Report:
- According to a new report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), about 31% of the world’s “multidimensionally poor” children live in India.
- A “multidimensionally poor” child is one who lacks at least one-third of ten indicators, grouped into three dimensions of poverty: health, education and standard of living.
- The health dimension comprises indicators such as nutrition, child mortality, and education.
- Under standard of living are indicators such as access to cooking fuel, improved sanitation, safe drinking water, electricity, flooring, and asset ownership.
Global scenario:
- Nearly 50% of the children in 103 countries were multidimensionally poor.
- Of the 1.45 billion (145 crore) people (from the 103 countries) who are multidimensionally poor; 48% are children. That is a total of 689 million (68.9 crore) children who live in multidimensional poverty.
- 87% of the multidimensionally poor children lived in South Asia (44%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (43%). In Ethiopia, Niger, and South Sudan, over 90 % of the children are MPI poor.
- As for the intensity of poverty, the average percentage of deprivation in terms of the 10 MPI categories was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, where multidimensionally poor children were “simultaneously deprived” in 58% of the indicators.
- Sub-Saharan Africa was followed by the region described as the Arab States (53%). South Asia occupied the third spot, with children deprived in 49% of the MPI indicators.
India’s performance:
- In terms of countries, fully 31% of the 689 million poor children live in India, followed by Nigeria (8%), Ethiopia (7%) and Pakistan (6%).
- In terms of the number of multidimensionally poor children as a proportion of the total population, India stood 37th among 103 countries. Out of India’s 217 million (21.7 crore) children, 49.9% were multidimensionally poor.
- In terms of absolute numbers, India accounts for both the highest and a staggering number of multi-dimensionally poor people.
- More than 528 million (52.8 crore) Indians are poor, which is more people than all the poor people living in Sub-Saharan Africa combined.
Dimensions:
- Poverty can have two broad categories like absolute poverty and relative poverty.
- Absolute Poverty is a condition in which people do not even get a minimum income needed to maintain their lives. India has higher prevailing rates of malnutrition, hunger, homelessness, unemployment and hence its absolute poverty also remains high.
- Relative poverty refers to a comparative perspective where a section of population is relatively deprived compared to another better off section of population. This definition is more broader and includes amenities like a well sanitised pucca house, access to education, healthcare, social security benefits, leisure, comfort etc.,
- While poverty is considered as a single dimensional measure, the term Social Exclusion is even more broader and multidimensional. It indicates that a section of population is not able to participate effectively in social life. I.e, taking part in activities of society like festivals, getting an employment or indulging in leisure activities. From an Indian point of view it includes the weaker sections like SC/STs, disabled, women, etc.,
- Inequality refers to the social and economic divide between the rich and poor. In India the inequality between well off sections of the society and the rest of the population is increasing. According to Credit Suisse the richest 1% of population in India owns 53% of its total wealth.
- In India, there is a regional dimension of poverty as some states like Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu etc., have significantly reduced their poverty whereas states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal etc., have a higher proportion of poor people.
- At another level there is Rural-Urban disparity as generally the Urban areas have less poverty indices than compared to rural areas because of the availability of jobs in manufacturing, service sector etc., Even informal employment that pays a meagre wage is mostly concentrated in urban areas, also the agricultural sector is not much profitable in rural areas due to crop failures, fragmentation of land holdings etc.,. As a result there is widespread rural- urban migration for search of better jobs and livelihood.
