Conceptualization Of Poverty Essay

Each one of us has some idea about poverty and consequentially we have our own notions of poverty. The nature and meaning of Poverty is disputed and it varies across regions and type of societies one lives in. However, to arrive at a general understanding of poverty, it is necessary to be aware about the different approaches that have been used to conceptualize poverty. The second task after conceptualizing poverty is to identify and aggregate the poor. Unfortunately, this exercise of identifying and aggregating poor is not free of confusions, doubts and errors. The idea of this chapter is to understand and give an overview of the contemporary literature regarding the issues of conceptualization of poverty and identification of poor.

2.1. Conceptualization of poverty

There are three widely approaches used in conceptualizing poverty: subsistence approach, basic needs approach and relative deprivation approach (subramanian, 2012). The subsistence approach looks on poverty as a deprivation of fundamental physiological needs. The basic needs approach looks at poverty as deprivation of various amenities and services at societal level. The deprivation approach looks at poverty as the deprivation of not only physiological and material wants but also socially- dictated wants. The latter point was recognized by Adam smith much earlier

The view of poverty that a individual can be considered poor if income (consumption) of that individual is below a uniquely defined threshold can be contrasted with the view that there exist some combination of achievements in functionings space that is essential for an individual to escape poverty, that might not be defined by unique threshold of income (consumption) which is valid for all persons and all