Non-income Poverty Research Articles

Trade openness and non-income poverty in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries: A panel Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) analysis

Trade openness and non-income poverty in Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries: A panel Autoregressive Distributive Lag (ARDL) analysis

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Economic growth and poverty reduction: Evidence from Sub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries

AbstractSub‐Saharan African (SSA) countries have registered outstanding economic growth in recent decades. However, poverty is still pervasive, deep, and severe in the region. This paper aims to analyze the impact of the recent economic growth on poverty reduction in 27 SSA countries using a new dynamic panel data set. Adopting System GMM estimation, this study found that economic growth has been associated with poverty reduction. Also, the previous level of poverty had an intense impact on the prevalent poverty status in the region. Moreover, although nonmonetary measures and income measures of poverty produce similar results (showing a reduction in poverty), nonincome poverty, especially destitution data, suggest that SSA countries are poorer even than previously understood. We suggest that SSA countries should promote a policy of income‐enhancing (i.e., economic growth) to ramp up poverty reduction.

Typology of Poverty and Its Implications for Poverty Reduction Policies

The purpose of this study is to identify conditions, characteristics, access, social environment, and opportunities that can be utilized by the poor based on regional typology in Gorontalo Province. From the results of this study, it is hoped that various policies can be formulated to help the poor get out of the poverty trap. Poverty research based on analysis of three regional typologies, namely urban, rural and coastal areas, has never been done before in Gorontalo Province. The method used in this study is descriptive-qualitative method. The types of data used are primary data and secondary data. The study will be carried out in three regional typologies, namely urban, rural and coastal areas, according to the regional characteristics of the Gorontalo Province. The location sampling technique was carried out by taking area samples in stages (multistage area sampling) to determine the research location villages. The population in this study is all poor households living in the six selected sub-districts/villages. Sampling in the six sub-districts/villages surveyed was carried out using a simple random sampling technique. The results of the study show that in general, household vulnerability to poverty seems to be associated with regional aspects, where households living in rural areas have a higher vulnerability than households in urban and coastal areas. From the survey results in three regional typologies (urban, rural, and coastal) in Gorontalo Province, it can be generally concluded that income poverty and non-income poverty are more dominant in poor households in rural areas compared to urban and coastal areas. In other words, those who live in rural areas live in poorer conditions than those who live in urban and coastal areas. From a policy perspective, this means that efforts to reduce poverty in rural areas will be relatively more difficult than the other two regions. The implication of this research is that efforts to reduce poverty in a sustainable manner need to focus more on aspects of improving the quality of human resources for poor households in all regional typologies. The government needs to design various programs that aim to: (i) reduce the number of illiterate poor people and improve their skills; (ii) increasing access of the poor to public services (especially education and health) and economic resources (especially business capital); and (iii) intensifying programs to empower the poor, through the provision of micro credit, assistance with business equipment, work-intensive programs, and others.

In Search of Pakistan’s Inclusive Growth: Evidence from Income and Non-Income Dimensions

Inclusive growth (INCL_GRTH) is a process through which economic opportunities are available for all segments of society without any discrimination between rich and poor. The aim of this study is to find how socio-economic factors affect poverty and how we may achieve INCL_GRTH and reduce poverty in a country like Pakistan. The study has used a poverty headcount ratio as a proxy for INCL_GRTH while the number of income and non-income poverty factors, including, per capita GDP, FDI inflows, agriculture value added, health expenditures, income inequality and education expenditures are highlighted as explanatory factors. The results show that poverty is substantially reduced by increasing education expenditures and FDI inflows. The pro-poor growth estimates have confirmed that except agriculture value added, the remaining factors show anti-poor growth in a country, while agriculture value added gives marginal benefits to the poor as compared to the non-poor between the two time periods studied, that is 1980 and 2016.

Non-Income Poverty Among the Elderly

This article uses data from a representative survey of retirees to estimate non-income poverty among the elderly. We examine six possible areas of deprivation (nutrition, financial well-being, property, housing, and social integration), as well as deprivation in general. Despite low levels of official poverty, senior citizens are often forced to limit their diets, experience difficulties in paying for medication and medical services, and suffer from inadequate everyday assistance and from lack of financial support. The risk of experiencing non-income poverty increases with the respondent’s age, while the presence of a partner, of working household members, or of a high education level substantially reduce it.

