scholarly journals Structural Adjustment, Labour and the Poor in Pakistan

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Shahrukh Rafi Khan ◽  
Safiya Aftab
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Income Group ◽  
Consumption Pattern ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Unskilled Labour ◽  
High Incidence

In this paper we cite evidence regarding the likely impact of IMF/World Bank policies on labour and the poor in Pakistan. Our findings show that since the 1987 bout of structural adjustment, public sector employment has decreased while wages have been frozen. Also, overall unemployment in occupations with a high incidence of the poor has dramatically increased and real wages of skilled and unskilled labour sharply declined. In addition, subsidies that were critical to the consumption pattern of the poor have been cut while the burden of indirect taxes on the poorest income group has increased. Not surprisingly, there has been an increase in poverty and inequality, particularly in the rural areas.

scholarly journals Poverty and Inequality during the Adjustment Decade: Empirical Findings from Household Surveys

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haroon Jamal
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Index ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Welfare And Poverty ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Dynamic Decomposition

This paper investigates the dynamics of poverty and inequality in Pakistan over the period 1988-1999. The year 1988 was the year of the first formal Structural Adjustment Lending (SAL) from the World Bank and the IMF. Thus, this analysis facilitates the debate regarding the impact of SAL on household welfare and poverty. This is done by analysing changes in poverty and inequality from two comparable household income and expenditure surveys conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics. Our findings show an increase both in the Gini coefficient from 0.34 to 0.38 and poverty incidence from 24 to 30. The dynamic decomposition of the poverty index indicates the relative importance of growth and redistribution effects in explaining the changes in poverty. The analysis reveals that increase in poverty can mainly be attributed to low economic growth during the decade especially in the rural areas.

Forest Income and Rural Livelihoods in West Bengal, India

2021 ◽  
pp. 232102222110243
Author(s):  
Biswajit Ray ◽  
Promita Mukherjee
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
West Bengal ◽  
Rural Households ◽  
Rural Poverty ◽  
Rural Livelihoods ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Forest Income ◽  
Poverty And Inequality

To what extent forests contribute to rural livelihoods in developing countries? To find a plausible answer for this, this article explores whether inclusion of forest income to rural households’ total income accounts reduces poverty and income inequality, and also enables rural households to cope with shocks. To this end, we conducted household surveys in eight forest-dependent villages in the Indian state of West Bengal between August 2016 and August 2017. Using data from 407 sample households, we measured forest income of a household as the aggregate monetary value of resources extracted solely from forest ecosystem and compared this with other economic activities of the households. We calculated poverty indices and Gini coefficient with and without forest income, and we employed regression and Gini decomposition techniques to assess the safety net role and relative contribution of forest income to reducing rural poverty and inequality when compared to other sources of income. We found that the addition of forest income to household accounts significantly reduces measured poverty and inequality. Besides, the sample households, especially the poor, extract more from forests to cope with severe covariate shocks due to greater income certainty and thus adopt forest-dominated coping strategy in time of shocks and crises. The implication is that forest income needs to sustainably flow to the poor along with the development of better safety nets in forested rural areas in order to improve the forest-based rural livelihoods in developing countries like India. JEL Codes: Q23, Q56, Q57

Rural Poverty in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan: Profiles and Policies (Invited Lecture)

1987 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-340
Author(s):  
Mahmood Hasan Khan
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Rural Population ◽  
Rural Poverty ◽  
Absolute Poverty ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Labour Power ◽  
Trickle Down

The Bangladesh - India - Pakistan subcontinent has about one billion people or one-fifth of the world's population. A majority of the subcontinent's people live in rural areas and depend directly or indirectly on agriculture and related pursuits. The highly differentiated rural population includes a large proportion of the poor in the three countries. Their differentiated structure is based on (a) control of land through right of ownership and usufruct, and (b) employment opportunities for the labour power and its wages .. Absolute poverty afflicts nearly 60 percent of the rural population in Bangladesh,40 percent in India and 35 percent in Pakistan. The major causes of rural poverty are (a) landlessness and (b) lack of adequate employment (including low real wages) in or outside agriculture. Both these factors are responsible for keeping the poor consigned to low "entitlements" to income and commodities. The growth of the economy in general, and of agriculture in particular, has not produced the "trickle-down" effects large enough to counter the basic causes of persistent and high levels of rural poverty.

scholarly journals Globalisation and poverty

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 81-86
Author(s):  
Ľ. Bartová
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Absolute Poverty ◽  
World Bank Report ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Eastern European Countries

