Capability Poverty Research Articles

The Capability Approach to Adolescent Poverty in China: Application of a Latent Class Model

After 2020, poverty alleviation in China will shift from eliminating absolute poverty to alleviating unbalanced and insufficient relative poverty. Based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, this article aimed to realize the freedom of “capability” of children and ensure the well-being and development of Chinese adolescents, who are often ignored in child poverty research. The study sought to estimate the 10–15-year-olds in a multidimensional capabilities poverty group. Our analysis was based on the adolescent capability methodology framework, using data from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to investigate the types and influencing factors of adolescent capability poverty in China. The result of latent class analysis showed that there are four types of capability poverty among the Chinese adolescents, namely, Extreme Capability Poverty Class, Goal Capability Poverty Class, Opportunity Capability Poverty Class, and Capability Non-Poverty Class. Multinomial logistic regression showed that the personal factors of gender, ethnic minority, hukou, and pocket money; the family factors of parents’ marital status, parents’ education level, and region of residence; and the family economic factor of per capita family income had a significant impact on the types of China’s adolescent capability poverty. The article provides empirical and quantitative evidence for the adolescent (ages 10–15) class of capability poverty. The findings provide a reference for policy makers to target poverty-alleviation efforts according to different types of poverty and to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

Eliminating energy poverty in Chinese households: A cognitive capability framework

Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern clean energy is essential for economic development, making energy poverty a pressing matter for both developing and developed countries. Studies have shown that low levels of income and consumption indicate poverty, and the essence of poverty is “capability poverty,” which has formed a new understanding of the causes of poverty. This study extends the capability framework to energy poverty. It uses data from the 2014, 2016, and 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to build an empirical model to analyze the impact of cognitive capability on household energy poverty in terms of income levels and energy decision-making. A higher cognitive capability has a significant impact on encouraging households to eradicate energy poverty. Further, the non-linear moderation model is used to test the impact of the interaction between cognitive capability and income, information, and social network on energy poverty. This study provides a new perspective for understanding the driving factors of energy poverty and offers novel recommendations for policymakers to address the problem.

The Impact of Foreign Trade and Urbanization on Poverty Reduction: Empirical Evidence from China

Poverty eradication is a worldwide development challenge, and China’s poverty reduction experience, evident in its sustainable development strategy, is receiving increasing attention. China has achieved high economic growth and success in poverty reduction over the past 40 years, since its reform and opening up. China’s experience can provide lessons for other countries, however, the situation of poverty in China is still severe, and the remaining people experiencing that condition have long been in a state where income poverty, capability poverty, and intergenerational transfer of poverty coexist. This requires systematic poverty reduction in multiple fields such as the following: population, production, consumption, capital, technology, finance and taxation, education, health care and environment. Foreign trade and urbanization are the best ways to implement poverty reduction. Despite the fruitful results of international studies, the impact of foreign trade, urbanization and their synergistic effects on poverty reduction have not been fully considered. Therefore, by selecting, as panel data, the urbanization rate, foreign trade dependence, and multiple dimensions of poverty indicators of different provinces in China from 2000 to 2017, this paper establishes regression models to study the poverty reduction effects of urban and rural areas. This is accomplished by focusing on three dimensions: poverty gap; income level and gap; and the numbers of under-insurance and guaranteed expenditure, in terms of both imports and exports, respectively. The paper not only considers the synergistic effects of foreign trade and urbanization on poverty reduction, but also investigates the heterogeneity of poverty reduction effects between urban and rural areas. The research results can be applied not only to poverty reduction policy formulation in China, but they can also provide empirical lessons for other developing countries with large urban-rural disparities. Therefore, the study has important implications for both poverty reduction theory development and poverty reduction policy formulation.

