What are the characterstics of high poverty groups?

 

Rural poverty

Perhaps the most valid generalizations about the poor are that they are disproportionately located in rural areas, that they are primarily engaged in agricultural and associated activities, that they are more likely to be women and children than adult males, and that they are often concentrated among minority ethnic groups and indigenous peoples. Data from a broad cross-section of developing nations support these generalizations. We find, for example, that about two-thirds of the very poor scratch out their livelihood from subsistence agriculture either as small farmers or as low-paid farmworkers. Some of the remaining one-third are also located in rural areas but engaged in petty services, and others are located on the fringes and in marginal areas of urban centers, where they engage in various forms of self-employment such as street hawking, trading, petty services, and small-scale commerce. On average, we may conclude that in Africa and Asia, about 80% of all target poverty groups are located in rural areas, as are about 50% in Latin America.

 

Women and poverty

Women make up a substantial majority of the world’s poor. If we compared the lives of the inhabitants of the poorest communities throughout the developing world, we would discover that virtually everywhere women and children experience the harshest deprivation. They are more likely to be poor and malnourished and less likely to receive medical services, clean water, sanitation, and other benefits. The prevalence of female-headed households, the lower earning capacity of women, and their limited control over their spouses' income all contribute to this disturbing phenomenon. In addition, women have less access to education, formal-sector employment, social security, and government employment programs. These facts combine to ensure that poor women's financial resources are meager and unstable relative to men's.

 A disproportionate number of the ultra-poor live in households headed by women, in which there are generally no male wage earners. Because the earning potential of women is considerably below that of their male counterparts, women are more likely to be among the very poor. In general, women in female-headed households have less education and lower incomes. Furthermore, the larger the family is, the greater the strain on the single parent and the lower the per capita food expenditure.

 A portion of the income disparity between male- and female-headed households can be explained by the large earnings differentials between men and women. In addition to the fact that women are often paid less for performing similar tasks, in many cases, they are essentially barred from higher-paying occupations. In urban areas, women are much less likely to obtain formal employment in private companies or public agencies and are frequently restricted to illegal, low-productivity jobs. The illegality of piecework, as in the garment industry, prevents it from being regulated and renders it exempt from minimum-wage laws or social security benefits. Even when women receive conventional wages in factory work, minimum wage and safety legislation may be flagrantly ignored. Similarly, rural women have less access to the resources necessary to generate stable incomes and are frequently subject to laws that further compromise earning potential. Legislation and social custom often prohibit women from owning property or signing financial contracts without a husband's signature. With a few notable exceptions, government employment or income-enhancing programs are accessible primarily if not exclusively by men, exacerbating existing income disparities between men and women.

 

Poor countries

Finally, it should be noted that the poor come from poor countries. Although this may seem like a trivial observation, it is actually a useful note of optimism. The negative relationship between poverty and per capita income suggests that if higher incomes can be achieved, poverty will be reduced, if only because of the greater resources that countries will have available to tackle poverty problems and the growth of civil society and the voluntary sector. A high level of absolute poverty can also retard a country's growth prospects. Moreover, many of the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa experienced outright declines in per capita income throughout the 1980s and 1990s and in some cases during the first decade of this century. Among those that are growing, at current growth rates, it would take decades to reach the levels of income at which poverty tends to be eradicated. After all, Brazil, which has been solidly middle-income for decades, still has 8% of its population living on less than $1.25 per day.