What accounts for the rise of low self-rated health during the recent economic crisis in Europe?

BackgroundA growing literature investigates health effects of the recent economic crisis. This study examines how different economic mechanisms affected low self-rated health (SRH) in Europe over the crisis period (2008–2011). We measure changes in low SRH over 2008–2011 and analyze how they are accounted for by changes in household income levels and income distribution (income poverty, income inequality), labour market developments (increasing unemployment, falling employment, changes in labour market inactivity), and non-income poverty (material deprivation).MethodsWe use balanced panel data for 2008–2011 covering 26 European countries and 43,456 participants. The data come from longitudinal 2011 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) database. Increases in low SRH incidence over time are decomposed into the contributions of changes in the distribution of covariates and changes in returns to the covariates. Main covariates include household income and its distribution, labour market developments, and non-income poverty (material deprivation). The decompositions are performed using a detailed non-linear multivariate regression-based decomposition methodology.ResultsLow SRH incidence increased in Europe during the crisis by almost 2 percentage points, and by 3.7 percentage points in case of the Baltic countries. Decomposition analysis shows that: 1) decreasing household incomes and changing income distribution had no impact on low SRH incidence, 2) rise of material deprivation accounts for a significant portion (12%) of the overall growth in low SRH rates (27% for the Baltic countries), 3) decreasing levels of full-time and part-time employment as well as transitions to unemployment, economic inactivity, disability, or retirement account jointly for about 21% of the rise in low SRH in Europe (73% for Baltic countries).ConclusionTogether, the recession-related economic factors account for about 33% of the increase in low SRH incidence in Europe during the crisis, and for about 100% of the increase in the Baltic countries. Public health policy during recessions should focus also on reducing material deprivation through free or subsidized access to public services, public housing, and other means.

Growth equity and sectoral decompositions of aggregate poverty changes in Cameroon

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide insight to policy-makers into a framework for action, which is needed to effectively reduce poverty in its monetary and non-monetary dimensions.Design/methodology/approachSpecifically, an exact decomposition analysis is conducted that is based on the Shapley value method, and investigated the growth and redistribution effects as well as changes due to mobility and sector-specific effects of the variation in both income/expenditure and non-income poverty dimensions.FindingsGrowth in mean consumption and household assets accounted for the bulk of the improvement in poverty reduction and the results complement the evidence obtained from the “sectoral decomposition” of poverty in Cameroon which may indeed have a strong bearing on the sectoral shares of poverty. The temptation is resisted, however, not to deny that redistribution also has an important role to play, yet there must be severe limits to what can be achieved by growth neutral redistribution. The redistribution effect had an ameliorating tendency in household asset deprivation among farming households.Originality/valueThis paper is a well-written piece using quite rigorous and interesting methodological approach. To obtain a measure of non-income dimensions of well-being, the authors constructed composite indices on household assets reflecting household access to a range of physical assets and services including human capital by polychoric principal component analysis method.

The growth, poverty and inequality nexus in South Africa: Cointegration and causality analysis

ABSTRACTThis study empirically established the long-run relationship and causality effects that exist between growth, poverty and inequality. The analysis was carried out on a panel of nine South African provinces from 1995 to 2012. To capture poverty and inequality in a broader context, two measures of poverty (income and non-income) and three measures of inequality (income, education and land) were adopted for the study. The results confirm that there is a long-run relationship between growth, poverty and inequality. Notable results from the causality tests suggest that growth does not promote equal distribution of income in society but as income distribution begins to equalise, economic growth rises. This is regarded as growth–inequality disconnect. The unidirectional causality, which runs from income poverty to income inequality, suggests that a rising level of income poverty will lead to falling income inequality in the society; likewise, income inequality increases as non-income poverty declines.

Public assets and services delivery in South Africa: Is it really a success?

