Aging and poverty in Africa and the role of social pensions

In many low income African countries, three factors are placing an undue burden on the elderly. First, the burden on the elderly has enormously increased with the increase in mortality of prime age adults due to HIV AIDS pandemic and regional conflicts. Second, the traditional safety net of the extended family has become ineffective and unreliable for the elderly. Third, in a few countries, the elderly are called upon to shoulder the responsibility of the family as they became the principal breadwinners and caregivers for young children. While a number of studies have examined the welfare consequences of these developments on children, few studies have systematically analyzed the poverty situation among the elderly (relative to other groups) in low income countries Africa, and the role of social pensions. This study aims to fill this gap.

Methods in measuring poverty matter: an Indian story.

.Poverty, Indian

Rural poverty in India, 1973-86

This paper examines trends in the growth of consumption and its distribution and assesses its relative impact on the poor and the ultra poor, over time and across states of India. Using the National Sample Survey data for sixteen major states of India, the paper addresses three issues: (a) how the distribution of per capita consumption changed over time across the states, and to what extent it nullified the beneficial impact of growth on poverty; (b) how the poor and ultra poor fared in the wake of changes in computation and its distribution; and (c) what the regional patterns are and to what degree they can be explained. India's poverty alleviation strategies, the potential indirect role of agriculture and manufacturing, as well as the contribution of direct poverty alleviation interventions are analyzed. In particular, the paper examines the extent to which the regional allocation of funds for direct poverty alleviation programs is sensitive to the regional distribution of the poor and the ultra poor, and whether the recent evidence on the impact of these programs is consistent with the observed patterns in poverty and inequality.Safety Nets and Transfers,Rural Poverty Reduction,Services&Transfers toPoor,Environmental Economics&Policies,Inequality

What is Poverty?

.Poverty

Ageing and poverty in africa and the role of social pensions

In many low income African countries, three factors are placing an undue burden on the elderly. First, the burden on the elderly has enormously increased with the increase in mortality of prime age adults due to HIV AIDS pandemic and regional conflicts. Second, the traditional safety net of the extended family has become ineffective and unreliable for the elderly. Third, in a few countries, the elderly are called upon to shoulder the responsibility of the family as they became the principal breadwinners and caregivers for young children. While a number of studies have examined the welfare consequences of these developments on children, few studies have systematically analyzed the poverty situation among the elderly (relative to other groups) in low income countries Africa, and the role of social pensions. This study aims to fill this gap.Ageing, Poverty, Social Pensions, Developing Countries, Africa

How costly is it to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty between 1990 and 2015?

This paper proposes a methodology to estimate required growth rates, investment rates, and per capita foreign aid in US dollars in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty between 1990 and 2015. It provides a methodology which gives a linkage between costs of MDG, growth, poverty, and inequality. In this study, the methodology is applied only to the head-count poverty measure but is applicable to other poverty measures. This study takes into account the distributional aspect to derive the estimates of the projected growth and investment rates required for the next 10 years from 2005 to reach the MDG poverty reduction target. This has been done through simulating different growth scenarios: anti-poor, distribution neutral, and pro-poor. The proposed methodology is applied to the 15 Sub-Saharan African countries.Growth, Poverty, Inequality, Millennium Development Goals, Foreign aid, Investment, Sub-Saharan Africa

Economic growth and poverty reduction: initial conditions matter

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND POVERTY REDUCTION: INITIAL CONDITIONS MATTERThe focus of this paper is on analytical examination of how the relation between growth and poverty can change with the initial levels of economic development and inequality. Using the idea of poverty elasticity, measuring the extent to which economic growth reduces poverty, the study offers several propositions to demonstrate that the initial levels of economic development and income inequality can have significant impacts on poverty reduction. It also demonstrates that the tradeoff between growth and inequality can be explained in terms of initial conditions of development and inequality. The theoretical elasticities derived in the paper are then utilized to compute the growth rates in many Asian countries that would be required to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence of poverty between 1990 and 2015.Poverty reduction, conditions matter

Measuring the Impact of Price Changes on Poverty

This paper develops a methodology to measure the impact of price changes on poverty measured by an entire class of additive separable poverty measures. This impact is captured by means of price elasticity of poverty. The total effect of changes in price on poverty is explained in terms of two components. The first component is the income effect of the change in price and the second is the distribution effect captured by the price changes. It is the distribution effect which determines whether the price changes benefit the poor proportionally more (or less) than the non-poor. This paper also derives a new price index for the poor (PIP). While this index can be computed for any poverty measures, our empirical analysis applied to Brazil is based on three poverty measures, the head-count ratio, the poverty gap ratio and the severity of poverty. The empirical results show that price changes in Brazil during the 1999-2006 period have occurred in a way that favors the non-poor proportionally more than the poor. Nevertheless, during the last 2-3 years the price changes have favored the poor relative to the non-poor.Inflation, Price elasticity, Money metric utility, Price index for the poor

Leaky Bucket

.Poverty, Leaky Bucket

Women's earning power and wellbeing

.Poverty, Women?s