What is Poverty?
Defining and measuring poverty are essential to any discussion of poverty reduction. Definitions of poverty have traditionally focused only on material—and specifically monetary—measures of well-being. But key concepts behind poverty have evolved considerably in recent years. Today, a more holistic, multi-dimensional perception of poverty has emerged, drawn from interviews with the poor themselves. Definitions of poverty have expanded to include the social and psychological burdens of daily survival on the bottom rungs of society. This broader conception is described by Amartya Sen as a lack of capabilities that enable a person to live a life he or she values, encompassing such domains as income, health, education, empowerment, and human rights (Sen 1999:87-98).
As researchers and policymakers struggle to understand these complexities, they have begun to use “participatory assessments” to let the poor speak in their own voice and identify their own priorities. The authors of the Voices of the Poor series interviewed 60,000 poor people in 60 countries in one of the better-known assessments (Narayan et al. 2000a, 2000b, 2002). Complex descriptions of the “ill-being” associated with poverty emerged, with dimensions other than material deprivation given strong significance.
Such studies make it clear that, in addition to being without financial resources, being poor often means suffering sickness, chronic pain, or exhaustion. It means enduring difficult social relations, sometimes facing exclusion from the community or family. Poverty also translates into insecurity and powerlessness, a lack of access to information and institutions, and often a lack of self-confidence and voice. Psychological suffering is also associated, in the form of humiliation, anguish, grief, and worry (Narayan et al. 2000b:37-38).
These varying aspects of poverty tend to be self-reinforcing, making it all the more difficult to move out of poverty and construct a stable life. It is hard to plan ahead or to seize new opportunities when you are exhausted, stressed, or hungry. In addition, the poor often live in dangerous and degraded environments, since that is all they can afford. They are thus the most vulnerable to violence, crime, and natural and economic catastrophes (Narayan et al. 2000a:72, 84-88).
Finally, living in poverty often means facing a truncated view of the future. The poor are often averse to risk, having suffered from mistakes or false expectations in the past and lacking assets to fall back on. Whereas those with means can save for emergencies and plan for the future, the poor do not have that luxury. A poor person’s planning horizon—how far ahead they can plan or foresee—is often determined by when food will run out. It may be as soon as the end of the day. This element of poverty—the lack of ability to reasonably plan for the long term—has real significance for anything related to ecosystem management, which works over extended periods of time, often yielding benefits in the future.