Transitional process in Central and Eastern European countries has been affected by globalisation. Evaluation of poverty and inequality become an integral part of economic thinking a few years ago. The importance of this topic is documented in the 2000 World Bank Report. In comparison with living standards of developing countries (especially Africa, South Asia, partially Latin America), Slovakia does not belong to the group of countries with the highest absolute poverty and according to the World Bank Report, the Slovak Republic is one of the countries with the lowest level of inequality. The paper presents an assessment of poverty and inequality in the Slovak Republic and a comparative analysis of indicators of selected countries. From 1992 the poverty in the Slovak Republic was evident, lasting and befalling more and more inhabitants. Household living costs were affected by price liberalisation. Inequality increased too. In 1996, inequality was correlated with the size of settlements and reached the highest level in settlements with over 50 thousand inhabitants. The share of population under poverty line has been increasing as well. Poverty assessment depends on the poverty line, which changes over time and across the regions. Distribution of household income in the Slovak Republic by the size of settlements (Microcenzus 1996) is shallow and densely concentrated around the poverty line. Therefore high sensitivity of poverty incidence, its depth and severity is observed. Contrary to the situation in developing countries, where the highest share of poor is observed in rural areas, the share of the Slovak Republic population under the poverty line was the highest in the settlements with 5 thousand to 10 thousand inhabitants in 1996.

scholarly journals An economic system that crushes the poor

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maake J. Masango
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The article focuses on economic structures that crush the poor, especially global economic structures that trap and keep people in poverty. The concept of poverty occupies centre stage in South Africa and many other developing countries. There is no longer a middle class. One is either rich or poor. Globalisation has created a system or program that continues to crush the poor, while also breeding greed and selfishness. The rich always accumulate resources while the poor struggle to make ends meet. These problems are created by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Structural Adjustment Programs, to name a few. These structures have introduced a system of inequality that widens the gap between the rich and the poor because of self-interest, which continues to crush the latter. The end result is that the concept of Ubuntu or Botho among African communities is destroyed. Injustice becomes the order of the day.

scholarly journals Rural poverty and poverty alleviation in Mozambique: what's missing from the debate?

1998 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Cramer ◽  
Nicola Pontara
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Rural Poverty ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Coastal Shipping ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Post War

The peace accord signed in October 1992 and multiparty elections held in October 1994 brought to Mozambique fresh hopes and opportunities. Post-war reconstruction has been underway for some years, through an array of projects ranging from hand-outs for demobilised soldiers to the World Bank supported Roads and Coastal Shipping (ROCS) rehabilitation project running from 1994 to 2000. Although there is political tension between the two main parties and former contestants in the civil war, Frelimo and Renamo, and a combination of rising urban crime and sporadic banditry on roads in rural areas, generally there has been a strong improvement in political stability and physical security for the majority of the population. Economic reforms, broadly typical of World Bank/IMF stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes, have accelerated during the 1990s and have been underwritten by substantial external financial support. The end of war together with deregulating policy reforms and a sweeping privatisation programme have provoked a surge in foreign investor interest in the country. In aggregate terms and in spite of data caveats, the evidence suggests that Mozambique has become one of the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa during the 1990s.

scholarly journals Trends in Inequality in Pakistan between 1998-99 and 2001-02

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (4II) ◽  
pp. 809-821 ◽  
Author(s):  
Talat Anwar
Keyword(s):  
Income Distribution ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Recent Time ◽  
Income Poverty ◽  
Absolute Poverty ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Gini Coefficients ◽  
Poverty And Inequality

Although there has been a much debate on poverty in Pakistan in recent time, the discussion on inequality remained limited. Poverty and inequality are closely linked—for a given mean income, the more unequal the income distribution, the larger the percentage of the population living in income poverty. Thus, incomes at the top and in the middle of the distribution may be just as important to us in perceiving and measuring poverty as those at the bottom. It is, thus, important to monitor the whole income distribution rather than merely the bottom of distribution. The issue of income inequality in Pakistan has been important in the policy discussions since the early 1960s. Since then, a number of attempts have been made to estimate the income or expenditure inequality using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data. However, a perception of increasing absolute poverty in Pakistan has shifted the focus of studies from inequality (or relative poverty) to absolute poverty. Consequently, a number of attempts have been made by various authors/institutions to estimate the poverty in Pakistan in the 1990s. The debate on trends in poverty during the 1990s—an era of stabilisation and structural adjustment has been wide-ranging in Pakistan. However, there is no discussion on the changes in income distribution from the policy and institutional reforms. World Bank (2003); FBS (2001) and Kemal (2003) are only three exceptions. While the former two studies report Gini Coefficients in their studies on absolute poverty in Pakistan without explaining its variations over time, the latter study is a comprehensive review on the income distribution in Pakistan.

