Amartya Sen gave a broader concept of poverty. His argument is that poverty can be measured by how much capability an individual has to function in the society. Poverty arises when people are unable to address certain key capabilities, or have inadequate opportunities to health and education facilities, or insecurity, or the absence of rights such as freedom of
While many theories of poverty exist, few focus on the overarching issues that exist to perpetuate poverty in the United States. Of them all, the Structural Theory of poverty addresses those issues most directly. This theory focuses on the overarching structural factors in society that dictate our lives and every decision. It is impossible to address poverty and combat this ever-pressing, and ever-growing issue without recognizing that society places people in situations that are out of their control. Similarly to the Cultural Theory of Poverty, which explains how belonging to a socio-economic class (specifically being in poverty) for generations produces a new family culture that is distinct from others.
2. Most number of Urban Poor. 3) Proposed Parameters and Indicators 1) Basis of the analysis 1. Defining poverty Poverty is a specific ill in itself, and is unique in having a relative shortage of goods and services at their disposal. It can only be eliminated by promoting policies which targets the compact and not diffusive goal.
But if that core is ignored, it becomes impossible to separate poverty from other broader conditions such as lack of wellbeing (Bunnett & Daly, 2014:6). Human poverty refers to the denial of opportunities and choices for living a most basic or “tolerable” human life. It, therefore, takes into account more than the minimum necessities for material well-being and views poverty as multidimensional (Human Development Report,1997). Jackson states that poverty lines are added for understanding change over time however it says little about gendered disadvantage (1998:71) In South Africa individuals are said to be poor if they live in a household where the monthly income is below the poverty line of R322 measured in 2000 prices average per capita (Posel & Rogan, 2009).) The WPSALP (1997:12) states that poverty is a key contributing factor to women’s inability to receiving access to, and
In its most extreme form, poverty is a lack of basic human needs such as adequate and nutritious food, clothing, housing, clean water and health services. According to the United Nations Development Report, [2000], “poverty is defined as a complex phenomenon that generally refers to inadequacy of resources and deprivation of choices that would enable people to enjoy a decent living conditions.” According to Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel laureate in economics, argues that the “capability to function” is what matters for status as a poor or nonpoor. As Sen put it, “economic growth cannot be sensibly treated as an end in itself. Development has to be more concerned with enhancing the lives we lead and the freedoms we enjoy.” This argument by Sen, underscores that although economic growth is good but cannot be regarded as development. Development has to affect the lives of the
This argument follows that the best option for poor countries is the idea that people can find ways to solve their problems if the markets are free and the incentives are right. Poor economics differs from these arguments and reasons that it is possible to make significant progress in alleviate poverty by taking small steps. They argue that political constraints make it difficult to find big solutions to the problem of poverty. The book is a presentation of 8 years of field research in the villages of developing countries such as India, Kenya, Morocco and Indonesia. The authors steer away from the question of whether foreign aid is right or wrong and investigate the complex and multifaceted lives of poor people and policies that could help them.
For thinking about appropriate forward-looking anti-poverty interventions, the critical need then is to go beyond a cataloging of who is currently poor and who is not, to an assessment of households’ vulnerability to poverty (Chaudhuri, 2003). In the extant literature either income or consumption expenditures as measured over short periods of time has been regarded as a proxy for the material well-being of households. However, economists have long recognized that a household’s sense of well-being depends not just on its average income or expenditures, but also on the risks it faces and its ability to deal with these risks. Indeed, the inability to respond to risks may lead as far as social exclusion and deprivation (Jha, R and Dang, T., 2009).
2.1.2 THE MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS OF POVERTY As Sen (1983) stated that after the second half of the 20th century poverty explained because of inefficient economic growth and individual deteriorating, and measured as per capita income or consumption, pay no attention to structural issues relating to the uneven distribution of wealth and opportunity among the society. Hence, the possible remedy therefore interpreted as a need for greater economic improvement, with a focus on constructing human capital. The concept of poverty broadly includes non-economic and economic components. Therefore, poverty recognized as multiple dimensional, which distinguishing the various aspects of people lives affected by poverty, having economic and non-economic dimensions,
Hence, despite having adopted a developmental approach to service delivery, the social sector’s progress in delivering on its developmental mandate lagged and is still lagging behind. Social grants made and are making a huge contribution to alleviate poverty of many households in South Africa as a number of beneficiaries solely depend on the grant for their survival. The financial burden of social security is increasing and it has been noted as becoming unsustainable. The government acknowledged that no exit levels were planned for social grants. This reality emphasised that whilst caring for the vulnerable and the marginalised and thus achieving social justice, the government has not fully delivered on its social development goals (Department of Social Development,
1. Townsend and Smith (1965) argues that individuals and families are said to be living in poverty when they lack resources to obtain necessary diet and participate in activities and living conditions which are customary. 2. Sen (1979) points out that direct methods of poverty measurement is superior to indirect methods and income based methods should be treated as second best. Moreover human beings due to their diversity in socioeconomic characteristics and environment differ in the way income is translated in to achievement.