Relative Poverty (relative + poverty)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


MEASURING POVERTY , WHAT HAPPENED TO COPENHAGEN?

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2007
Chris Sarlo
Absolute poverty can be thought of as a condition of ,insufficiency', i.e. the inability to acquire the basic necessities of life. Relative poverty can be thought of as a condition of ,inequality'. At the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, all participants made a commitment to produce official measures of both absolute and relative poverty and to strive to eradicate absolute poverty within a reasonable time frame. Despite these commitments, measures of absolute poverty are rare in the developed world. This paper concludes that both kinds of measures are needed for intelligent discussions and good policy-making. [source]


Poverty And Worklessness In Britain*

THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 494 2004
Stephen Nickell
Relative poverty in the UK has risen massively since 1979 mainly because of increasing worklessness, rising earnings dispersion and benefits indexed to prices, not wages. The economic force underlying this is the significant shift in demand against the unskilled. This has substantially weakened the low-skill labour market which has increased both pay dispersion and worklessness, particularly among low-skilled men. Practical policies discussed include improving education and overall well-being for children in the lower part of the ability range, raising wage floors, New Deal policies, tax credits and benefits for the workless. [source]


MEASURING POVERTY , WHAT HAPPENED TO COPENHAGEN?

ECONOMIC AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2007
Chris Sarlo
Absolute poverty can be thought of as a condition of ,insufficiency', i.e. the inability to acquire the basic necessities of life. Relative poverty can be thought of as a condition of ,inequality'. At the World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995, all participants made a commitment to produce official measures of both absolute and relative poverty and to strive to eradicate absolute poverty within a reasonable time frame. Despite these commitments, measures of absolute poverty are rare in the developed world. This paper concludes that both kinds of measures are needed for intelligent discussions and good policy-making. [source]


A Theory of Poverty Aversion and Civil Society Development

ECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 1 2003
Paul Azam
A simple model is used to discuss the political economy of the emergence of relative poverty as a foundation for redistribution policy in rich countries, as opposed to the dominant concept of absolute poverty, which prevails in the rest of the world. This issue is analyzed in connection with that of the development of civil society and its role relative to the state in fighting poverty. [source]


Cultures of Childhood and Psychosocial Characteristics: Self-Esteem and Social Comparison in Two Distinct Communities

ETHOS, Issue 1 2007
Andrew M. Guest
This mixed-methods study investigated self-esteem and social comparison during middle childhood in two distinct communities: a Chicago public-housing development and a group of refugee camps near Luanda, capital of the Republic of Angola. Building on separate bodies of existing research about childhood in marginalized communities, self-esteem, and social comparison, I present an interpretive account of how conceptions of childhood associate with psychosocial characteristics in these two communities. In the Chicago community, an intense emphasis on accelerating childhood toward adult characteristics corresponded with accentuating high self-esteem and extremely competitive social comparison. In contrast, the Angolan community conceptualized childhood as distinct from adulthood in ways that prioritized role achievement above self-esteem and encouraged integrative social comparison. The comparison of the cultures of childhood in these two communities, which shared relative poverty and were regularly targeted by external agencies for interventions, has implications for understanding child development and psychological adaptation in marginalized communities. [source]


Poverty and deprivation among children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 3 2009
Leonardo Menchini
Although there is now a large body of literature on poverty in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, there remains a dearth of comparative analysis of child poverty and wellbeing. This article uses household survey microdata for the period 2001,2003 to compare absolute poverty, relative poverty, material deprivation and participation in schooling among children in five countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan. The analysis shows that low absolute levels of household consumption are associated with other deprivation indicators and with children's participation in schooling. The article also highlights the usefulness of relative poverty measures that effectively identify children at risk of exclusion in even the poorest countries in the region. The article concludes by arguing that household consumption is a good indicator of child poverty and deprivation in the region, and that relative poverty measures should be more widely used in monitoring global targets for poverty reduction. [source]


