multidimensional poverty in india
The country counts the poor on the basis of the income of the people. They decide what is the average income required to provide basic calorie level food. On the basis of that the poverty line is determined. Anyone earning less than this level is poor. There is one drawback in this scale of poverty line determination. That is, it ignores other dimensions of poverty. For example, a homeless person on the one hand and one who has a well-ventilated house with an electricity connection, on the other hand, may both be below the poverty line on the basis of income, but in reality the condition of the homeless person is worse than that of the person with a house.
The UNDP’s Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) looks at other aspects of poverty besides income. Its most recent edition has given worrying results for India. It states that even though Multidimensional Poverty (MDP) declined at an average rate of 2.7 percentage points (percentage points or PP) per year between 2005-06 and 2015-16, the figure remained 2.3 percentage points between 2015-16 and 2019-21. This fall in the figure is likely because the rest of the poor households are located in remote or poorest areas. Also, the period 2019-21 has been impacted by the global pandemic COVID.
While both NITI Aayog and UNDP use data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) to calculate multidimensional poverty in their reports, the method of calculation is different. This is the reason that there are different figures regarding poverty in both the reports. NITI Aayog estimates that 135 million people escaped the MDP between 2015-16 and 2019-21, while the UNDP puts it at 140 million.
Overall, a rapid decrease over 15 years
A little over 55% of Indians were considered multidimensionally poor in 2005-06. As per the latest data, this proportion declined to 27.7 per cent in 2015-16 and 16.4 per cent in 2019-21.
, Despite a slower rate of decline between 2015-16 and 2019-21, more people escaped from multidimensional poverty (MDP) annually during this period than in the years between 2005-06 and 2015-16 due to population growth.
Dimensions of Poverty: Health
This dimension includes nutrition and child mortality. In this scale, a family is considered poor if it has a stunted (low body size for age) or underweight child, or an adult with a low body mass index (BMI). Similarly, a household in which a child has died within the five years preceding the survey is also considered poor.
According to statistics, 44.3% of Indian households were deprived of proper nutrition in 2005-06. Malnutrition rate was 21.1 percent in 2015-16 which fell to 11.8 percent in 2019-21. The average rate of decline was 2.3 pp per year between 2005-06 and 2015-16 and 1.9 pp over the next five years. Child mortality rate fell from 4.5% in 2005-06 to 2.2% in 2015-16 and 1.5% in 2019-21.
Malnutrition, burden of child mortality
Dimensions of Poverty: Education
A household is considered disadvantaged or poor in which no member of the family aged 10 or over has completed at least six years of schooling, which is the duration of primary education in most countries. A family is also considered deprived whose child of school age does not go to school till the age at which he completes the 8th standard.
The number of households in which no member has completed primary education declined from 24% in 2005-06 to 7.7% in 2019-21. At the same time, the number of households whose children do not go to school fell from 19.8% to 3.9% during the same period. Worryingly, this rate of decline has slowed down in recent years.
6 years of school for at least one member of the household, children of school age up to grade 8
Dimensions of Poverty: Standard of Living
Access to building materials, sanitation, cooking fuel, improved sanitation, drinking water and electricity, as well as access to radio, television, telephone,
If there is availability of equipment like computer, cycle, motorbike, refrigerator then that family is not considered poor. The number of poor households has decreased on these parameters, but the rate of decline has slowed down in all other parameters after 2015-16, except sanitation.
In what percentage of the families, what is the shortage of which seeds?
India China and Sri Lanka
The new report contains estimates for 110 developing countries. Of these, Serbia (formerly part of Yugoslavia) and Armenia, Turkmenistan and Georgia have the lowest proportions of multidimensional poverty, while the five worst-performing countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. India ranks third after its neighbors China and Sri Lanka.
,, Central African Republic. Source: UNDP and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI)