Multidimensional poverty in India: has the growth been pro-poor on multiple dimensions?

Abstract

The present investigation is an attempt to synergize the uni-dimensional as well as multidimensional approaches to measure poverty as well as pro-poor growth. This analysis is based upon FGT indices for measuring unidimensional poverty, the Alkire and Foster (2008) methodology for multidimensional poverty and then pro-poor growth rates on non-income indicators have been computed by using Klasen (2008) approach which is based upon Ravillion and Chen (2003) index. It can be stated that both the uni-dimensional and multidimensional poverty in India had declined between 2004–05 and 2009–10. But, it had not been pro-poor across all the dimensions and for all social groups. It has been observed that the dimensions of education, expenditure and regular salary had not been pro-poor in most of the cases. Among the social groups, the SCs and the STs are the poorest categories and by household types, the labour households are the poorest one. These households suffer from the deprivations of multiple dimensions. It has been observed that the dimension of education and cooking fuel are the biggest contributors to overall poverty rate and the poorest suffer the most from these deprivations.