Poverty alleviation remains a pressing concern for South African policy-makers. Implementing effective anti-poverty policies requires a clear understanding of the nature and extent of poverty. The extant literature on South African poverty dynamics shows a decline in the headcount ratio over the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, the prior research largely adopts a narrow money-metric approach, or uses multi-dimensional indices that include welfare indicators based on private assets (e.g. television sets) or those that are provided publicly (e.g. access to water). This paper uses multiple correspondence analysis to measure non-income poverty trends for the period 2005–12. The novelty in this undertaking lies in an attempt to include a measure of the perceived quality of public assets and services to complement the standard indices. This provides some measure of ‘success’ of public service delivery, accounting for both changes in access and quality.

Multidimensional Poverty in Japan

Not very much is known about poverty in Japan. Until recently, official figures on the diffusion of income poverty among the population did not exist. The Japanese income poverty rate was first announced in October 2009, almost 40 years after the United States did so. Even less is known about multidimensional poverty and material deprivation. A new multidimensional poverty index, including food, clothing and other living conditions, has been in the making since 2012 but, to the best of our knowledge, no official measure exists as of today. What is the share of the population in non-income poverty? How many Japanese are unable to enjoy the minimum standards of living? And who are they according to demographic and social characteristics? These are some of the questions we answer in this paper. We base our analysis on aspects of material living conditions collected in the Quality of Life Survey in 2012 and 2013 conducted by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Cabinet Office of Japan.

Poverty and livelihood of coastal communities in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar

This article discusses levels and forms of poverty among coastal communities in Tanzania. The objective of study from which this article is grounded was to explore and describe the impacts of global market on the livelihood of coastal communities along the Indian Ocean. A combination of sociological and economic paradigms of poverty analysis was adopted. The poverty analysis focused on three poverty indices namely, head count, poverty gap and poverty severity index. The analysis focused on levels of household expenditures per month by region (rural or urban district) as well as by main occupation of household head. The entry point for the analysis was the household expenditure per capita. Also determined was whether level of education and sex of household head influenced income and poverty levels. The poverty analysis was further narrowed down to household level in order to address the link between the global market and livelihood at the household level. To that end, the analysis focused closely on expenditure by sex, level of education and main occupation of the head of the household. In order to make comparison between currencies, readers should use $ 1 equivalent to TZS 165,342.57 published by Bank of Tanzania on 18 September 2014. The Findings suggest that poverty levels as measured by income are caused by underlying factors of non-income poverty such as lack of assets (mainly land), low level of education, accessibility to market, and poor and weak social safety network (such as offered by cooperative unions). Key words: Poverty, livelihood, globalization, coastal communities, coastal resources.

Non-Monetary Assessment of Pro-Poor Growth In Nigeria: Evidence From Demographic and Health Surveys

Poverty analytical approaches have recently considered households’ deprivation in several welfare attributes in what has been tagged multidimensional poverty. This approach has been well embraced due to acceptability of human development indices as a parameter for comparing welfare across different segments of the population. In this study, non-monetary indicators of welfare were aggregated into composite welfare indicator for pro-poor growth assessment. The 1999, 2003 and 2008 Demographic and Health Survey data were analyzed using the poverty equivalent growth rate (PEGR) and growth incidence curves (GICs). Results show that although sometimes pro-poor, non-income growth rates in many of the zones and states were negative between 1999 and 2003. In the 2003–2008 period, some more positive values were obtained. Specifically, between 1999 and 2003, there was pro-poor growth in non-income poverty in the north-western zone with urban areas benefiting more than rural areas. In the North East zone, there was pro-poor growth between 1999 and 2003, while none was pro-poor between 2003 and 2008. In the North Central zone, all the sectoral results for between 1999 and 2003 had negative growth rates. In South West zone, the growth rates for all the analyses are with negative growth rates between 1999 and 2003. In the South South zone, all the sectoral results had negative growth rates and pro-poor. In South East zone, between 1999 and 2003, all the sectoral results are with positive growth rates and pro-poor. In the combined households (Nigeria) analysis, that all the results had negative growth rates. There is therefore the need for ensuring proper monitoring of non-income poverty across different zones and states in order to ensure adequacy of different mechanisms for tackling it.

Is Poverty Geographic or Area-Based?

