What is poverty

What is poverty?

Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.

Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many ways. Most often, poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action -- for the poor and the wealthy alike -- a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities.

Measuring poverty at the country level

The most commonly used way to measure poverty is based on incomes or consumption levels. A person is considered poor if his or her consumption or income level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum level is usually called the "poverty line". What is necessary to satisfy basic needs varies across time and societies. Therefore, poverty lines vary in time and place, and each country uses lines which are appropriate to its level of development, societal norms and values.

Information on consumption and income is obtained through sample surveys, during which households are asked to answer detailed questions on their spending habits and sources of income. Such surveys are conducted more or less regularly in most countries. These sample survey data collection methods are increasingly being complemented by participatory methods, where people are asked what their basic needs are and what poverty means for them. Interestingly, new research shows a high degree of concordance between poverty lines based on objective and subjective assessments of needs.

Living standards have improved...

Living standards have risen dramatically over the last decades. Per capita private consumption growth in developing countries has averaged about 1.4 percent a year between 1980 and 1990 and 2.4 percent between 1990 and 1999. So millions have left behind the yoke of poverty and despair. But population in the developing world has grown rapidly -- from 2.9 billion people in 1970 to 5.1 billion in 1999 -- and many have been born into poverty.

The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty -- defined as living on less than $1 per day (in 1993 dollars, adjusted to account for differences in purchasing power across countries) -- has fallen from 28 percent in 1987 to 23 percent in 1998.

Substantial improvements in social indicators have accompanied growth in average incomes. Infant mortality rates have fallen from 107 per 1,000 live births in 1970 to 59 in 1999. On average, life expectancy has risen by four months each year since 1970. Growth in food production has substantially outpaced that of population. Governments report rapid progress in primary school enrollment. Adult literacy has also risen, from 53 percent in 1970 to 74 percent in 1998. And gender disparities have narrowed, with the female-male difference in net enrollment rates decreasing from 11 percent in 1980 to 5 percent in 1997. The developing world today is healthier, wealthier, better fed, and better educated.

...but wide regional disparities persist.

While there has been great progress in alleviating poverty, it has been far from even, and the global picture masks large regional differences.

Poverty is rising rapidly in Europe and Central Asia, and continuing to rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia, where most of the world's poor live, the proportion in poverty has declined dramatically over the past two decades, but the recent crisis has slowed progress. And 4 in 10 households (over 500 million people) still remain in poverty in South Asia.

There are sharp regional differences also in a number of social indicators.

Most developing regions have seen infant and child mortality rates decline sharply. But South Asia’s infant mortality rates today are about the same as East Asia’s in the early 1970s, reflecting both poor progress in South Asia and favorable initial social conditions in East Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa’s infant mortality rates are well above those in East Asia some 30 years ago, and child mortality is rising because of the AIDS epidemic. On average, 151 of every 1,000 African children die before the age of 5, and 92 in 1,000 before the age of 1. Nine African countries have under-five mortality rates in excess of 200 (Angola, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone).

Gross primary school enrollment rates have risen in all regions. But Sub-Saharan Africa’s rates, having risen from 51 percent of the eligible population in 1970 to 80 percent by 1980, fell back to 78 in 1994, reflecting larger problems. Again, averages disguise wide country disparities. Nine countries in Africa have fewer than half their children enrolled in primary school (among them, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, and Niger).

The extent of gender disparities in education, as measured by the male-female gap in the percentage of 6-14 year-olds in school, varies enormously across countries. Female disadvantage in education is large in Western and Central Africa, North Africa and South Asia. In several Latin American countries, instead, there is a female advantage.

Population Living Below $1.08 a day (1993 purchasing power parity)
Click on the region below to access detailed country information	Poverty rate (% below $1.08))					Number of poor (1,000,000)					For Data Source
	1987	1990	1993	1996	1998	1987	1990	1993	1996	1998	For Data Source
East Asia &	26.60	27.58	25.24	14.93	15.32	415.13	452.45	431.91	265.13	278.32	click here
(exclude China)	22.91	15.04	12.37	8.05	9.61	109.22	75.99	65.96	45.17	55.59	click here
East Europe & Central Asia	0.24	1.56	3.95	5.12	5.14	1.07	7.14	18.26	23.82	23.98	click here
Latin America	15.33	16.80	15.31	15.63	15.57	63.66	73.76	70.79	75.99	78.16	click here
Middle East & North Africa	11.53	9.28	8.41	7.81	7.32	24.99	21.99	21.54	21.35	20.85	click here
South Asia	44.94	44.01	42.39	42.26	39.99	474.41	495.11	505.08	531.65	522.00	click here
sub-Saharan Africa	46.61	47.67	49.68	48.53	46.30	217.22	242.31	273.29	288.97	290.87	click here
Total	28.69	29.32	28.50	24.86	24.27	1196.48	1292.74	1320.88	1206.92	1214.18
Total (exclude China)	29.56	29.34	28.47	28.15	27.30	890.57	916.29	954.92	986.95	991.46

Income Poverty

1. The total population in developing countries as of 2000 is 5.2 billion. Of this, how many people live on less than $1 a day?

Correct. In 1999, 1.2 billion people lived on less than $1 a day. 300 million is the number of people living on less than $1 a day in sub-Saharan Africa alone. 2.8 billion is the number of people living on less than $2 a day in developing countries.

Correct. 60 percent of the 110 million children out of school in the developing world today are girls (66 million).

Approximately 24,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes. That translates into one person dying every 3.6 seconds -- 74% of which are children. The majorityy of hunger-related deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. An estimated 800 million individuals -- children, mothers, fathers, grandparents -- simply cannot get enough to eat.

An estimated one billion of the world's people face relentless poverty and chronic hunger. 24,000 will die today. 75% are children.

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