Chronic Poverty: Meanings and Analytical Frameworks

This paper defines 'chronic poverty', and identifies frameworks for analyzing it. The paper:

• Reviews the main frameworks for conceptualizing, defining, explaining, and measuring poverty;
• Suggests that the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) should focus on poverty in its broadest, multi-dimensional sense;
• Informs that the analysis of money-metric and other quantitative indicators are the primary means by which study of chronic poverty is presently undertaken;
• Suggests drawing upon notions of both absolute and relative poverty, vulnerability, social exclusion, and subjective assessments by the poor themselves.

Finally, the key points that emerge from the paper are:

• Quantitative study of chronic poverty should be complemented by a multi-dimensional/ qualitative view of poverty;
• Research should focus on those whose experience with poverty ranges over extended periods of time and the processes that keep them poor;
• Five-tiered categorization of poverty should be used to identify the poor;
• There is a need to understand the processes that create or erode chronic poverty and these should be related to policy and action by identifying factors that cause transitions in the poverty status of a household;
• Research must focus on the intergenerational transmission (IGT) of chronic poverty;
• The chronic poor are a heterogeneous group and should be studied at individual, household (intra and inter) and social group levels.