Corruption – Poverty Nexus: Evidence from Panel ARDL Approach for SAARC Countries

The article intends to investigate the relationship between corruption and poverty based on the panel data of SAARC countries over the period 1996–2019. We employed the panel ARDL of pooled mean group (PMG) technique to analyze the data and focus on capability poverty, using the human development index (HDI) as a proxy for poverty. The empirical findings of PMG of the ARDL model suggest that an increase in corruption score (COC) (i.e. decrease in corruption) and increase in women’s labor force participation rate (WLFPR) seem to have a significant impact either in eradicating poverty or increasing social welfare in the long run as well as in the short run. A random effect (RE) model also identified a significant positive relationship between corruption score and HDI, and WLFPR and HDI. A Dumitrescu-Hurlin pairwise panel Granger non-causality test detected a bilateral causality relationship between COC and HDI, and WLFPR and HDI, while unilateral causality ran from WLFPR to COC. The article contributes to examining the dynamics between corruption and poverty from the governance aspect, taking South Asia as a case study.

The Capability Approach to Adolescent Poverty in China: the Profile, Decomposition and Predictors of Deprivation

In response to the government’s policy to reduce child poverty, there has been a decade-long wave of child poverty measurement in China, with the majority of this work having considered the matter in terms of material life conditions. However, from the viewpoint of capability theorists, material affluence cannot guarantee human well-being alone. They argue for a more comprehensive poverty analysis in terms of freedom, opportunities and development. Accepting this idea, we decided to apply the capability approach to analyze the 2014 adolescent sample within the Chinese Family Population Study. Through the capability lens, we mapped various profiles of functionings and capabilities poverty, according to the features of these adolescents. Also, through poverty decomposition analysis, physical ill-health and severe lack of participation were found to be the major contributors to the distinct forms of adolescent poverty. Moreover, regression analysis helped us to identify four types of factors exhibiting a significant relationship with the development of adolescents, namely: geographical location, adolescent romance, pocket money and parental involvement in children’s education. It is anticipated that the findings will advance our understanding of adolescent poverty in China, thus allowing for a more empowering policy approach to expand the capabilities and freedoms for this age group.

The well-being of South African university students from low-income households

ABSTRACT The role of higher education in development and social mobility is now widely acknowledged and globally recognised. In South Africa in particular, graduates have greatly increased employment prospects. This paper takes up the importance of addressing South African university students’ multi-dimensional well-being in the light of global higher education development agendas. Considering poverty and development in the space of higher education – specifically in the lives of youth from low-income households in South Africa – I draw on two waves of life history data from undergraduate students at five universities. Material-cultural conditions for a threshold of well-being emerged powerfully in every single student narrative, indicating a need for some rethinking of capability deprivation and poverty. This paper conceptualises three broad hardship categories specific to higher education, considering the multiplicity of factors and complexity of low-income in student experiences and achievements. Even though the theoretical framing draws on Sen’s capability approach and its attractive moral perspective, the paper also foregrounds students’ material well-being as significant in understanding how education can advance change, and not only reproduce social inequalities. The challenge remains, how do we reconcile resources and capabilities, and to link freedoms to financial analysis in evaluating the lives that students value?

能力贫困理念下支出型贫困救助理论逻辑探析

能力贫困理念下支出型贫困救助理论逻辑探析

DOES CORRUPTION AFFECT POVERTY IN INDONESIA?

Corruption is likely to increase poverty because it reduces the potential income earning of the poor. Therefore, eradicating corruption is a crucial issue in the poverty reduction process. This study is set out to investigate and analyze the short and long-run relationship between corruption and poverty. It uses secondary data from World Bank and Transparency International then Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and dynamic Error Correction Model (ECM), focuses on capability poverty using headcount poverty index during year 1995-2017. The results of study indicated that corruption have positive significant effect on the level of poverty ratio in 1% significance level In the long run. This implies that in the long run, there is relationship between corruption and poverty. In the long run, the coefficient of corruption effect implies that 1% increase in corruption would increase the poverty ratio by 1.36%. The negative implication of corruption on the life of the citizens is a major disaster in the economy and harmful to the growth and development of the citizens in particular and the economy in general. The simple pearson correlation findings also show that corruption has significant distributional consequences by affecting growth and government expenditures. High and rising corruption increases poverty by reducing the level and effectiveness of groth and social spending (education and health). For effective sustainable and management of this disaster, government should embark on policies that will reduce the level of corruption significantly so as to have positive influence on the standard of living of the citizens in terms of quality and efficient education, sound management of our natural resources, provision of good health facilities and other infrastructures that will transcend to the growth of the economy.

Social Quality, Community Capacity, and Capability Poverty of Urban Residents in Shenzhen, China

Social Quality, Community Capacity, and Capability Poverty of Urban Residents in Shenzhen, China

Choosing Concepts and Measurements of Poverty: A Comparison of Three Major Poverty Approaches

A comparative analysis of different poverty measures, particularly across studies that use different conceptualizations and measurements of poverty, is very valuable. In highlighting this fact, this article compares three poverty measurements: monetary poverty, social exclusion, and capability poverty measurements. The results indicate that all three poverty measurements classify varied proportions of the U.S. population as poor. These variations occur as a function of the conceptualization and measurement of poverty. In general, all three poverty measurements are inadequate indicators of well-being. It is reasonable to suggest that researchers report results using more than one poverty measurement.

La incidencia de pobreza e impacto del programa Oportunidades en el país y el Estado de México

Poverty is measured based on the monetary approach and method of poverty lines (Sen, 1976; Foster, Greer and Thoerbecke, 1984); then, the technique of static microsimulation (Bourguignon and Spadaro, 2006) helps to estimate the impact of Oportunidades in reducing poverty. The State of Mexico shows lower rates than the country as food poverty and capability poverty, but not in heritage poverty, although the impact of the program was reduced both at country and in the State of Mexico, this impact was greater in three types of poverty nationwide. The data come from the National Survey of Income and Expenditure Survey (2010 and 2012).

El impacto en los primeros años de aplicación del programa Oportunidades por tipo de pobreza en México y Baja California, 2002–2006

En este trabajo se muestra el limitado impacto del programa Oportunidades en la reducción de la pobreza en México y Baja California durante el periodo de estudio 2002–2006, lo que obedece a la insuficiencia de recursos y la exclusión de hogares pobres. En el país los tres tipos de pobreza tuvieron una modesta reducción y en Baja California la pobreza de capacidades disminuyó ligeramente, pero la pobreza alimentaria y la patrimonial se incrementaron pese a Oportunidades.

On Capability Approach, Poverty and Corruption

The core of development is to face up with the challenge of the issue of poverty, which directly is associated with the ultimate goal of social, political and economic development. If the poverty has not been properly handled, development will be inefficient and unsustainable. This paper briefly indicates the main idea of Amartya Sen’s capability approach, then utilizing the approach to analyze poverty and the bottleneck in dealing such issues. It illustrates the inter-relationship of capability, poverty and corruption, and demonstrates that corruption is both the cause and the consequence of poverty and the failure of capability. When there corruption comes, the essential power to alleviate and eliminate poverty such as political accountability, transparency, engagement and openness are all spoiled and even wiped off. Political accountability, transparence, engagement are of great importance to both anti-corruption and poverty and promotion of capability. Economic aid for the poor and needy should be reinforced by fostering and promoting the capability of the poor and needy, so that the purpose of eliminating poverty and corruption could be achieved.

Poverty, Human Vulnerability and Deprivation Among the Forced Migrants: A Conceptual Note on Measurement Issues

Forced migration caused by random shocks (like natural and man-made disaster) has been an age-old phenomenon. In modern times, this process of forced migration still continues. The problem is how far and to what extent the human vulnerability caused by such random shocks could be assessed? The purpose of the present study is to review the methodologies for measuring poverty and human vulnerability among the forced migrants in such cases. Capability poverty measurements and their applicability have been discussed in detail with a possible application in affected areas in India. The suggested study’s extension to estimate the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) is looked at too.

Assistive technology use is associated with reduced capability poverty: a cross-sectional study in Bangladesh

Purpose: About half of all people with disabilities in developing countries live in extreme poverty. Focusing on the ends rather than the economic means of human development, the capability approach offers an alternative view of poverty. The purpose of this study was to explore the relation between assistive technology use and capability poverty in a low-income country. Method: Self-reported data on food intake, health care, education, politics, self-determination, self-respect, family relationships and friendships were collected in Bangladesh through interviews of people with hearing impairments using and not using hearings aids, and people with ambulatory impairments using and not using manual wheelchairs (N = 583). Differences in outcomes between users and non-users of assistive technology were analyzed using logistic regression. Results: Assistive technology users were more likely than non-users to report enhanced capabilities, hearing aid users to a larger extent than wheelchair users. Synergistic effects between assistive technology use and education were found. Conclusion: The use of assistive technology is predictive of reduced capability poverty in Bangladesh. Lack of wheelchair accessibility and the nature of selected outcomes may explain the limited association in the ambulatory group. Enhancing the effects of the other, there is support for providing education in combination with hearing aids.Implications for RehabilitationAssistive technology use is associated with better opportunities to do things one has reason to value.Assistive technology use is associated with better attitudes from neighbors, which is likely to result in a higher level of self-respect.There are positive synergistic effects of hearing aid use and primary education.Physical accessibility needs to be considered in the provision of wheelchairs.

