This essay argues that being poor does not concern the level of an individual’s income or expenditure, but rather, how individuals perceive themselves. The essay first describes and compares the meaning of poverty based on the different scholarly approaches to defining and measuring poverty. It notes that significant global efforts to reduce poverty have not been matched by a successful definition of what constitutes poverty. The essay further discusses that how different agencies measure poverty is critical to how they perceive poverty. From the definitions of poverty discussed in this essay, it is notable that monetary definitions of poverty could be biased, which is why the best parameters should stem from the status of individuals’ lives.
There are many different approaches to explain poverty, which can be confusing. For example, if the meaning of poverty is taken to be the amount of money one has in their wallet or bank account, the number of the world’s poor could be surprisingly higher than previous estimates. The World Bank estimates that the global population of poor people is about 1.44 billion people ( Jolliffe, and Prydz 2015: 1). Nevertheless, a study done by NOBEL LAUREATE Amartya Sen (1976) raises the number to 1.71 billion. The discrepancies arise because different people and agencies measure poverty using different indicators. Researchers from Oxford University’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (2015) published a Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which measures poverty using different factors from those of the World Bank. The two agencies are mainly focused on factors related to standards of living, which scale from sanitation and the state of household flooring to child mortality rates and the years taken in school. Whereas the World Bank’s measure relies on income and concludes that any person who earns less than $1.25 a day is miserable ( Jolliffe and Prydz 2015: 1). Sen (1976: 35) rejects that standard, arguing that if one were to go by the World Bank’s standards, only 39 percent of the population of Ethiopia, for instance, would be considered indigent; using MPI calculations, the figure would be 90 percent. The differences between the two approaches make it difficult for different stakeholders to efficiently allocate resources among the global poor because there is no agreement on who is poor. Consequently, no single entity could claim to have an accurate method of measuring poverty. And, importantly, the differences suggest that how different people view poverty is relative.
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The most commonly used approach to describe poverty is the monetary approach which defines poor people as those people who fall below a set consumption or income line (Laderchi 2000: 33),. The different elements of income or expenditure are assessed at market value. The method assumes that with balanced and devised tools, steady financial measures can accommodate all factors and traits among people and situations. This approach further posits that every person is always spending or thinking about spending on something. Poverty is then taken to be a shortage under several set low scale of income The critical concern, however, is to try to differentiate the poor from the wealthy and whether this can be done without bias. Despite a variety of proposed technical solutions, the monetary approaches proposed have yet to devise a principle of poverty that could better demarcate the wealthy from the poor.
However, through collective political agreement, relative poverty lines can be established. In many countries, poor people are said to be those who rely entirely on government resources ( Alkire and Santos, 2014: 365 ). Such people take their children to public schools, seek medical attention in public health facilities, and use general means of transport, among other indicators. According to Alkire and Santos (2014), t his view is based largely on the experiences of people in developed countries and may not apply to people in developing countries. Some scholars suggest that the poverty line should be described as the level below a set scale known as the poverty level of interest (Ravallion, 2016). But, the principle of a low scale of interest is undetermined. Ravallion (2016) proposes two ways of dealing with this issue: one method is what he calls the ‘Food Energy Intake Method’, which lays a poverty line basing on nutritional factors; the second one is a ‘cost of a basic needs’ scale (p. 230). Yet, in some monetary approaches, the Poverty line is set on the basis on nutritional requirements. However, differences in size, gender, age, activities, and metabolic rates show that ‘sufficient’ nutrition differs widely; therefore setting a specific minimum level of nutrition to measure poverty is problematic. The capability approach could provide a better method to describe who is who and who is not poor.
Sen (1976) supports the capability approach. He argues that development will be viewed as the broadening of human abilities and it was not pioneered by the optimal fulfillment of utility or money income. Sen reject s the monetary approach in favor of liberty to be alive based on values. In Sen’s model, poverty is defined as the inability to reach specific primary capabilities in which the first abilities are explained as the lack of capacity to accomplish some vital functioning up to certain minimally sufficient levels. The capability approach rejects utility for measuring the welfare of individuals. Sen further criticizes the ethical building stones of utility and argues that the only way of using a utilitarian approach is to have it in a concept of interest viewed as ‘desire fulfillment.' Individuals should be allowed to take part in social evaluations that ignore factors, such as their physical appearance, and that affect their quality of life. People can see themselves as contented despite being in poor states and having desires guided by the possibility of acquiring a better life. The capability approach gives a sense of choice to individuals to live lives that they deem valuable to their own standards. People usually have different potential and therefore it would be fair if they are given the freedom to choose their standards of fulfillment. Money and possessions are taken to be the only means of enhancing well-being and not the parameters for measuring the scale of poverty. The stress is put on the availability of monetary and other resources for the satisfaction of particular needs as opposed to self-sufficiency. Other external factors and social goods are considered as probable influences over capabilities. According to this perception, therefore, people will consider themselves as poor if they feel that they have no capacity to attain their dreams.
