“POVERTY WITH REFERENCE TO PAKISTAN”

BRIEF REVIEW
Qazi Shamveel Bin Tousif

Student BBA (Hons)

1st Year

POVERTY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE POPULATION OF PAKISTAN

DISCUSSION HAS BEEN BASED ON SECONDARY DATA AND IT IS AN
EVIDENCE THAT POVERTY IN PAKISTAN IS WIDELY AND EVENLY
DISTRIBUTED AND MUCH LARGER PORTION OF POPULATION, ABOUT
33% IS CONSIDERED VULNERABLE AND LIKELY TO SINK IN POVERTY.

POVERTY has always, had several not entirely separable meanings and is always defined
according to conventions of the society in which it occurs. We may distinguish two meanings:
(1)Social poverty
(2) Moral poverty

Social poverty implies not merely economic inequality (of property, income, living
standard, etc) but also inequality, that is, a relation of inferiority, dependence, or exploitation.
Pauperism describes a category of people unable to maintain themselves at all, or to
maintain themselves at the level conventionally regarded as minimal, without outside
assistance.

Moral poverty Defines the place of poverty in the value system of a society or of its
subgroups and institutions: that is, it defines whether poverty is morally acceptable and what
status it confers or prevents the poor man from enjoying.
In his book ‘Development as freedom’, Nobel Laureate AMARTYA SEN (2003)
argues that development consists of the removal of un-freedom; In other words POVERTY IS
UN-FREEDOM.
The social category of the poor arises in stratified societies in which the
upper and lower strata have direct experience of each other. The poor are normally
contrasted with the rich: and a causal relationship is often assumed, as in the German
Proverbs “Poverty is the rich man’s cow” and “Poverty is the hand and foot of
wealth
If worker – consumers are incapable of effective resistance, either politically through
the exercise of meaningful suffrage or economically through strong labor unions, the sheer
pace of industrialization is bound to produce widespread
poverty.

POVERTY IN PAKISTAN is a major economic issue. Nearly one-quarter of the

population is classified poor as of October 2006. The declining trend on poverty in the country
seen during the 1970s and 1980s was reversed in the 1990s by poor Federal policies and
rampant corruption.1
The government of Pakistan has prepared an "Interim Poverty reduction Strategy
Paper" that suggest guidelines to reduce poverty in the country. According to the World Bank,
the program has tangible success, with the World Bank stating that poverty has fallen by 5
percent since 20002.
 Incidences of poverty in Pakistan rose from 22–26% in the Fiscal Year 1991 to
32–35% in the Fiscal Year 1999. They have subsequently fallen to 25-28% according to the
reports of the World Bank and UN Development Program reports. These reports contradict
the claims made by the Government of Pakistan that the poverty rates are only 23.1%3. The
CIA fact book places the 2006 poverty rate at 24 percent. 4.
For many people in developing countries, poverty means difficulty in living, as
well as lack of basic services in health and education. In Pakistan lack of access to credit,
training to income generating activities, basic social services and infrastructure are the critical
factors behind the persistence of substation poverty.
Poverty is widely spread in Pakistan and is pre dominating the rural phenomenon.
Nearly about two third of the population of Pakistan live in rural areas, in 1970’s to 1980’s the
poverty rate of Pakistan fell down but again in 1990’s it rose up,
According to the Government of Pakistan’s poverty reduction strategy papers,
currently about 10 percent of the population is chronically poor, but a much larger portion of
the population [for about 33 percent] is considered vulnerable and likely to sink in poverty.
The incidence of poverty varies between rural to urban areas, and from one
province to the next. In many other mountainous parts of the country where communities are
small, isolated and where there are few major urban centers, poverty is widely and evenly
disturbed.
There is controversy between the government officials and independent
economists about the statistics of poverty but both the segments are agreed that out of four
Pakistani living under the poverty line THREE are women.
In the last It is concluded that if a person who is living in Pakistan earns less than a dollar per
day then he is in poverty net. On other hand if he has lack of facilities than it is poverty of
opportunity. So we can say that more than 40% of the population of the Pakistan is living
below the poverty line.

REFERENCES:
1 Asian Development Bank report on Poverty in Pakistan: Issues, Causes, and Institutional
Responses Online Edition
2 http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/135153/1/1893
3 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html#People
4 ADB report pg 11
5 Population Census 1998 FBS, GOP Islamabad
6 Sen.A (2003) Development as freedom.