Reconceiving Social Exclusion

Several ambiguities in the social exclusion literature - in both the fields of social policy and development studies - fuel the common criticism that the concept is redundant with respect to already existing poverty approaches, particularly more multidimensional and processual approaches, such as relative or capability poverty. In order to resolve these ambiguities and to derive value-added from the concept, social exclusion needs to be reconceptualised in a way that decisively opts for a processual definition, without reference to norms and/or poverty. Accordingly, a working definition of social exclusion is proposed as structural, institutional or agentive processes of repulsion or obstruction. This definition gives attention to processes occurring vertically throughout social hierarchies and opens up applications of the social exclusion approach to analyses of stratification, segregation and subordination in development studies, especially within contexts of high or rising inequality. Three strengths and applications include situations where exclusions lead to stratifying or impoverishing trajectories without any short-term poverty outcomes; where upward mobility of poor people is hindered by exclusions occurring among the nonpoor; and situations of inequality-induced conflict.

Manifestations of ‘capabilities poverty’ with learners attending informal settlement schools

Manifestations of ‘capabilities poverty’ with learners attending informal settlement schools

Manifestations of ‘capabilities poverty’ with learners attending informal settlement schools

In this study I use the notion of ‘capabilities poverty’, as theorised by Sen, to examine the experiences of learners attending informal settlement schools in North-West Province, South Africa. Sen distinguishes between functionings (what people do or their ability to do something) and capabilities (various combinations of what people do, their notions of freedom, what life opportunities they may have). The study was based on a sample of respondents from four schools in the Sarafina informal settlement in Ikageng township in the municipal district of Tlokwe (Potchefstroom). It captured some complexities of schooling within South Africa’s democratic educational framework and clearly exposed the manifestations of capabilities poverty. The precise location of capabilities poverty within the plethora of poverty approaches presents educational research with a reality check when looking at informal settlement schools. The study revealed a multiplicity of barriers for informal settlement learners that prevent them from choosing the educational experience they value and contributes to research into the nuanced nature of the interface between poverty and schooling.

Modeling Gender Effects of Pakistan's Trade Liberalization

This study uses a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model specially constructed for investigating gender dimensions of the effects of trade liberalization in Pakistan in both production and consumption. The model employs various indicators to measure the gendered impacts, including income poverty (Foster-Greer-Thorbecke [FGT] Indices), time poverty (leisure), capability poverty (literacy and infant mortality), and welfare (Equivalent Variation [EV]). The simulation results show that revenue-neutral trade liberalization in Pakistan increased women's employment in unskilled jobs and increased women's real wage income more than men's for all types of labor, but kept the division of labor biased against women. The study finds that Pakistan's trade liberalization adversely affected women in relatively poor households by increasing their workload, deteriorating capabilities, and increasing relative income poverty. However, the effects remained gender neutral or favored women in the richest group of households.

A New Insight into Urban Poverty: The Culture of Capability Poverty amongst Korean Immigrant Women in Los Angeles

This study analyses 'the culture of capability poverty' of 42 Korean immigrant women who live in Los Angeles to uncover the systemic road to gendered urban poverty. Through in-depth interviews, this research observes the interaction between sub-culture and capability in the subject's career domain, reinterpreting Lewis' culture of poverty thesis within Sen's capability approach. The subjects have developed their culture of capability poverty within that domain—such as low aspiration and heavy reliance on their Christianity—as a response to career-decision constraints including a strong woman's image, their childhood education and job market inequality. This paper concludes that, while their sub-culture is a positive life-strategy mechanism for dealing with their gender situation, it ultimately becomes lack of capability, poverty itself.