In this lecture I want to introduce you to some of the basic issues involved in the study of poverty in the Caribbean. The first of these issues is conceptual in nature since it has to do with the ways in which poverty is defined by academics and policy makers. The second issue is methodological and it has to do with the ways in which we have gone about our conduct of the study of the poor in the field. Finally I want to close by looking at some of the features of Caribbean poverty, suggesting some of the causes as well as some of the strategies for its reduction and eradication.

Definition

As social scientists the first concern that we should have is to be able to identify poverty. What is this thing or condition called poverty? How do we properly demarcate it? How do we know a poor person when we see one? Like lots of other issues in the social sciences we are still grappling with some of the fundamentals. One of the most important observations that we can make about poverty is that it is a multidimensional phenomenon. This makes its measurement and study somewhat problematic.

From the time of the pioneering work of Rowntree and Booth among the working class of 19^th century Britain to the work of the World Bank in the last quarter of the 20^th Century, defining poverty in terms of material deprivation has been the most popular approach. This accords with our own commonsense or layman’s understanding of the phenomenon.

From this perspective, an individual can be poor in either an absolute or a relative sense. In absolute terms an individual is poor when he or she lacks some specified quantum of a material good that is essential to the maintenance of a minimal standard of living. In relative terms an individual is poor when he or she falls short in the possession of some quantum of material goods where that quantum is established by reference to some criterion group within the society. The difference between these two measures of material deprivation should be obvious. In one instance the standard is established with reference to the minimum amount of some good that is needed by human beings in order to survive. In the other instance the quantum is established with reference to a social standard of some sort.

One widely used measure of absolute poverty is the poverty line. A poverty line based on household consumption expenditure tells of the amount of expenditure (or income ) necessary to purchase the minimum nutritional and other fundamental requirements of living. A refined version of the poverty line is based on the value of the expenditure needed in order for households to maintain a healthy existence. This is often referred to as the indigence line, in that below this level, the members of the household are threatened with ill-health and even death. In other words, the indigence line is the cost of the minimum food requirements necessary for existence or survival. There is usually little debate on this standard. However, even here, there are differences among researchers over what is necessary. Thus, whereas in the Caribbean, the daily caloric needs of an adult have been set at 2400 kilo-calories, there are situations in other parts of the world where 2000 calories have been utilized with the implication that those populations can survive effectively on less than 2400 calories. Beyond this presumed objective or scientific standard, researchers enter into a debate on the adequacy or level of satisfaction of other needs such as clothing and shelter. There is however no scientific method of determining absolute requirements comparable to the approach that can be adopted in respect of food requirements.

Broader Definitions of Poverty

Beyond this narrow conceptualization, there has been in more recent times a move towards a broader definition of poverty. One very important contributor to the development of this more complex conceptualization of poverty was Amartya Sen (1987)[1]. Sen in the 1980s in his work on famine proffered the concepts of entitlements and capabilities that call attention not only to food requirements, and the importance of freedom from hunger, but proclaim the desire of most persons for self-actualization. In the modern world this means access to basic education, to primary health care, personal safety, to the supply of information necessary to make informed choices and to participate in the running of the society.

In even more recent times Sen has spoken of development as freedom (Sen 1999), that is to say the freedom of the individual to live the life that he or she desires. Such conceptualizations broaden our understanding of poverty along two lines. In the first place they alert us to the fact that in our understanding of poverty there are goods and services that are essential to the well being of the individual that are outside of the individual’s control. These have to do with the existence of social infrastructure and the provision of social services by the State. The second line along which these conceptualizations widened our understanding of poverty was that we now had a conceptualization of poverty that entailed the non-possession of tangible as well as intangible things. According to this conceptualization poor people were now deemed to be not only those that suffer from lack of food, clothes and shelter but also those whose personal and social circumstances limit the range of choices that they are free to make in the process of self actualization. Perhaps the most well known practical expression of this conceptual development is the UNDPs, Human Development Report and its Human Development Index. The HDR defines development as the process of enlarging people’s choices. It has developed a poverty index that includes life expectancy and literacy. This kind of conceptualization has also influenced no less an institution than the World Bank. In 1999 the World Bank described poverty as “multidimensional, extending from low levels health and lack of education , to other non-material dimensions of well-being, including gender gaps insecurity, powerlessness and social exclusion".

