Recommended reading
Pathways out of and into poverty in 36 villages of Andhra Pradesh, India
Dual policy focus on prevention and escape is needed to combat poverty
Authors:
A. Krishna
Publisher:
World Development, 2005
This article, published in World Development, develops a Stages of Process methodology to analyse pathways in and out of poverty in Andhra Pradesh, India. It finds that fourteen percent of households in the 36 villages studied escaped from poverty over the past 25 years, but another 12 percent of the 5536 households fell into poverty during the same time. Ill health and high healthcare costs, social and customary expenses, high-interest private debt, and drought were found to be most often associated with falling into poverty. On the other hand, diversification of income sources and land improvement were most closely related with escape. Some other factors, including industrial growth and education, had only very slight and indirect effects on poverty in these villages.
The study concludes that escaping poverty and falling into poverty are responsive to different sets of factors. Setting up poverty monitoring stations to conduct similar micro-level inquiries on a more regular basis could help keep track of these factors and their effects. The author argues that two different sets of poverty policies will be required in future: one set to assist escape, and another set to prevent descent [adapted from author].
