Chronic poverty: concepts, causes and policy
Abstract
Based on over a decade of research by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, this volume analyses the challenges to be met if global extreme poverty is to be eradicated. Building on case studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and Uganda, it includes material on poverty dynamics, the inter-generational transmission of poverty, the importance of building assets and reducing vulnerability, the critical nature of conflict as a cause of impoverishment and chronic poverty, and new thinking about the close relationship between social exclusion and adverse incorporation. Current policy does not adequately support pathways out of poverty: neither the positives of getting a good job, or building assets, nor the negatives of preventing setbacks along the way. While social protection is increasingly on the policy agenda by way of preventing extreme setbacks, the pro-poorest economic growth and labour market policies, the rounded approach to providing enough education to poor children, all need much greater policy makers' attention. Policy makers also need to consider the norms which govern social groups and inter-group social relationships which determine how people make use of assets and capabilities, and how to change those norms where they are problematic for socio-economic mobility, or lead to conflict.
The list of contents are as follows:
1. Introduction; Karen Moore and Julia Brunt
2. An Evolving Framework for Understanding Chronic Poverty; Andrew
Shepherd
3. Understanding Poverty Dynamics and Economic Mobility; Bob Baulch
4. The Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty: An Overview; Kate
Bird
5. Does Vulnerability Create Poverty Traps?; Armando Barrientos
6. Assets and Chronic Poverty; Andy McKay
7. Adverse-incorporation, Social Exclusion and Chronic Poverty; Sam
Hickey and Andries du Toit
8. Violent Conflict and Chronic Poverty; Tony Addison, Kathryn Bach and
Tim Braunholtz-Speight
9. Low Accumulation, High Vulnerability and Greater Exclusions: Why the
Chronically Poor Cannot Escape Poverty in Bangladesh, or Elsewhere in
South Asia; Binayak Sen and Zulfiqar Ali
10 . Understanding Youth Life-course Poverty in Ethiopia; Yisak Tafere
11 . Policies to Address Chronic Poverty in India; Aasha Kapur Mehta,
Amita Shah, Trishna Satpathy, Shashanka Bhide and Anand Kumar
12. Chronic Poverty in Uganda: Issues and Policy Options; Charles
Lwanga-Ntale
13. Conclusion; Andrew Shepherd
Citation
Shepherd, A.; Brunt, J. (Editors)Chronic poverty: concepts, causes and policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK (2013) 328 pp. ISBN 9780230579347 [Rethinking International Development series]