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2.0 Work and the life cycle of poverty: Working Out of Poverty

Written by: International Labour Organization

Article Overview: Surviving on the poverty line requires considerable ingenuity, courage, self-discipline and endurance. No opportunity to earn some money or payment in kind can be missed. Children and elderly dependants as well as adult members of the family often have to work in some way or other for a bare subsistence income. Hunger is ever present. Sickness or an accident means disaster. Mending the roof, buying clothes, furniture, even exercise books and pencils for school are major investments.

2.0 Work and the life cycle of poverty: Working Out of Poverty

Introduction
Surviving on the poverty line requires considerable ingenuity, courage,
self-discipline and endurance. No opportunity to earn some money or payment
in kind can be missed. Children and elderly dependants as well as adult
members of the family often have to work in some way or other for a bare
subsistence income. Hunger is ever present. Sickness or an accident means
disaster. Mending the roof, buying clothes, furniture, even exercise books
and pencils for school are major investments.

Women and girls frequently make the biggest sacrifices when food is
short or a choice is made about how many children the family can afford to
send to school. Relatives, neighbours and friends who can help out are a tremendous
support. Finding the time, resources and energy to learn a skill that
just might increase the family income is very difficult. For families to enjoy
some happy times when the worry of finding enough food for the next meal
can be forgotten, they need a lot of good luck.

More than half the population of the developing and transition countries
live in poverty. About 1.2 billion people, or 23 per cent of that population,
were living on US$1 a day or less in 1999. A further 1.6 billion people
live on $1 to $2 a day and are thus also poor, insecure and at risk of falling to
the level of bare subsistence (see table 2.1).

Looking at global trends over the 1990s, a decline in poverty in China
and some other East Asian countries significantly reduced both the proportion
of the population and the total numbers living on very low incomes. In
South Asia, while the total number of people living in poverty remained
more or less stable, this now constitutes a smaller share of the population.

Slow growth in sub-Saharan Africa resulted in a substantial rise in the
number of people living in poverty and contributed to an increase in the global
total on or below the $2 a day line. In Latin America and the Caribbean
the total number living in poverty increased, and a quarter of the population
is still living on $2 a day or less. The 66 million increase in under $2 a day
poverty in Eastern Europe and Central Asia was particularly dramatic. Since 2000, but it may well have been set back by the subsequent slowdown in
growth.

About half of the people living in poverty are of working age (between
15 and 64 years). Although most family members have to contribute in one
way or another to the household’s welfare, the earning power of adults is a
critical determinant of the well-being of the family. This chapter therefore
aims to relate our knowledge of the scale and nature of poverty to the centrality
of work in people’s lives and the development process. It analyses the
key stages in people’s lives and work, and hence the cycle of deprivation that
traps successive generations in poverty. It concludes that to make growth
pro-poor and sustainable we need to act on both the demand and the supply
side of the labour market in developing countries, while at the same time improving
the terms on which developing countries trade with richer countries
and obtain investment finance.

Poverty is most easily measured by a comparison of income or consumption
against basic material needs for food, shelter and clothing, and this
is the basis for the $1 a day line used by the World Bank and the United
Nations to quantify the scale of poverty worldwide. However, fully addressing
poverty and relative deprivation requires a wider appreciation of the
cumulative effect of a number of other aspects of the lives of poor people.

Life expectancy at birth in the least developed countries is under
50 years, compared to 77 in developed countries. A total of 799 million
people in developing countries and 41 million in developed and transition
countries are undernourished.

The risk of a woman dying as a result of
pregnancy is 50 to 100 times higher in the least developed world than in industrialized
countries. Preventable diseases take the lives of 30,000 children
per day in developing countries. Of the 115 million school-age children not
in school, 94 per cent live in developing countries. About 20 per cent of the
world’s population – 862 million people – is illiterate. Most live in lowincome
countries.

These are some of the more quantifiable aspects of poverty, but others
are much harder to measure. Many surveys reveal that the most injurious
and debilitating characteristic of poverty is loss of dignity,
because it
seriously weakens relationships within families and communities and with
persons in authority, and thus the capacity to escape from a cycle of deprivation
that can endure for generations. Being able to support oneself and contribute
to the family and community through work builds self-respect and
the respect of others. Work is thus central to our understanding of both the
material and wider dimensions of poverty and how to combat it.

Since 1990 the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has
developed its analysis of human development through an annual report on a
composite index of measures reflecting achievements in the most basic
human capabilities – leading a long life, acquiring knowledge and enjoying a
decent standard of living. UNDP reports also include a wealth of information
on other important factors, including income and gender inequalities,
access to safe water, health services and sanitation, food security and nutrition,
crime, political freedoms, human rights and fundamental principles and
rights at work.
In its 2000-01 report, the World Bank enlarged its analysis
of poverty using the concepts of opportunity, empowerment and security to
develop a broader foundation for its thinking.

This broader view of well-being and the concept of decent work owe
much to the view of development as freedom expounded by Amartya Sen,
who analyses poverty in terms of various forms of “unfreedom” that prevent
people from realizing and enlarging their capabilities. This perspective on
development is broad and integrated, encompassing both civil and political
liberties and economic and social rights as primary
goals
of development and
the principal
means
of progress. The goal of decent work, which embraces
rights and dialogue as well as employment and social protection, “situates
conditions of work and employment within a broad economic, political and
social framework”.

The focus of concern of the international community is rightly on extreme
or absolute poverty and the conditions for survival. But poverty is also
relative. Extreme poverty in developing countries highlights the gap between
the poor and rich globally, but inequality within countries is equally if
not more disturbing.
9
In many countries, a small proportion of the population
lives in luxury while the majority suffer in conditions that deprive them
of the opportunity to fulfil and develop their capabilities. Such inequality divides
societies, provoking instability and undermining the poverty-reducing
impact of growth. Furthermore, it is increasingly recognized that a high degree
of inequality impedes growth by weakening the investments of the poor in productive assets.
Combating poverty therefore ties in closely with the
struggle for social justice to which the ILO is wedded by its Constitution.

The goal of decent work for all helps to focus research and policy action
on practical measures that can both have an immediate impact on poverty
and build the infrastructure for longer-term progress. It is also a means of
mobilizing broad support for policies that require the commitment of the
non-poor and the poor themselves in order to succeed. Increasing opportunities
for decent work is about incomes, but it is also about the economic,
social and political empowerment that flows from acting to overcome vulnerability
and exclusion.

The ILO, like all actors in the development process, must learn what to
do by listening, and learn from the experience of taking action. Identifying
the key stages of life when people are vulnerable to falling into poverty is the
starting point for understanding the dynamics of life and work of poor
communities. Some of the main issues are brought out by looking at the
following:
●
child labour and school attendance;
●
youth unemployment;
●
gender inequality;
●
low incomes from agricultural work;
●
insecure livelihoods in urban informal economies;
●
poor health and hazards at work; and
●
poverty and the elderly.

Related Articles
  1.19 Building trust: Working Out of Poverty
  Home Business Expert: How To Overcome Poverty Consciousness
  1.5 Skills development for sustainable livelihoods: Working Out of Poverty
  Preface: Working Out of Poverty
  IV. Module II: Linking Microfinance to Poverty Eradication

Article Tags: adult members, dependants, east asian countries, exercise books, global trends, happy times, ingenuity, latin america, members of the family, neighbours, payment in kind, poverty in china, poverty line, self discipline, south asia, sub saharan africa, subsistence income, substantial rise, time resources, transition countries



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