People’s definition and escape from poverty trap

Abstract

Abstract. The traditional methods of poverty measurement include material or objective indicators such as income, expenditure, calorie intake, education or living standards. However, this study is aimed to identify whether people perceive poverty through these factors or not. The definitions of poverty given by study respondents have proven that although, poverty can be defined through objective indicators but its scope is not limited to them rather it includes various other indicators including no children or parents, lack of self-efforts, person’s laziness, sense of understanding things and mental stress. Through interviewing household heads, some coping strategies have been identified which are employed during economically difficult events. Apart from increasing income sources and reducing expenditure, the coping strategies also include living in joint family system, social networking and borrowing in form of general provident fund as the selected sample was from government sector, they utilize their funds at times of need which give rise to a self-perpetuating poverty. The people’s perceptions related to poverty determine the nature and extent to which society is encountering hardships and prevalence of poverty in it.

Keywords. Poverty, Perceptions, Coping strategies.

JEL. I32.