Chronic poverty amid growth: insights from long-term poverty trajectories

In recent years there has been growing interest in researching the dynamics of poverty, including the poverty mobility of households and communities. This paper is a part of a longitudinal study that seeks to improve understanding of the causes and consequences of childhood poverty; the focus in this paper is tribal households not conforming to the general trend of upward mobility.

Relying on three case studies, the paper suggests the following factors stand behind the downward movement:

• location of the households
• households at the beginning of the family life cycle
• households with young children, meaning fewer hands to work
• households which started off on debts rather than on endowments
• households suffering shocks

In addition, the document reviews an analysis of qualitative data about childhood poverty in four developing countries.

Conclusions encompass:

• the choices that poor people make can be seen as resistance to being labelled and that, by making these choices, they are also upholding the notion of agency and self-esteem
• the specific issues facing children are often lost when using national datasets that consider only households and fail to consider inequalities within them
• an analysis that captures the role of agency and opportunity structure in shaping poverty mobility can inform strategies that support transitions out of poverty
• a host of social, cultural and psychological aspects of how a household negotiates institutions based on their experiences of these systems need attention
• two sets of policies are necessary; one set to help promote escapes from poverty and a different set to control against descents into poverty
• the need to take into account the complex processes, dynamics and multiple influences in children’s lives is clear

Finally, the authors criticise the flawed neo-liberal policies which recommend withdrawal of the state and suggest that the government’s role is only to ‘enable’.