POVERTY

Poverty is a plague as it is prevalent in almost all countries in the world and it has many faces
and dimensions. Poverty is not simply a social phenomenon but also include economic, political,
historical, geographical and cultural aspects.
Various attempts have been made by societies to define poverty. In human terms poverty means
little to eat and wear, and in economic terms the poverty means the inability to attain a minimum
standard of living. It is natural to view poverty as the failure to meet the basic requirements to
maintain a minimum standard of living. This minimum standard of living may vary from society
to society. While biological requirement and nutritional norms provide the most elementary
concept of a minimum standard of living, modern understanding of poverty requires other factors
such as school enrolment, infant mortality, immunization, malnutrition, women empowerment,
overall standard of living, asset holding etc.
Poverty can be defined as a social phenomenon in which a section of the society is unable to
fulfill even its basic necessities of life. In India the generally accepted definition of poverty
emphasizes minimum level of living rather than a reasonable level of living.
In economics there are two important classification of poverty; Absolute Poverty’ and ‘Relative
Poverty’.
ABSOLUTE POVERTY AND RELATIVE POVERTY
Absolute Poverty is the sheer deprivation or non-fulfillment of bare minimum needs of
existence- of food, shelter, health or education. It is based on the absolute needs of the people
and people are defined as poor when some absolute needs are not sufficiently satisfied. It is a
state in which individual lack the resources necessary for subsistence. It is also known as
Subsistence poverty. Hence according to this type poverty is treated as deprivation. Most of the
developing countries are experiencing such type. An absolute poverty line is based on the cost
of minimum consumption basket based on the food necessary for a recommended calorie intake.
Relative Poverty : It refers to individuals or groups lack resources when compared with that of
other members of the society- their relative standard. It is related with high income countries,
where people are poor because they cannot maintain or equivalent to others in the society. There
should be differences in living standards among the people. It reflects economic distress, despair
and dissension that stem from serious inequalities in income and wealth .The relative poverty
line varies with the level of average income. Relative poverty is based on inequality and
differences in standard of living.
From this classification we know that poverty is not inequality. Poverty is only one of the evil
consequences of inequality. Whereas poverty is concerned with the absolute standard of living of
a part of the society i.e.; the poor, inequality refers to relative living standards across the whole
society.

Once we understand poverty, it is essential to measure it with its various dimensions. The
measurement of poverty is needed to plan policies to check this global phenomenon.
Many factors were listed, some of them are life expectancy, mortality, maternality, safe drinking
water, pure air, women empowerment, energy consumption, literacy, asset holding, sanitation,
primary health facilities, clean surroundings etc. most of these are derived with income.
Therefore consumption data can be used to measure poverty.