Other Poverty Study
351 items available
Permanent URI for this collection
Items in this collection
1 - 10 of 55
-
Publication
Drivers of Poverty Reduction in Lao PDR
(World Bank, Vientiane, 2015-10-01)Poverty in Lao PDR declined from 33.5 percent to 23.2 percent over the 10 year period between 2002/3 and 2012/13. The number of poor people declined by about half a million to 1.35 million in 2013 and Lao PDR has met its MDG target of reducing poverty to below 24 percent by 2015. Improvements in welfare are evident in the changes in other socio-economic indicators such as the ownership of televisions and access to electricity, which doubled, and the number of households living in houses built with bricks or concrete, which nearly tripled, while the proportion of those without a toilet halved. Net secondary enrollment increased from 27 percent in 2002/3 to 50 percent in 2012/13 showing significant improvements in education. -
Publication
Poverty and Shared Prosperity in Brazil's Metropolitan Regions: Taking Stock and Identifying Priorities
(Washington, DC, 2015-07-08)In the 20th Century, Brazil rapidly urbanized and is now not only an urban nation but a metropolitan one. Brazils sprawling regioes metropolitanas (metropolitan regions, or RMs, which are municipal clusters) are now home to almost 50 million people and much of the countrys economic vitality. The RM spatial level and its supporting governmental institutions have thus become critical to Brazils future development. While challenges remain for tackling deprivation in rural areas, poverty in Brazil is now predominantly urban. More than six in 10 Brazilians in extreme poverty were living in urban settings as of 2012. Of these, over a fourth was concentrated in the 10 largest RMs. -
Publication
Alternative Social Safety Nets in South Sudan: Costing and Impact on Welfare Indicators -- Poverty Note
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)The purpose of this note is to provide the monetary cost of various social safety net targeting schemes that can be deployed to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience. It is believed that gradually switching to the provision of social safety nets can reduce the chronic dependency on humanitarian (mainly food) aid. At the same time, it could help to alleviate reliance on patronage networks and switch a portion of the public spending from unproductive uses (e.g., military expenditure) toward strengthening the resilience and supporting the livelihoods of South Sudanese. In addition, a social safety net would address the fatigues of years of weak governance and ongoing efforts to find more direct, transparent ways to enable citizens to reap the benefits of independence and – once it materializes – peace. -
Publication
Kyrgyz Republic: Poverty Profile for 2013
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05-21)Over the last decade, the Kyrgyz Republic experienced volatile but positive economic growth. Since the early 2000s, the share of working age population has been growing robustly and foreign labor markets have been an important source of employment. The Kyrgyz Republic has achieved large reductions in poverty over the past decade, but in recent years progress has diminished. During 2003-2012, the Kyrgyz Republic saw significant convergence between urban and rural poverty rates. Poverty reduction during 2003-2013 was driven mostly by growth rather than redistribution. -
Publication
Poverty and Shared Prosperity in Russia: Deconstructing Russia’s Shared Prosperity Success -- The Role of Labor and Non-Labor Income
(Washington, DC, 2015-05)The Russian Federation has sustained significant growth over the past decade, accompanied by high rates of income mobility for all groups in the population. The positive outcomes in economic growth were accompanied by economic mobility for most households, reflected in substantial poverty reduction. Inclusive growth has led to a positive performance of the country in terms of shared prosperity - measured by the income and consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent of the welfare distribution. Notwithstanding the positive performance observed, the recent trends suggest sustainability concerns. Alongside the inclusive economic growth, economic mobility has improved remarkably in the country as reflected by the growth of the middle class. Upward economic mobility in Russia appears to be the result of both increases in average income levels and changes in the distribution of income. Given the positive outcomes observed, the question is, to what extent is Russia’s favorable performance in terms of shared prosperity sustainable? To this end, this note explores the main drivers behind the progress to date. The evolutions of the labor market, on one hand, and the incidence of the fiscal system, on the other, appear as the two main factors driving the observed poverty reduction, increase in the income of the bottom 40, and growth of the middle class in Russia. The note is structured as follows: section one gives introduction. Section two presents an analysis of labor income, including an overview of market dynamics and the reduction of wage inequality in the country. Section three presents a summary of the lessons derived from the analysis that can inform policy dialogue and contribute to ensuring the sustainability of the progress achieved in shared prosperity going forward. -
