HOW TO IDENTIFY THE POOR?

The key question for social scientists is to evolve a methodology for identifying the poor, and another for indexing poverty. To quote Amartya Sen:

the requirements of a concept of poverty must include two distinct—but not unrelated—exercises, namely (1) a method of identifying a group of people as poor (‘identification’); and (2) a method of aggregating the characteristics of the set of poor people into an overall image of poverty (‘aggregation’) (1999: 11).

Who are the Poor? There are several ways in which the poor can be identified. Let us discuss some of these criteria and their limitations.

1. Poor are those who could not meet their daily needs.This is the most commonly used criterion. And those using it reduce the concept of daily needs to nutritional requirements, usually expressed in terms of calorie intake.
2. Poor are those who are socially deprived.Social deprivation may lead to the downgrading of the social status, and may even adversely affect the economic well-being of the family or the caste, but such a consequence cannot be equated with poverty. And this for two reasons: (i) poverty may also exist among those who may not be regarded as socially deprived; and (ii) not all those who belong to the category of socially deprived groups—castes or tribes—can be classed as poor. From this view, it will be erroneous to regard the concept of Dalit, which has now replaced the Gandhian coinage of Harijan in India, as a synonym for poor. While it is true that those who are covered by this all-embracing term (Dalit) belong to the constitutionally defined cluster of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which have suffered from alleged neglect and oppression from the upper strata of the society, it would be wrong to equate social inequality with poverty.⁴ In the present-day context, one can point finger at a number of so-called Dalit leaders to indicate that no yardstick can place them in the category of the poor. Just as there are both rich and poor families in any upper caste, so is also the case in any Dalit caste. Thus, not only does inequality need to be distinguished from poverty, poverty should also be delinked from caste.Here, it must also be emphasized that it is not only the society of Homo Hierarchicus that exhibits inequality; the Homo Equalis societies of the North also have their systems of stratification that generate and perpetuate inequality. It is a different matter whether such inequality is a product of hierarchy or of competition, of ascription or achievement. Social inequality does not always translate into income poverty. And it is income poverty that creates classes of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ that may, or may not, be based on the fact of birth. It is not only in India that a person ‘takes birth in debt, lives in debt, and dies in debt passing on the debt burden to his offspring’. The culture of poverty exists even in the North, in which members get recruited both through birth and later. Such persons include those who are expelled from other strata for a variety of reasons.To quote Sen again, … inequality is fundamentally a different issue from poverty. To try to analyse poverty ‘as an issue of inequality’, or the other way round, would do little justice to either. This is, of course, not to deny the relationship between inequality and poverty. But neither concept subsumes the other …. Neither poverty nor inequality can really be included in the empire of the other (1999: 14–15). 
3. Poor are those who feel relatively deprived.Several writings on poverty blur the distinction between relative and absolute poverty. While it has not been so specifically stated, the World Summit’s commitment to ‘eradicate’ poverty is with regard to absolute poverty, and at the level of the people. The concept of the poverty line, or the measure such as $1 (PPP) per capita per day, refers to those who are indeed destitute—defined as those whose income is less than 25 per cent of the average income of the country’s population. In terms of relative deprivation, all those whose income is below the average income can be regarded as non-rich, but some countries in Eastern Europe divide them into three categories of indigent, poor, and the destitute. The destitute are those who cannot meet their daily needs howsoever they may be defined or calculated, and need societal and statal intervention to emerge from a dead end. Talking of eradication of poverty in the context of the destitute implies interventionist policies to ameliorate the situation, and the introduction of such measures in the country’s economy and polity to prevent people from falling into absolute poverty. But such measures will not, and cannot, ensure the eradication of relative poverty.Theories of social stratification suggest that egalitarianism remains only an ideal; societies wedded to this ideal make efforts to ensure that equality of opportunities is provided to all its citizens. However, that does not mean that inequalities do not exist in them. Egalitarianism does not rule out competition and the consequent inequalities that are created due to differential performances (of various social actors) and attendant rewards and deprivations. An egalitarian society does not encourage the perpetuation of inequalities, but is not without inequalities. It attempts to reduce the quantum of relative deprivation and facilitates upward mobility, but remains stratified.

There is no easy way to define poverty or identify the poor. People can be rendered poor by a variety of factors.

From the brief discussion of the problems inherent in defining poverty, it will be clear that there are several manifestations of poverty because it is multifaceted. Let us list the various manifestations of poverty:

1. Poor income and dearth of resources (income poverty). This has four types: it may be (i) absolute income poverty; (ii) low income; (iii) relative income poverty; and (iv) subjective income poverty.
2. Starvation and malnutrition.
3. Poor health and sanitation causing diseases and decreasing longevity.
4. Lack of access to education and other related facilities. In the community context, it may mean non-existence of a school in the neighbourhood; but for a household, it may also mean lack of paying capacity for sending a child to school.
5. Homelessness—people without homes; or the community with poor housing such as slums. People can be rendered homeless because of a natural disaster such as an earthquake or a typhoon, and may not be in a position to incur expenses in building a shelter for them. Even the well-to-do can become paupers because of disasters, natural or man-made.
6. Unsafe environment.
7. Social exclusion and negative discrimination.

The above listing would suggest that poverty can be caused not only by low income, but also by the non-availability of, or denial of access to, other facilities and services. Poverty can be caused both at the level of a community or nation, and at the level of the individual family through population growth. Similarly, needless consumption and wrong economic policies also affect resources and the environment, both at the level of the family and the community impoverishing them. Urbanization and migration have also been identified as contributory factors to poverty at both levels. Poverty is thus a complex and multidimensional problem that defies any simple solutions.