Week 2 : Understanding Poverty

Question 1

What is a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?

Answer 1

A measure of the value of the output of the economy (the goods and services it produces) over a specified period of time (usually a year).

Question 2

What is a country’s Gross National Product (GNP)?

Answer 2

A measure of income from all “nationals” – firms and people – of a country, whether they are resident or not.

Question 3

What is country income classification based on?

Answer 3

GNP

Question 4

Define the World Bank’s idea of absolute poverty.

Answer 4

A condition of life so characterised by malnutrition, illiteracy, and disease as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency.

Question 5

Define poverty.

Answer 5

A lack of basic commodities.

Question 6

What is wrong with the World Bank’s idea of absolute poverty?

Answer 6

• Subjective and is not inclusive of all cultures.
• Feels like a moral judgement of those suffering from poverty

Question 7

What are nutrition-based poverty lines?

Answer 7

Lines that define what is nutritionally necessary to survive.

Question 8

What is the issue with nutrition-based poverty lines?

Answer 8

• Biological and social differences between people complicate how we make this calculation.
• Food is not all we need to survive

Question 9

What does PPP stand for?

Answer 9

Purchasing Power Parity

Question 10

What is the result of adjusting for PPP?

Answer 10

It tends to narrow global income differentials.

Question 11

What is the use for PPP?

Answer 11

Adjusts for the differences involved in comparing poverty between countries, such as the fact that the same amount of money will buy different amounts of goods and services in different countries.

Question 12

Why is the international poverty line increasing?

Answer 12

Inflation

Question 13

Why would we not always adjust for PPP?

Answer 13

Not all goods are at a domestic price, some products are sold at a world market price so we would not need to adjust.

Question 14

Why has poverty fallen dramatically in the East Asian region?

Answer 14

• Economic liberalisation
• Household income was able to be kept by the household
• Opening up to the world in cheap goods and services

Question 15

Why has poverty not fallen much in areas like sub-Saharan Africa?

Answer 15

• Lack of industrial infrastructure
• Climate change has made it harder for countries to profit from agriculture, making incomes fluctuate

Question 16

Why is the fact that a majority of the world’s extreme poor living in lower middle income countries rather than low income countries a problem?

Answer 16

Aid is reduced from higher income countries because it appears that the country is developing and improving.

Question 17

What is the Human Development Index?

Answer 17

Index that combines health, wealth and education outcomes to measure human development overall, at country level.

Question 18

What is the Multidimensional Poverty Index?

Answer 18

Index that measures the number of individuals suffering from poverty in more than one indicator.

Question 19

List the two indicators of Health in the MPI.

Answer 19

• Nutrition
• Child mortality

Question 20

List the two indicators of Education in the MPI.

Answer 20

• Years of schooling
• Number of children enrolled

Question 21

List the six indicators of living standards in the MPI.

Answer 21

• Assets
• Floor
• Electricity
• Water
• Toilet
• Cooking fuel

Question 22

What is the link between poverty and ill-health ?

Answer 22

• Bidirectional
• Health care costs can push people into poverty or debt
• Those who are poor are more likely to be mistreated during the healthcare process (sent to the back of the queues, dismissed etc)