to Absolute Poverty.^[122]

The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty fell from 28 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001.^[120] Most of this improvement has occurred in East and South Asia.^[123] In East Asia the World Bank reported that "The poverty headcount rate at the $2-a-day level is estimated to have fallen to about 27 percent [in 2007], down from 29.5 percent in 2006 and 69 percent in 1990."^[124] In Sub-Saharan Africa extreme poverty went up from 41 percent in 1981 to 46 percent in 2001, which combined with growing population increased the number of people living in extreme poverty from 231 million to 318 million.^[125]

In the early 1990s some of the transition economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia experienced a sharp drop in income.^[126] The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in large declines in GDP per capita, of about 30 to 35% between 1990 and the trough year of 1998 (when it was at its minimum). As a result poverty rates also increased although in subsequent years as per capita incomes recovered the poverty rate dropped from 31.4% of the population to 19.6%^[127][128] The World Bank issued a report predicting that between 2007 and 2027 the populations of Georgia and Ukraine will decrease by 17% and 24% respectively.^[129]

World Bank data shows that the percentage of the population living in households with consumption or income per person below the poverty line has decreased in each region of the world since 1990:^[130][131]

Other human development indicators have also been improving. Life expectancy has greatly increased in the developing world since WWII and is starting to close the gap to the developed world. Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world. The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s. Similar trends can be observed for literacy, access to clean water and electricity and basic consumer items.^[132]

There are various criticisms of these measurements.^[133] Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion note that although "a clear trend decline in the percentage of people who are absolutely poor is evident ... with uneven progress across regions...the developing world outside China and India has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor".

Since the world's population is increasing, a constant number living in poverty would be associated with a diminishing proportion. Looking at the percentage living on less than $1/day, and if excluding China and India, then this percentage has decreased from 31.35% to 20.70% between 1981 and 2004.^[134]

The 2007 World Bank report "Global Economic Prospects" predicts that in 2030 the number living on less than the equivalent of $1 a day will fall by half, to about 550 million. An average resident of what we used to call the Third World will live about as well as do residents of the Czech or Slovak republics today. Much of Africa will have difficulty keeping pace with the rest of the developing world and even if conditions there improve in absolute terms, the report warns, Africa in 2030 will be home to a larger proportion of the world's poorest people than it is today.^[135]

The reason for the faster economic growth in East Asia and South Asia is a result of their relative backwardness, in a phenomenon called the convergence hypothesis or the conditional convergence hypothesis. Because these economies began modernizing later than richer nations, they could benefit from simply adapting technological advances which enable higher levels of productivity that had been invented over centuries in richer nations.

Relative poverty

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 or the Theil Index.

Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates in several developed countries. As such these poverty statistics measure inequality rather than material deprivation or hardship. The measurements are usually based on a person's yearly income and frequently take no account of total wealth. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income.^[136]

Other aspects

Slum in Mumbai, India. 60% of Mumbai's more than 18 million inhabitants live in slums.^[137]

Economic aspects of poverty focus on material needs, typically including the necessities of daily living, such as food, clothing, shelter, or safe drinking water. Poverty in this sense may be understood as a condition in which a person or community is lacking in the basic needs for a minimum standard of well-being and life, particularly as a result of a persistent lack of income.

Analysis of social aspects of poverty links conditions of scarcity to aspects of the distribution of resources and power in a society and recognizes that poverty may be a function of the diminished "capability" of people to live the kinds of lives they value.^[138] The social aspects of poverty may include lack of access to information, education, health care, or political power.^[139][140]

Poverty may also be understood as an aspect of unequal social status and inequitable social relationships, experienced as social exclusion, dependency, and diminished capacity to participate, or to develop meaningful connections with other people in society.^{[141][142][143]} Such social exclusion can be minimized through strengthened connections with the mainstream, such as through the provision of relational care to those who are experiencing poverty.