Issues of measurement and methodology

There has been some debate about the suitability of this broadened conception of poverty to the study of poverty. On one hand these approaches are said to lend themselves to more meaningful analysis and strategizing on the part of academics and policy makers. On the other hand as our discussion of the poverty line ought to have alerted us, in order to work with these broader conceptions of poverty we have to pay a price in terms of precision and exactitude. In simpler terms it is not always possible to measure some of these other dimensions that have been introduced into our conception of poverty.

As someone who has been called upon to identify and measure the poor in Caribbean society I will tell you what this has meant to myself and other researchers. With all the challenges that it poses we have been glad for the widening of the conceptualization of poverty. As far as identifying the poor is concerned we have basically stuck with material deprivation as the chief criterion, although we have moved beyond personal consumption as the primary marker of poverty to include the absence of social services and social infrastructure. In that regard we have included a community situational analysis as an important aspect of our poverty studies. This means that we have identified communities as poor not only on the basis of levels of personal consumption of its members, but also on the basis of lack of amenities as well. The two are not necessarily equivalent.

The other way in which this broader conceptualization of poverty affected our study of poverty was in terms of the type of questions that we asked, the categories into which we divided our respondents and the analysis of the information that we collected from our surveys. In summary therefore the widening of the conceptualization of poverty sensitized us to the importance of coming up with creative means of understanding the other dimensions of poverty even though we were less innovative in extending the ways in which we measured poverty.

During the past decade official poverty studies have been conducted in 9 English-speaking Caribbean countries. These are Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Belize, Turks and Caicos Islands, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, St.Kitts/Nevis and Grenada. The studies in the larger Caribbean islands were conducted under the sponsorship of the World Bank, whilst those in the remainder of the territories were done under the auspices of the Caribbean Development Bank. All of these studies have been centered on or built around the conduct of what are known as Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS). These are household based surveys that measure consumption expenditure. This enables the ranking of all of the households of the country into consumption quintiles, with quintile 1 being the poorest and quintile 5 the wealthiest. Apart from consumption expenditure data, information is collected on other aspects of the life of the household. These include, demographics, education, health, housing and social welfare. These surveys are also known as Surveys of Living Conditions or SLCs. They enable us to link these conditions of living to consumption status. We are therefore able to say what are the health, educational or housing characteristics of those households that fall into quintile 5 or quintile 1, or in whichever quintile we might be interested. These surveys also provide the basis for the calculation of measures of absolute and relative poverty. The determination of relative poverty is quite arbitrary. We simply say quintile 1 or quintiles 1 and 2 are poor relative to quintiles 3, 4 and 5. Then we examine the features of the poor quintiles and draw our conclusions about poverty.

In our calculation of absolute poverty we consult our nutritionists and derive a hypothetical low cost food basket, price it. We then treat the non-food expenditure of the first two quintiles as a residual and add it to the cost of the basket. This gives us our poverty line. Using the survey data we then calculate the number of households that have a level of consumption expenditure that falls on or below the value of the line. These are the absolute poor in the society. Besides allowing us to calculate the total numbers in poverty (the so called head count index), we are then in a position to assess severity and intensity of poverty and identify the various characteristics of the poor households and the individuals that comprise them.

For all its talk about the multidimensionality of poverty, this is all that the surveys that have been conducted under the direction of the World Bank allows us to do. In the case of the studies carried out in the other territories the picture is different. Here poor communities as well as poor households are used as units of analysis. The poor communities are identified on the basis of a number of factors, including household density, the absence of certain infrastructure and unemployment levels. Once the community has been identified, then it is mobilized around the assessment exercise and a number of data gathering techniques are employed. These include among other things the community’s assessment of itself using what is known as a wheel of well-being as well as focus group discussions defined on the basis of sex, age, employment status and any other criterion deemed to be of importance. In addition, in-depth interviews are conducted with those households that are identified by the members of the community as being the poorest. Using this methodology we have been able to deepen our understanding of Caribbean poverty and what might be some of the best strategies to effect its eradication. In the remainder of the lecture I want to look at some of the features of Caribbean poverty that we have identified through the use of some of the methodology that I have just discussed with you.