Publication
Braving the Storm: Poverty and Inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2007-2011
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05)This note describes the trends in, and composition of, absolute poverty based on household expenditures, and is thus concerned, as a matter of policy objectives, with access of the population to a particular minimum standard of living. This should be viewed as complementary to the companion note on social exclusion based on Europe 2020 indicators including the relative at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rate, focuses on low income in relation to other residents in a given country. In addition to the analysis of absolute poverty, the note also presents an analysis of inclusive growth, aimed at assessing whether income growth (losses) benefit (impact) differentially the lowest part (here, bottom forty percent) of the distribution. Other approaches, such as those including measures of poverty based on current income, or self-reported measures of affordability, or approached that differ in the way they set the poverty threshold exist. The choice of World Bank’s methodology for purposes of this report is primarily on pragmatic grounds: (i) it allows for the analysis of trends during 2007-2011; (ii) the same methodology was adopted in the previous report (World Bank 2009) to analyze poverty trends during 2004-2007, thus providing a longer trend; (iii) it allows for comparisons of trends across the entities of BiH. -
Publication
FYR of Macedonia: Measuring Welfare using the Survey of Income and Living Conditions
(Washington, DC, 2015-05)This note expands the analysis on poverty and income distribution reported by the FYR Macedonia SSO for 2010 and 2011. The present work is based on an analysis performed in-situ by World Bank staff on the offices of the FYR Macedonian SSO. -
Publication
An Update on Poverty and Inequality in Albania: Nine Stylized Facts
(Washington, DC, 2015-05)This note presents 9 stylized facts that emerge related to the evolution of poverty and inequality over the 2002 to 2012 period, especially from 2008 to 2012, as well as some insights into the drivers of poverty changes. It complements existing work on monitoring and understanding shared prosperity – the second corporate goal of the World Bank along with reducing poverty - in Albania and the Western Balkans. Albania poverty estimates are based on the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS). The LSMS is conducted by the Albania Statistics Office (INSTAT) with donor funding and has been carried out in 2002, 2005, 2008 and recently in 2012. -
Publication
Insights into Key Challenges of the Albanian Labor Market
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-05)This note presents an overview of the Albanian labor market, and initial insights into the challenges for inclusive and better quality jobs. The note does not intend to be comprehensive, but rather aims at compiling – under an integrative jobs umbrella and the regional framework on jobs – some of the available data and evidence on the Albanian jobs challenge, part of which was prepared for the Albania Systematic Country Diagnostic of the World Bank. By employing the regional report’s framework, the note can guide the Government, development partners, civil society and other stakeholders in identifying the many knowledge gaps that remain for a comprehensive jobs agenda and the work needed towards completing the picture. -
Publication
Poverty and Economic Mobility in the Kyrgyz Republic: Some Insights from the Life in Kyrgyzstan Survey
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04-27)This report focuses on the economic mobility of individuals (and corresponding households) belonging to the bottom 40 percent of the Kyrgyz population. This is indeed the target population chosen by the World Bank Group for the achievement of its second and twin goal of shared prosperity (the first one remaining poverty reduction). Moreover, in the specific case of the Kyrgyz Republic total poverty rates in the period under analysis ranged between 34 and 37 percent, thus making the poverty and bottom 40 percent pools almost identical. For each selected transition group, the report depicts a detailed profile of corresponding main socio-economic characteristics. Four transition groups were in particular identified: (i) those who were found to be stuck in the bottom 40 percent in both 2010 and 2011; (ii) those who managed to move up from the bottom 40 percent in 2011; (iii) those who entered the bottom 40 percent in 2011, and (iv) those who managed to stay in the top 60 percent in both years under analysis. The evidence shows a few significant differences among these four groups in terms of both households’ invariant and individual characteristics.