The ,reversal of fortune' thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history,

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 8 2008
Gareth Austin
Abstract Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson have dramatically challenged the tendency of economists to confine their empirical search for the causes of economic growth to the recent past. They argue that the kind of institutions established by European colonialists, either protecting private property or extracting rents, resulted in the poorer parts of the pre-colonial world becoming some of the richest economies of today; while transforming some of the more prosperous parts of the non-European world of 1500 into the poorest economies today. This view has been further elaborated for Africa by Nunn, with reference to slave trading. Drawing on African and comparative economic historiography, the present paper endorses the importance of examining growth theories against long-term history: revealing relationships that recur because the situations are similar, as well as because of path dependence as such. But it also argues that the causal relationships involved are more differentiated than is recognised in AJR's formulations. By compressing different historical periods and paths, the ,reversal' thesis over-simplifies the causation. Relatively low labour productivity was a premise of the external slave trades; though the latter greatly reinforced the relative poverty of many Sub-Saharan economies. Again, it is important to distinguish settler and non-settler economies within colonial Africa itself. In the latter case it was in the interests of colonial regimes to support, rather than simply extract from, African economic enterprise. Finally, economic rent and economic growth have often been joint products, including in pre-colonial and colonial Africa; the kinds of institutions that favoured economic growth in certain historical contexts were not necessarily optimal for that purpose in others. AJR have done much to bring development economics and economic history together. The next step is a more flexible conceptual framework, and a more complex explanation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Rapid production of a plasmid DNA encoding a malaria vaccine candidate via amino-functionalized poly(GMA- co -EDMA) monolith

AICHE JOURNAL, Issue 11 2008
Michael K. Danquah
Abstract Malaria is a global health problem; an effective vaccine is urgently needed. Due to the relative poverty and lack of infrastructure in malaria endemic areas, DNA-based vaccines that are stable at ambient temperatures and easy to formulate have great potential. While attention has been focused mainly on antigen selection, vector design and efficacy assessment, the development of a rapid and commercially viable process to manufacture DNA is generally overlooked. We report here a continuous purification technique employing an optimized stationary adsorbent to allow high-vaccine recovery, low-processing time, and, hence, high-productivity. A 40.0 mL monolithic stationary phase was synthesized and functionalized with amino groups from 2-Chloro-N,N-diethylethylamine hydrochloride for anion-exchange isolation of a plasmid DNA (pDNA) that encodes a malaria vaccine candidate, VR1020-PyMSP4/5. Physical characterization of the monolithic polymer showed a macroporous material with a modal pore diameter of 750 nm. The final vaccine product isolated after 3 min elution was homogeneous supercoiled plasmid with gDNA, RNA and protein levels in keeping with clinical regulatory standards. Toxicological studies of the pVR1020-PyMSP4/5 showed a minimum endotoxin level of 0.28 EU/mg pDNA. This cost-effective technique is cGMP compatible and highly scalable for the production of DNA-based vaccines in commercial quantities, when such vaccines prove to be effective against malaria. © 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2008 [source]


,Stew Without Bread or Bread Without Stew': Children's Understandings of Poverty in Ethiopia

CHILDREN & SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010
Laura Camfield
This paper explores children's understandings of poverty, ill-being and well-being in Ethiopia using data collected through group exercises with children aged 5,6 and 11,13 participating in Young Lives, an international study of childhood poverty. In some respects the characteristics of poverty reported by children resemble those reported by adults participating in similar exercises. However, the children's addition of appearance and clothing, and their explanations of the reasoning behind the importance of these indicators of well-being reflect growing inequalities in Ethiopia, where experiences of relative poverty and social exclusion are increasingly common. This evidence argues for broadening the focus of child poverty reduction to include the psychosocial costs of lacking the culturally specific resources required for full participation in society. The paper also illustrates ways in which poverty can be explored by asking about ill-being and that children as young as five years are able to address these themes through well-designed research methods. [source]