Harlem, New York, USA. In 2006 the poverty rate for minors in the United States was the highest in the industrialized world, with 21.9% of all minors and 30% of African American minors living below the poverty threshold.^[144]

The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor," based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty.^[145] These include:

• Precarious livelihoods
• Excluded locations
• Physical limitations
• Gender relationships
• Problems in social relationships
• Lack of security
• Abuse by those in power
• Dis-empowering institutions
• Limited capabilities
• Weak community organizations

David Moore, in his book The World Bank, argues that some analysis of poverty reflect pejorative, sometimes racial, stereotypes of impoverished people as powerless victims and passive recipients of aid programs.^[146]

Camden, New Jersey is one of the poorest cities in the United States.

Ultra-poverty, a term apparently coined by Michael Lipton,^[147] connotes being amongst poorest of the poor in low-income countries. Lipton defined ultra-poverty as receiving less than 80 percent of minimum caloric intake whilst spending more than 80% of income on food. Alternatively a 2007 report issued by International Food Policy Research Institute defined ultra-poverty as living on less than 54 cents per day.^[148] BRAC (NGO) has pioneered a program called Targeting the Ultra-Poor to redress ultra-poverty by working with individual ultra-poor women.^[149]

Voluntary poverty

Among some individuals, such as ascetics, poverty is considered a necessary or desirable condition, which must be embraced in order to reach certain spiritual, moral, or intellectual states. Poverty is often understood to be an essential element of renunciation in religions such as Buddhism (only for monks, not for lay persons) and Jainism, whilst in Roman Catholicism it is one of the evangelical counsels.

Certain religious orders also take a vow of extreme poverty. For example, the Franciscan orders have traditionally foregone all individual and corporate forms of ownership. While individual ownership of goods and wealth is forbidden for Benedictines, following the Rule of St. Benedict, the monastery itself may possess both goods and money, and throughout history some monasteries have become very rich.

In this context of religious vows, poverty may be understood as a means of self-denial in order to place oneself at the service of others; Pope Honorius III wrote in 1217 that the Dominicans "lived a life of voluntary poverty, exposing themselves to innumerable dangers and sufferings, for the salvation of others". Following Jesus' warning that riches can be like thorns that choke up the good seed of the word (Matthew 13:22), voluntary poverty is often understood by Christians as of benefit to the individual – a form of self-discipline by which one distances oneself from distractions from God.

See also

Nations:

• Poverty by country
• Least Developed Countries
• Countries by fertility rate
• Countries by GDP (PPP)
• Countries by poverty rate

Theology:

• Relational care
• Sadaqah
• Zakat

Organizations and campaigns

In documentary photography and film

References

Further reading

• Philippou, Lambros (2010) "Public Space, Enlarged Mentality and Being-In-Poverty", Philosophical Inquiry, Vol. XXX11, NO. 1-2 pp. 103–115.

External links

• Disease control priorities project Studies the cost effectiveness of health care interventions
• Human Rights Watch Tracks the abuse of people in less developed countries around the world.
• Luxembourg Income Study Contains a wealth of data on income inequality and poverty, and hundreds of its sponsored research papers using this data.
• Multinational Monitor Contains reports of corporate misbehavior around the world.
• Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Contains reports on economic development as well as relations between rich and poor nations.
• Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) Research to advance the human development approach to poverty reduction.
• Transparency International Tracks issues of government and corporate corruption around the world.
• United Nations Hundres of free reports related to economic development and standards of living in countries around the world, such as the annual Human Development Report.
• U.S. Agency for International Development USAID is the primary U.S. government agency with the mission for aid to developing countries.
• World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists Association that helps Islamic donors organize contributions.
• World Bank Contains hundreds of reports which can be downloaded for free, such as the annual World Development Report.
• World Food Program Associated with the United Nations, the World Food Program compiles hundreds of reports on hunger and food security around the world.
• Islamic Development Bank
• Islamic relief Largest Muslim relief organization.
• The Pulsera Project A US based non-profit Organization alleviating poverty in Nicaragua, Central America's second poorest nation.
• Is Life Getting Better : What is Poverty? Pamphlet describing the basic idea of poverty and how to measure it, from OECD's Measuring Progress project.
• PovertyVision.org ("the first daily poverty newspaper in the world")