I have seen so many poverty debates lately on forum. There are a lot of ideas flying around but we need some concrete definitions as well in terms of what poverty is and situation of Asian Nations in terms of poverty.
First of all we need to define what poor is.
By definition poor means "the group that has less resources then others". Meaning this term is relative. So unless a nation does not distribute the wealth in an absolute egalitarian manner then there will be poor people in that nation. This is the philosophical approach. However there are some concrete norms on what poverty is in terms of today's resources.
Absolute Poverty means being in a condition that can't meet the following requirements.
- Food: Body Mass Index must be above 16.
- Safe drinking water: Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby (less than 15 minutes' walk each way).
- Sanitation facilities: Toilets or latrines must be accessible in or near the home.
- Health: Treatment must be received for serious illnesses and pregnancy.
- Shelter: Homes must have fewer than four people living in each room. Floors must not be made of dirt, mud, or clay.
- Education: One must attend school or otherwise learn to read.
- Information: One must have access to newspapers, radios, televisions, computers, or telephones at home.
- Access to services: One should have access to complete panoply of education, health, legal, social, and financial (credit) services.
If someone can't meet requirements, this means that person is absolutely poor. So some international constitutions thried to define the monetary treshold that if a person makes less money then that treshold that means that person won't be able to meet the specifications to avoid the absolute poverty.
The old definition was made by UN. "If a person can not have an income of 1$ (nominal) /day than that person can't meet the specifications explained above which means that person is absolutely poor."
Then there is revised definition by the World Bank = 1.25$ (PPP) /day. World Bank measures the poverty treshold in terms of Purchasing Pover Parity because that actually gives how much resource you can access.
UN also came with an upper bound 2$(PPP)/day of income. 2$(PPP)/day treshold is something like a poverty upper bound meaning that "if a person is making more then 2$(PPP)/day then this person is most probably not in a situation of absolute poverty".
First of all I wanna give you the 2$(PPP)/day data for some countries I select that were subject to discussion in here. The data is obtained from the World Bank;
Czech Republic (2011) : 0.1% of the population makes less then 2$(PPP)/day
Turkey (2011) : 2.6% of the population
Brazil (2011) : 8.2% of the population
China (2011) : 18.6% of the population
Vietnam (2010) : 16.8% of the population
India (2011) : 60.6% of the population
Secondly I wanna give you the 1.25$(PPP)/day data for the same countries above. The data is obtained from the World Bank;
Czech Republic (2011) : 0.0% of the population makes less then 1.25$(PPP)/day
Turkey (2011) : 0.1% of the population
Brazil (2012) : 3.8% of the population
China (2011) : 6.3% of the population
Vietnam (2012) : 2.4% of the population
India (2011) : 24.7% of the population
What does both statistics mean? Let me explain. 24.7% of people in India are definitely living in absolute poverty situation. (100 - 60.6) 39.4% of people living in India are definitely not living in absolute poverty. And the rest (35.9%) is living in the treshold of absolute poverty (neither can absolutely avoid the absolute poverty or does fall into absolute poverty.)
@Bong Thank you for your correction. I've updated the figures. For 2$(PPP)/day I've used the headcount version (which is the right one by definition as you've mentioned), and for 1.25$(PPP)/day I've used the poverty gap data accidentaly. Right now everything should seem fine.
China, Vietnam, India etc. countries are still doing their best to beat that tresholds. There are still millions living in those countries in those conditions that's why they are using the internationally defined tresholds.
On the other hand if we consider Czech Republic a very tiny fraction of the population lives in the condition of absolute poverty. That's why countries like Czech Republic, Japan etc. does not use the definition of absolute poverty for their poverty treshold and they use the term "Relative Poverty" instead and define their more relaxed poverty definitions and measure that statistic only for more Humanitarian Development purposes.
And this is the most important. There are some Chinese members who are making fun of poor people in India. Altough I admire the development of China, such people are ruining the countries' image. Every Indian living in absolute poverty is responsibility of all of us. We are people, we coexist and cooperate.
Edit 2 : People from every nationality is mocking with poverty. I'm not targeting any ethnicity. Some banned troll also stated some fake data about poverty in China. China -as state policy- doing many projects in Africa and South East Asia to improve people's livelihoods. So I've targeted only a few names here not everyone. @Steakhouse @terranMarine