A recent article1 appears to have introduced a new term into the public health lexicon. Poverty, it now appears, is a feature of geography. This is a rather interesting development from a linguistic standpoint. Because the English language describes many types of poverty, I took the liberty of conducting a Google search using the phrase “types of poverty.” The first Web site returned by the search describes two types of poverty: income poverty and nonincome poverty.2 The term “poverty” has also been applied to mental or spiritual health, as in poverty of mind or poverty of the spirit. In his book, Jensen identifies several other types of poverty—situational, generational, absolute, relative, urban, and rural.3 However, the broader frames of income and nonincome poverty form the context for each of these terms. In the parlance of Niccolai et al.,1 the term “geographic poverty” seems to imply that there is something about the social landscape directly connected to the construct of poverty. Poverty in itself is not geographic, but perhaps our operational measures are. In their otherwise admirable analysis, these authors seem to indicate that area-based measures of household poverty are associated with racial/ethnic disparities. Curiously, except in the title and the Methods section, the authors do not use the phrase “geographic poverty.” The term has never been used conventionally in public health research nor used generally in the social sciences. A better choice of a term might have been “area-based poverty measure.” It is unfortunate that the editors did not require the authors to change the title; now an unnecessary term has been introduced into PubMed and elsewhere and will likely be replicated as it metastasizes across the Internet, in popular media, and in the minds of health researchers.

Measuring Chronic Non-Income Poverty

An increasing interest in poverty dynamics has lately also led to an extensive literature on the analysis of chronic poverty. Based on Amartya Sen’s groundbreaking work on capabilities and functionings static poverty measures have long used non-income indicators. In contrast, measures of poverty dynamics - including chronic poverty ‐ have in general conceptualised poverty only in an income dimension. Hence, this paper first critically discusses the conceptual and empirical potentials and limitations of analysing chronic poverty from a nonincome perspective. Second, it proposes methods to empirically measure chronic nonincome poverty, with an exploratory application to panel data from Vietnam from 1992 and 1997, which demonstrates that a range of useful insights can be generated from such an analysis. In particular, we find that the correlation between chronic income and non-income poverty is rather low which is mostly due to a low correlation between income and nonincome poverty in each period, while both move relatively closely over time. We also find a surprising amount of heterogeneity in static and dynamic non-income poverty within households.

Mainstreaming interventions in the health sector to address maternal and child undernutrition

Mainstreaming interventions in the health sector to address maternal and child undernutrition

Ten Propositions on Rural Poverty and Agrarian Transition in Central Eurasia

The relation between agricultural development and rural poverty reduction in six Central Eurasian countries, namely Azerbaijan (South Caucasus) and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Central Asia), is discussed by presenting and analyzing ten propositions. These propositions cover a broad range of issues that relate to rural poverty in this region, such as: the state of income and non-income poverty; the diverse processes of land reform and farm restructuring, and agricultural policy reform; and finally, the institutional and market framework that is needed for dynamic agricultural and rural development. The paper contends that rural poverty is not responding as robustly to rapid economic growth in these countries, and that agricultural growth, in particular in the newly emerging peasant farm sector, is necessary to promote rural poverty reduction.

Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction: Measurement and Policy Issues

