Summary minor GPLS
Lecture 1 Why does poverty persist?
Dimensions of poverty:
- Lack of employment/low income
- Lack of education/training
- Housing poverty
- Health problems
- General lack of security
- Defencelessness and lack of power !!
But what’s poverty? It’s a relative definition
(minimal consensus)
• Failure to attain a minimal living standard/level of consumption
• Condition below that of 'decent' living But what’s decent?
(absolute poverty)
• Failure to satisfy basic physiological needs
(relative poverty)
• Lacking the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the
activities, and have the living conditions and amenities
normal/customary in a society.
Poverty is a normative concept
To speak of oneself or others as poor almost always implies a protest against
existing social structure.
The entitlements approach Devereux
‘’Entitlement refers to the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can
command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that he or she
faces ‘’
Entitlements consist of
• ownership endowments (for permanent use: labour, human resources,
land etc.)
• exchange entitlements (to be used up/sold in emergency: food stocks,
savings, jewellery etc.)
and are a function of assets:
• investments (in education/health, land/housing/ equipment)
• stores (food stocks, savings, jewellery etc.)
• claims for assistance (kinship, networks, patrons and the state).
According to Sen, poverty is not about lack of resources ('too many people, too little
food'), but about denial of rights: 'People have perished in famines in sight of much
food in shops that were protected by the state.' The focus is on – relation to social
structure (power) and – the dynamic processes that cause poverty.
Gender and poverty
• Conventional measures are inconclusive about women's experience of
poverty because they are premised on the notion of the male actor.
• Poverty measurements use the household as the unit of analysis (why
does this make sense?), thereby hiding intra-household differences.
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Lecture 1 Why does poverty persist?
Dimensions of poverty:
- Lack of employment/low income
- Lack of education/training
- Housing poverty
- Health problems
- General lack of security
- Defencelessness and lack of power !!
But what’s poverty? It’s a relative definition
(minimal consensus)
• Failure to attain a minimal living standard/level of consumption
• Condition below that of 'decent' living But what’s decent?
(absolute poverty)
• Failure to satisfy basic physiological needs
(relative poverty)
• Lacking the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the
activities, and have the living conditions and amenities
normal/customary in a society.
Poverty is a normative concept
To speak of oneself or others as poor almost always implies a protest against
existing social structure.
The entitlements approach Devereux
‘’Entitlement refers to the set of alternative commodity bundles that a person can
command in a society using the totality of rights and opportunities that he or she
faces ‘’
Entitlements consist of
• ownership endowments (for permanent use: labour, human resources,
land etc.)
• exchange entitlements (to be used up/sold in emergency: food stocks,
savings, jewellery etc.)
and are a function of assets:
• investments (in education/health, land/housing/ equipment)
• stores (food stocks, savings, jewellery etc.)
• claims for assistance (kinship, networks, patrons and the state).
According to Sen, poverty is not about lack of resources ('too many people, too little
food'), but about denial of rights: 'People have perished in famines in sight of much
food in shops that were protected by the state.' The focus is on – relation to social
structure (power) and – the dynamic processes that cause poverty.
Gender and poverty
• Conventional measures are inconclusive about women's experience of
poverty because they are premised on the notion of the male actor.
• Poverty measurements use the household as the unit of analysis (why
does this make sense?), thereby hiding intra-household differences.
1
