Non-income Dimensions, Prevalence, Depth and Severity of Poverty: Spatial Estimation with Household-Level Data in India

This chapter examines the incidence, depth and severity of poverty and the effects of the major non-income dimensions on poverty in India after more than a decade of the initiation of the process of integration by using an independently pooled cross section from the 61st and 66th round household-level unit data provided by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO). Poverty estimates are based on relative povertyRelative poverty lines at 75 and 50 % of the median value of the distribution of per capita expenditure of the respective population groups. The chapter focuses on education, type of employment, land rights, social and religious factors, and gender-related issues among the non-income dimensions of poverty. The rising poverty incidence on the basis of relative poverty line in urban areas, as evidenced in this study, supports the hypothesis that urban inequality increased significantly during the post-reforms period in India. Per capita consumption expenditure on monthly basis in logarithmic terms is used in this study as a proxy for well-beingWell-being or poverty. The study observes that land as a productive asset had very little positive effect on poverty. But the effect of education on the level of well-being was positive and increased with the level of education in every state in India. Technical education, a component of workers’ skill, improved consumption per capita in all states except Chhattisgarh and Kerala. Scheduled TribesScheduled tribes and Scheduled CastesScheduled castes among the social groups and Muslims among religious groups are mostly deprived in terms of consumption per capita.