Understanding the multidimensional poverty in South Asia

doi:10.1007/s11442-022-2036-z

Abstract

Abstract:

Special attention needs to be paid to achieve the world’s poverty reduction goal by 2030 in less than ten-year time. The paper aims to investigate the multidimensional poverty in South Asia in the period 2003-2019. It constructs the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by selecting ten indicators in the fields of health, education and living standards. The research results show that the MPI of South Asia decreases in the research period. Poor people in South Asian countries are still facing several forms of deprivation while cooking fuel, sanitation, housing, nutrition and years of schooling are the main restrictive factors to poverty reduction in this region. Pakistan, India and Bangladesh face the worst poverty situation in terms of health, education and living standards. Targeted poverty alleviation and resilient poverty reduction are proposed in the paper to improve the poverty reduction efficiency and individual/regional capacity against risks to avoid returning to poverty.

Key words: multidimensional poverty, resilient poverty reduction, sustainable development goals, South Asia

LI Yuheng, JIN Qihui, LI Ao. Understanding the multidimensional poverty in South Asia[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2022, 32(10): 2053-2068.

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Region	Population (million)	Per capita GDP ($)	GDP (billion$)	Territorial area (million km²)	Urbanization level (%)
South Asia	1835.78	6508.01	3597.25	4.91	31.93
East Asia	1614.67	28820.60	21094.35	12.50	72.82
Southeast Asia	661.91	24332.19	3171.96	4.57	51.48
Central Asia	73.81	4294.64	303.98	4.00	44.78

Country	Population (million)	Per capita GDP ($)	GDP (billion$)	Territorial area (km²)	Urbanization level (%)
Bangladesh	163.05	4954.76	302.57	147,570	37.41
India	1366.42	6997.86	2870.50	2,980,000	34.47
Maldives	0.53	20335.59	5.61	300	40.24
Nepal	28.61	4119.92	34.19	147,181	20.15
Pakistan	216.57	4896.39	279.06	881,912	36.91
Sri Lanka	21.80	13622.86	83.99	65,610	18.59
Bhutan	0.76	12366.53	2.54	38,394	41.61
Afghanistan	38.04	2152.36	18.79	647,500	26.02

Dimensions of poverty	Indicators	Deprived if...	Weights
Health	Nutrition	Any person under 70 years of age for whom their nutritional information is undernourished	1/6
Health	Child mortality	A child under 18 has died in the household in the five-year period preceding the survey	1/6
Education	Years of schooling	No eligible household member has completed six years of schooling	1/6
Education	School attendance	Any school-aged child is not attending school up to the age at which he/she would complete class	1/6
Living standards	Cooking fuel	A household cooks using solid fuel, such as dung, agricultural crop, shrubs, wood, charcoal, or coal	1/18
	Sanitation	The household has unimproved or no sanitation facility or it is improved but shared with other households	1/18
	Drinking water	The household’s source of drinking water is not safe or safe drinking water is a 30-minute or longer walk from home, round trip	1/18
	Electricity	The household has no electricity	1/18
	Housing	The household has inadequate housing materials in any of the three components: floor, roof, or walls	1/18
	Assets	The household does not own more than one of these assets: radio, TV, telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorbike, or refrigerator, and does not own a car or truck	1/18