Classification of Poverty

On the basis of social, economic and Political aspects, Poverty can be classified as follows:

1. 1. Absolute poverty
      • Also known as extreme poverty or abject poverty, it involves the scarcity of basic food, clean water, health, shelter, education and information.
        • Those who belong to absolute poverty tend to struggle to live and experience a lot of child deaths from preventable diseases
      • Absolute Poverty is usually uncommon in developed countries.
      • It was first introduced in 1990, the “dollar a day” poverty line measured absolute poverty by the standards of the world’s poorest countries; which in 2015, was changed to $1.90 a day, by the World Bank.

• 1. • This number is controversial; therefore each nation has its own threshold for absolute poverty line.

1. 2. Relative Poverty
      • It is defined from the social perspective, that is living standard compared to the economic standards of population living in surroundings. Hence it is a measure of income inequality
      • Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of the population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income
      • It is a widely used measure to ascertain poverty rates in wealthy developed nations.
   3. Situational Poverty
      • It is a temporary type of poverty based on occurrence of an adverse event like environmental disaster, job loss and severe health problem
      • People can help themselves even with a small assistance, as the poverty comes because of unfortunate event
   4. Generational Poverty
      • It is handed over to individual and families from one generation to the one.
      • This is more complicated, as there is no escape because the people are trapped in its cause and are unable to access the tools required to get out of it
   5. Rural Poverty
      • This occurs in rural areas, where there are less job opportunities, less access to services, less support for disabilities and quality education opportunities
      • People here tend to live mostly on farming and other menial work available in the surroundings.
   6. Urban Poverty
      • The major challenges faced by the Urban people, because of Poverty include:
      • Limited access to health and education
      • Inadequate housing and services
      • Violent and unhealthy environment because of overcrowding
      • Little or no social protection mechanism.