The capability approach to explaining poverty is also supported by the social exclusion (SE) method (Alkire and Santos, 2014). The SE method originated in industrialized nations to attempt and to explain marginalization and the lack of some items even in developed countries that provide general welfare provisions ( Stewart, 2014) . The European Union (EU) describes SE as how people come to be entirely or in part are left out from participating fully in the community in which they live. Atkinson (1998) adds more weight to this approach by suggesting that social exclusion happens when an individual is an inhabitant in a community, and for any cause beyond his or her capability is unable to participate in ordinary events in their community, despite a desire to join in the activities. Alkire and Santos (2014) debated this definition. Thus the SE method, people will feel that they are poor if they realize that they have been marginalized by their community or governments, but will feel otherwise if they perceive their inclusion.
The participatory approach also complements the two non-monetary approaches to explaining poverty. For example, Atkinson (1998) criticizes current poverty estimates for being external and failing to consider the point of view of poor people. This approach purposefully aims, therefore, to allow poor people to participate in resolutions concerning poverty and its implications on their lives. Importantly, after people engage in defining their situations, assessments and interpretation of their experiences could then be possible. This approach contests that people might report being poor based on their life experiences, which might not include their income levels or their expenditures. For example, it could be that some families or individuals earned or spent meagerly, yet they are happy. In the case of such individuals, is it correct to classify them as being poor?
Evidently, all the approaches have shortcomings in their attempts to define poverty. Alkire et al. (2015: 366) argue that the space in which poverty is determined, and the way the scope has been explained by the indicators chosen, is not comprehensive. Poverty encompasses many aspects, not all of which can be measured. Thus, there is a global debate underway over whether material, social, and political aspects of life should be included in the definition of poverty. First, there is no consensus so far on whether poverty should be weighted by utilities, resources, or choice to live life according to one’s desires and potential. Second, some global agencies are at a crossroads with attempts at a universal definition for poverty (Alkire et al. (2015: 370; Saith, 2001: 87). Poverty parameters were originally designed for developed countries, whereas participatory and capability approaches were initially designed for developing countries. The way individuals interpret poverty parameters of the different approaches will vary from one country to another, from rural to urban, and so forth. The physical structures and the social conditions affect the way people think and perceive poverty: poverty, then, is about how individuals see themselves and those seeking to define the poor see the poor.
A critical question remains: how should people distinguish between being poor and not being poor? On what basis should individuals who view themselves as being contented be called poor? Justifying the use of one set of indicators to create a poverty line over another is indeed tricky. Saith (2001) is of the view that the choice of a poverty line will show up the many disconnections between the wealthy and the poor. That kind of a break will show some distinct traits of the poor and that neither political nor moral reflections hold.
Collectively, the various methods for measuring and identifying poverty do not present a single method to measure poverty. In the monetary, ability, and social insularity approaches, outsiders determine the statistics and parameters that will apply to a group of which they are not a part. Thus, the people themselves may give exaggerated information in the participatory approach. And, the poverty definitions lack subjectivity, especially from outside observers. Ultimately, different methods may culminate into different priorities for the design and implementation of antipoverty policies. An essential factor for a poverty measure is likely the ratio of the population with insufficient levels of consumption. Many economists like Sen (1976) are drawn to relative poverty measures because they rely only on a static relationship to median income, and therefore one can establish thresholds. Yet, a comparable test is not a practical method to develop standards of poverty policy analysis because a person can be counted as inferior, even though not all needs or desires are considered. For example, basic needs, such as food and shelter are broadly acknowledged whereas the need for a car, or expensive clothes, is rarely considered to have equal importance by policymakers.
This paper has shown that at its core poverty is concerned with how people perceive themselves not a poverty measure that both scholars and practitioners cannot agree upon. As this essay has described, poverty should be considered relative to the conditions of living of individuals. Specifically, individuals who feel that their capacities to realize goals and objectives is obscured, or that they have been marginalized in their communities to feel poor, it is only reasonable that investigators ask for the opinions of individuals before they can determine if they are poor or rich. Many people in the third world, for example, may not have material possession as compared to their counterparts in the developed world but lead a contented life according to their own standards. It would therefore be inaccurate to judge them as poor basing on the Western standards. Life in different parts of the world requires different requirements to satisfy various needs and wants. This pragmatic nature of life makes it relative. With all the factors stated, it would be therefore accurate to state that being poor is not just about how much one earns or consumes but how an individual sees himself.
References
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