An Analysis of Consumption Pattern in Pakistan

1982 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rehana Siddiqui
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rates ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Household Size ◽  
Consumption Pattern ◽  
Total Expenditure ◽  
Demand Growth ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Urban Rural ◽  
Urban And Rural Areas

The paper aims at testing the validity of Engel's law with data on Pakistan. Consumption functions for urban and rural areas have been estimated separately. These functions are shown to be determined by total expenditure and household size. Engel's law is confirmed for some commodity groups but not for all. Following tests of urban-rural homogeneity and of stability of urban and rural consumption functions, demand growth rates for different food and non-food items have been calculated, assuming different growth rates of total expenditure and household size.

scholarly journals Global trends in medical education accreditation

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Bedoll ◽  
Marta van Zanten ◽  
Danette McKinley
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
Medical Schools ◽  
Income Group ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Fiscal Year ◽  
The World ◽  
Google Search

Abstract Background Accreditation systems in medical education aim to assure various stakeholders that graduates are ready to further their training or begin practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore the current state of medical education accreditation around the world and describe the incidence and variability of these accreditation agencies worldwide. This paper explores trends in agency age, organization, and scope according to both World Bank region and income group. Methods To find information on accreditation agencies, we searched multiple online accreditation and quality assurance databases as well as the University of Michigan Online Library and the Google search engine. All included agencies were recorded on a spreadsheet along with date of formation or first accreditation activity, name changes, scope, level of government independence, accessibility and type of accreditation standards, and status of WFME recognition. Comparisons by country region and income classification were made based on the World Bank’s lists for fiscal year 2021. Results As of August 2020, there were 3,323 operating medical schools located in 186 countries or territories listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools. Ninety-two (49%) of these countries currently have access to undergraduate accreditation that uses medical-specific standards. Sixty-four percent (n = 38) of high-income countries have medical-specific accreditation available to their medical schools, compared to only 20% (n = 6) of low-income countries. The majority of World Bank regions experienced the greatest increase in medical education accreditation agency establishment since the year 2000. Conclusions Most smaller countries in Europe, South America, and the Pacific only have access to general undergraduate accreditation, and many countries in Africa have no accreditation available. In countries where medical education accreditation exists, the scope and organization of the agencies varies considerably. Regional cooperation and international agencies seem to be a growing trend. The data described in our study can serve as an important resource for further investigations on the effectiveness of accreditation activities worldwide. Our research also highlights regions and countries that may need focused accreditation development support.

scholarly journals Sex-based differences in and risk factors for metabolic syndrome in adults aged 40 years and above in Northeast China: Results from the cross-sectional China national stroke screening survey

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e038671
Author(s):  
Feng-E Li ◽  
Fu-Liang Zhang ◽  
Peng Zhang ◽  
Dong Liu ◽  
Hao-Yuan Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Metabolic Syndrome ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
Density Lipoprotein ◽  
High Body Mass Index ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Sample Data ◽  
High Incidence

ObjectivesLow levels of income and education are risk factors for metabolic syndrome in the population of Northeast China, which has a high incidence of metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. This study aimed to determine sex-based differences associated with the prevalence of and risk factors for metabolic syndrome among people older than 40 years in Northeast China; this has not been previously investigated.DesignThis study analysed a portion of the large sample data of the national cross-sectional screening of China from 2016. Metabolic syndrome was defined as the presence of any three of the following five risk factors: abnormal waist circumference; high levels of triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol or fasting plasma glucose; and elevated blood pressure. Multiple regression analysis was used to investigate sex-based differences in the prevalence of, and risk factors for metabolic syndrome.SettingThe study was conducted in Dehui City, Jilin Province, China.ParticipantsA total of 4052 participants with complete questionnaire information and laboratory examination results were included.ResultsThe prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 50.1% overall (38.4% in men and 57.9% in women; p<0.001). High body mass index and hip circumference were associated with metabolic syndrome in both sexes. In addition, physical inactivity (OR and 95% CI 1.44 (1.06 to 1.97); p=0.022) in men and advanced age (OR and 95% CI 1.54 (1.15 to 2.04); p=0.003) in women were factors associated with metabolic syndrome. Women with junior high school education or above and living in rural areas were less likely to have metabolic syndrome. For men, education and rural or urban living had no association with metabolic syndrome.ConclusionsThe risk factors for metabolic syndrome have similarities and differences in different sexes; thus, the prevention and treatment of metabolic syndrome should be based on these sex differences.

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