Meaning of Poverty:
Poverty
is one of the problems of economic development. The main objective of economic
development is poverty alleviation. Poverty is a situation where people are
deprived of basic needs, basic rights and basic opportunities for their
livelihood. In other words, poverty is the condition of having insufficient
income to meet basic needs such as fooding, clothing, housing, clean drinking
water and health services. According to World Bank, “Poverty is the inability to
attain minimal standard of living.”Types of Poverty:
Poverty
can be classified into two groups:
Absolute Poverty:
The situation in which individuals are unable to attain the basic needs
of life such as food, cloth, shelter, safe drinking water, health facilities, primary
education, etc. is called absolute poverty. In other words, absolute poverty
means inadequate income to sustain life.
Relative Poverty:
The situation in which a person has enough income to sustain life but
which is lower compared to rest of the community is called relative poverty. In
other words, relative poverty is the condition of having less income that
others within a society or a country.
Characteristics of Poor: Rural and urban
The characteristics of poor are as follows:
Low level of income:
Low
level of income is the main features of rural as well as urban poor. Due to low
level of income poor people are illiterate, malnourished and unhealthy.
Occupation:
The
rural poor are engaged in agriculture occupation and urban poor are engaged in
different activities as a labour.
Lack of assets:
There
is lack of assets with poor both in rural as well as urban. In rural areas,
they have small size of unproductive land without irrigation facilities. Due to
this, they have low level of income.
Education:
Majority
of poor both in rural and urban areas are illiterate. More than 70% of the
total poor population are illiterate.
Housing condition:
The
housing condition of majority of Nepalese poor is very bad. Due to large family
size there is always overcrowding in household. All family members have to live
in a small and hut with limited space and without electricity and other
facilities.
Status of poor in society:
There
is low status of poor in a society. They have less access to publicly provided
goods and services. They have no role in politics.
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