The aim of this Working Paper is to broaden the debate on “pro-poor growth”. An exclusive focus on the income dimension of poverty has neglected the non-income dimensions. After an examination of prominent views on the linkages between economic growth, inequality, and poverty reduction this paper discusses the proper definition and measurement of pro-poor growth. Bolivia serves as a case study to illustrate the usefulness of applying the analytical toolbox for pro-poor growth to non-income dimensions of poverty and offers some important new insights about differences in the evolution of both poverty dimensions. Growth in Bolivia has been more pro-poor in the non-income than in the income dimension. The analysis furthermore shows that extending use of the pro-poor growth toolbox to non-income dimensions of poverty greatly improves our understanding of the trends in non-income indicators. Such understanding is pivotal for a careful assessment of the linkages between income and nonincome poverty along the entire income distribution. It is equally important for poverty monitoring and for defining policy interventions. It also allows deeper analysis of the relative merits of economic growth, compared to direct intervention aimed at improving non-income dimensions of poverty. Ce document technique se propose d’elargir le debat sur « la croissance au benefice des pauvres ». Prendre exclusivement en compte le revenu comme dimension de la pauvrete neglige ses dimensions hors revenu. Apres une etude des theses en vue sur les liens entre croissance economique, inegalites et reduction de la pauvrete, l’article questionne la definition propre de « la croissance au benefice des pauvres » et la maniere de la mesurer. La Bolivie presente un cas d’ecole illustrant l’utilite d’elargir les outils d’analyse de cette croissance aux dimensions hors revenu de la pauvrete, et elle offre de precieux nouveaux reperes sur les differentes evolutions des deux spheres de la pauvrete. La croissance en Bolivie a davantage beneficie aux pauvres dans le registre hors revenu que dans le registre du revenu. L’analyse developpe qu’un recours aux outils d’une croissance benefique aux pauvres elargis aux dimensions hors revenu de la pauvrete ameliore sensiblement notre comprehension des tendances des indicateurs de la sphere hors revenu. Une telle comprehension est fondamentale pour une appreciation judicieuse des liens entre pauvrete en matiere de revenu et pauvrete hors revenu tout au long de la distribution du revenu global. C’est egalement important pour agir sur la pauvrete et pour definir des politiques d’intervention. Cette comprehension permet aussi d’approfondir en les comparant l’analyse des merites relatifs de la croissance economique et des interventions directes visant a ameliorer les parametres hors revenu de la pauvrete.

Poverty and the Dynamics of Women's Participation in Household Decision Making in Nigeria

In patriarchal societies like Nigeria, where traditional norms and practices limits women's autonomous decisions on issues that affect their lives; men exercise significant influence on household decision-making processes. However, due to the economic crisis of the early 1980s and the associated worsening poverty, men’s resources are increasingly becoming inadequate to meet the various needs of their households. Consequently, women’s contribution to family resources has increased remarkably. To what extent has poverty affected women’s participation in household decision-making? This paper tries to answer this question. Using a non-income poverty measurement (social exclusion), the study employed descriptive and analytical methods of analysis with particular attention focused on women between the ages of 25 and 49 years got married before SAP was introduced. Evidence from the study reveals a high level of impoverishment using non-income indices. The results indicate that a fairly high proportion of women are involved in household decision-making. Women participated more on household matters in pre-SAP than post-SAP era. However, poor women participate less in household decision-making relative to non-poor during post SAP era. The predominant factors are women’s education, women’s employment status, religion, and husband’s educational attainment. The results also portray a shift away from patriarchal tendencies to an egalitarian one where partnerships and collective interactions predominate. Some policy considerations include need to mainstream gender targeting in poverty eradication, if women’s family decision authority is to be meaningfully enhanced, as well as the need to ensure gender responsive budgeting in development management, promotion of improved women’s education and women’s gainful employment in higher income generation sectors.

Inequality, Well-Being and Institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper focuses on the role of in the fight against poverty and inequality. Our view of institutions encompasses formal rules designed by polity (including those in the legal and economics sphere such as rules of property rights, contracts and liabilities) as well as informal rules (usually labelled social capital) that have emerged over the history of one's civilisation. The inclusion of health, nutrition, and literacy indicators in defining well-being (or, non-income poverty a la capability approach of Amartya Sen) allows a rich discussion of policy interventions. While both orientations as to the concepts of poverty, inequality and institutions are expounded on a priori reasoning, empirical analysis with LAC data prove rewarding. Quality of institutions (measured by a composite variable called institutional capital, IC) turns out to be a key factor explaining well-being. Further where the level of income is also important to the explanation, the quantitative role of the institutional factor dominates that of the income variable. Within IC, political stability (or lack of violence) appeared to provide the more precise estimates in every case. Consequently we argue that the foremost policy interventions ought to be in the areas of building both adequate formal institutions, as well as creating an enabling environment for the informal institutions (such as social capital) to flourish and find their own roots. The principal focus of the policy debate must centre on the mutual interaction of market as well as non-market institutions in reducing poverty broadly speaking.