Moving Out of Poverty Success from the Bottom Up

by UK, Palgrave Macmillan; Narayan, Deepa; Pritchett, Lant; Kapoor, Soumya

• ISBN13: 9780821378366
• ISBN10: 0821378368
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-06
• Publisher: World Bank Publications

Summary

Why and how do some people move out of poverty-and stay out-while others remain trapped? Most books on growth and poverty reduction are dominated by the perspectives of policy makers and academic experts. In contrast, Moving Out of Poverty: Success from the Bottom Up presents the experiences of poor people who have made it out of poverty.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xiii
Study Team and Acknowledgments	p. xv
About the Authors	p. xix
Abbreviations	p. xxi
The Moving Out of Poverty Study: An Overview	p. 2
Stories of the Poor, Stories by the Poor	p. 50
Poverty Is a Condition, Not a Characteristic	p. 86
I Believe I Can	p. 126
The Dream of Equal Opportunity	p. 180
All Politics Is Local: How Better Governance Helps the Poor	p. 222
The Unfulfilled Potential of Collective Action	p. 280
Concluding Reflections	p. 332
Researchers and Institutions Involved in Country Studies	p. 343
Technical Note on Household Regressions	p. 349
Data Collection Methods	p. 369
List of Variables for Household Regressions	p. 375
Weights for the PCA-Constructed Indexes, by Study Region	p. 379
Regression Results Tables for MOP and MPI	p. 387
References	p. 399
Index	p. 411
Tables
Sample ladders of life from two villages in Andhra Pradesh and Uganda	p. 14
All villages in Afghanistan report hard work as a factor in moving out of poverty	p. 60
Movers in India take more initiative, but chronic poor take about as much initiative as never poor	p. 66
Over half of households moved up or down at least one step on the ladder of life over 10 Years	p. 93
Movements up and out of poverty are only one part of overall poverty dynamics	p. 97
Various measures of well-being dynamics are associated with local (village-level) factors in four states of India	p. 117
On average, the poor and nonpoor in the same villages moved up together across study regions	p. 122
Poor people distinguish four different types of power	p. 132
Path deviation in youth: Youths whose parents are in agriculture or the informal sector want to do something else (start a business, get a job)	p. 156
People in study communities in Malawi associate democracy first and foremost with freedom	p. 230
Economic opportunities can create positive spillovers	p. 270
Migration and multiple hands at work trigger upward movement in Mexico	p. 288
Collective entities replicate some but not all characteristics of successful families	p. 297
Countries in the MOP study stratified by income, growth, and governance	p. 351
Choosing locations within study regions	p. 352
Desired distribution of households across mobility groups	p. 356
Figures
More than half of all households were classified as poor in 2005	p. 16
Movers most frequently cite initiatives as reasons for their move out of poverty	p. 20
Gambling, drugs, and alcohol are rarely cited as reasons for falling	p. 21
The never poor and movers score themselves higher in power and rights	p. 27
Communities where governments became more responsive were likely to report increased presence of services over last 10 years	p. 35
Families are rated the most important institution for asset accumulation by all mobility groups in Indian study regions	p. 40
Collective action helps people cope in Bufkaro, Uganda	p. 44
Initiative and opportunity interact to produce upward movement	p. 46
Majority of all households have high aspirations for their children	p. 55
Movers and never poor have higher hopes, but even chronic poor and fallers have high aspirations for their children	p. 56
Movers and never poor support their agricultural initiatives through purchase of assets, while chronic poor rely on hard work	p. 59
Fallers and chronic poor are more likely to be unhappy	p. 63
Respondents in India rate initiative as most important trigger for accumulating assets	p. 66
Initiative features prominently, luck hardly at all as reasons for moving up	p. 67
Ladder from Saré Ogicol, Senegal: Destiny matters for moving up at the top	p. 70
Community mobility matrix from Fateh Garh, Uttar Pradesh, shows types and magnitude of household mobility	p. 90
Community mobility matrix from Fateh Garh, Uttar Pradesh, shows household movement out of poverty, within poverty, into poverty, and among the nonpoor	p. 91
Narrow escalator model illustrates moving out of poverty with all households retaining their relative rankings	p. 94
Broad staircase model illustrates moving out of poverty with households changing both their absolute and relative rankings	p. 96
$ 1-a-day international standard appears to underestimate poverty compared to focus group estimates	p. 104
Rising, falling, and net prosperity indexes show large variations both across study regions and across communities within regions	p. 108
Movement out of poverty and mobility of the poor indexes show large variations both across study regions and across communities within regions	p. 110
On average, the poor and nonpoor moved up together across study regions	p. 112
Association is much weaker between net upward movements of the poor and nonpoor than between their gross upward movements	p. 114
Movers place themselves modestly higher on power and rights 10 years ago compared to the chronic poor	p. 146
Fallers place themselves modestly lower on power and rights 10 years ago compared to the never poor	p. 147
Movers report control over all or most decisions, while chronic poor and fallers report less control	p. 148
Personal agency has an association with moving out of poverty	p. 151
Movers has higher hopes for their own future than did the chronic poor	p. 154
Individual aspirations are a robust correlate of moving out of poverty	p. 155
Households with more control over decisions report ownership of more assets	p. 161
Households with greater increase in power are more likely to have acquired a house	p. 161
Households with greater increase in power are more likely to have met a local politician	p. 163
Fallers and chronic poor report more health shocks than movers	p. 165
Households with less control over decisions report more health shocks and poorer current state of health	p. 169
Households with lower aspirations for their children report more health shocks	p. 170
Comparison of spells of growth and poverty reduction shows that the pace of poverty reduction is strongly associated with growth, but with variation around this pattern	p. 184
Although inequality may help or hinder poverty reduction, its contribution to poverty reduction over long episodes tends to be less than that of growth	p. 185
Poor entrepreneurs face obstacles in gaining access to credit	p. 210
A majority of chronic poor borrow for regular consumption purposes	p. 211
Land titling is strongly associated with perceived strength of local economy	p. 215
Public works projects are not strongly associated with perceived strength of local economy	p. 216
Big increases in corruption were reported in communities where opportunities have expanded	p. 218
Quality of health and education improved more where governments became more responsive	p. 235
Roads were more likely to be present in communities where governments became more responsive	p. 237
Communities where governments became more responsive were more likely to report an increase in levels of safety and peace	p. 237
Responsiveness of local democracy has a significant association with moving out of poverty, particularly in South Asian study regions	p. 239
Responsiveness of local democracy to some has negative spillovers on others	p. 242
More than half of households across study contexts believe that most or almost all government officials in the country engage in corruption	p. 245
Corruption has a mostly negative association with moving out of poverty	p. 248
Finance/credit/saving groups are more common than livelihood, health, education, religious, or ethnic groups across all study regions	p. 302
Saving and credit groups are more common in Andhra Pradesh, Uganda, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Thailand	p. 303
Community's propensity for collective action has mostly negative association with movement out of poverty	p. 305
Change in access to networks has mostly negative association with movement out of poverty	p. 306
Different combinations of bridging ties and state functioning result in different outcomes	p. 325
Boxes
What is freedom? Voices from the field	p. 78
Poverty lines and people's perceptions of poverty lines	p. 103
Changes in women unsettle men in Bangladesh	p. 135
Giving up everything to send children to school	p. 284
Solidarity in time of war	p. 289
Richard's story: Friends to the rescue	p. 300
Looking forward: Collective action emulating markets	p. 319
Community policing in Malawi: From protection to abuse	p. 321
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.