Day 44 – Q 3.What are life cycle vulnerabilities and how do they lead to poverty? Explain. In this light, examine the need to have a developmental paradigm that focusses on addressing life cycle vulnerabilities. Elucidate.
3. What are life cycle vulnerabilities and how do they lead to poverty? Explain. In this light, examine the need to have a developmental paradigm that focusses on addressing life cycle vulnerabilities. Elucidate.
जीवन चक्र कमजोरियां क्या हैं और वे गरीबी की ओर कैसे ले जाती हैं? समझाएं। इस प्रकाश में, एक विकास प्रतिमान होने की आवश्यकता है जो जीवन चक्र की कमजोरियों को दूर करने पर ध्यान केंद्रित करता है। स्पष्ट करें।
Introduction:
The World Bank defines poverty as the inability to attain a minimum standard of living where WHO goes on to describe it as the greatest cause of suffering in the world. Around 22% of India’s population lives under the poverty line where life cycle vulnerabilities play a debilitating role to arrest the development of this population.
Body
- Life cycle vulnerabilities refers to the risks associated with a series of stages through which an individual passes during his/her lifetime like childhood, puberty, adolescence, adulthood, old-age, etc.
TLP Phase 1 – Day 44 Synopsis
- Housing is usually the principal economic asset of poor households. Damage or loss to housing places enormous strain on household economies, given the high monetary cost of replacing lost assets, relative to low and irregular incomes, and the absence of insurance or safety nets.
- Urban poverty is now understood to have many additional dimensions – including ‘voicelessness’ and ‘powerlessness’, and inadequate provision of infrastructure and basic services. Most of the immediate causes of the deprivations associated with urban poverty are vulnerability related.
- Key factors in underprivileged areas include low-quality and insecure housing, which in turn limits access to basic services such as health care, public transport, communications, and infrastructure such as water, sanitation, drainage and roads.
- Poor rural livelihoods are highly exposed and vulnerable to weather-related risks and have a low resilience to loss because they have little or no surplus capacity to absorb crop or livestock income losses and to recover. Research suggests that vulnerabilities cause impoverishment, which can lead to a cycle of losses, poverty traps and a slowing of efforts to reduce poverty.
- Further, Life cycle vulnerabilities which can cause poverty can be seen from the following points in brief:
- INADEQUATE ACCESS TO CLEAN WATER AND NUTRITIOUS FOOD
- LITTLE OR NO ACCESS TO LIVELIHOODS OR JOBS
- POOR EDUCATION AND INEQUALITY
- CONFLICT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
- LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND RESERVES
TLP Phase 1 – Day 44 Synopsis
The above factors necessitate a development paradigm to address the issues of poor who are the most vulnerable. This need is due to the following factors:
- Pro-poor(broad-based or balanced) growth-led development – Growth matters for development only if associated with an equitable distribution of income, to be achieved through the promotion of activities generating a broad-based primary income distribution and institutional mechanisms.
- Constitutional ideals – Constitution provide peaceful, democratic means to bring about social transformation where every individual is empowered in political, social and economic terms.
- Manpower utilisation – Developmental paradigm with a focus on human development would lead to effective utilisation of the available human resource which will help in overall growth and prosperity.
Conclusion
Principles of Amartya Sen offer useful alternative to tackle poverty where his Capability approach to understanding poverty goes beyond income and stresses the whole range of means available to achieve human capabilities such as literacy, longevity and access to income. From this viewpoint, tackling life cycle vulnerabilities would become essential towards well being of the most marginalized sections of the population and help in achieving the ideals of ‘New India’.