Features of Caribbean Poverty

I want to examine the features of the poor based on data from the Survey of Living Conditions against the background of a typology of the poor put forward by C.Y.Thomas[2] one of the leading social scientists in the Caribbean. Thomas has argued that there are three types of poor people in the Caribbean. The first he identifies as the chronic or long-term poor. These persons have been poor for generations. They have in fact inherited their poverty. The second category of poor that Thomas identifies is the structural poor. These persons have been made poor by structural changes in the economy associated with its adjustment to the processes associated with globalization. Examples of this second category of persons might be civil servants who have been made redundant, or workers who have been denied reasonable pay increases in the face of inflation and greater economic stringency. Finally, there are the transitory or seasonal poor. These are persons whose fortunes fluctuate during the course of the year on the basis of changes in the conditions surrounding the way in which they make their livelihood. An example of this might be persons who work in Carnival, or fishermen.

Thomas’ typology has been criticized on the grounds that it lacks empirical substantiation. In terms of his first category, my own research on poverty in Grenada seems to suggest the existence of a substantial chronic or long-term poverty grouping. Longitudinal data from the Jamaican SLC for the period 1989 to 1996 indicates the existence of all three of the categories. So that I would argue that there is empirical substantiation for Thomas’ thesis.

In the case of the first category, the long term poor, data from the in-depth survey of poor households in Grenada indicate that in every single instance the parents of the head of the poor household were themselves poor. Furthermore, the children of the poor household were usually well on their way to being poor as well.

Now if we accept Thomas’ typology it means that data on poverty gathered by use of the living standard measurement surveys will be a sort of snap shot that captures long term, structural and seasonal poor at a given point in time. The important thing to realize is that poverty identified on the basis of this type of data is a dynamic phenomenon, involving persons who are not just long-term poor but persons who have been recently impoverished as well as persons who will soon be poor no more. Apart from being of academic interest this point holds implications for the types of anti poverty policies that are formulated.

What then are some of the noteworthy characteristics of the poor in the Caribbean? (We will highlight some here, but there are others you may want to look at for yourselves.)

Demographic Features

Poverty in the Caribbean is a youthful phenomenon. In all of the territories the proportion of the poor that is below the age of 25 is greater than the proportion in the general population. So if 30% of the general population is below the age of 25, the proportion of those persons in this age category who fall below the poverty line is invariably greater. The survey data from across the region indicates that those persons that fall below the poverty line in most instances are fairly evenly divided on the basis of gender.

The second feature of poverty that I want to examine using LSMS data is labour force status. There are three categories that an individual can fall into in regard to the labour force; these are employed, unemployed or outside of the labour force. The first category, the employed, refers to the individual who is in a job i.e. some form of work activity for which they receive wages or a salary. The unemployed is the individual who is either seeking work and not able to find, or is not seeking work but would work if a job were available. The third category is the individual who is outside of the labour force. This refers to people who are not working and who have no interest in obtaining a job. Examples of this are students, housewives and retired persons.

Let us look at the employed and the unemployed poor. There are certain features of these two groups that are constant across the region and some that vary with the nature of the macroeconomic features of the country. One feature of the employed poor that is constant across the region is the fact that they tend to be concentrated in a narrow band of occupations. These are elementary type occupations that require little or no formal skill training or educational certification. Examples of this are occupations such as agricultural labourers, casual labourers, domestic servants and certain types of service and sales occupations. In Grenada, for example, when the occupations in which the poor predominate are looked at by sex the following picture emerges. Men dominate craft occupations. Poor employed women on the other hand tend to be concentrated in the areas of elementary unskilled occupations and sales and services. The remainder of poor employed women are distributed across the occupational grouping in numbers that decline as the level of skill associated with the occupation increases.

Throughout the region the unemployed poor tend to be youthful. When unemployment rates among the poor are examined by gender there is variation between the countries of the region. In Jamaica poor females have higher rates than poor males. The opposite is the case in Grenada where higher rates obtain among males than females. The poor in Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago have higher rates of unemployment than do the non-poor. In the case of Jamaica the poor have lower rates of unemployment than the non-poor. In the case of this country an extensive small-farm, domestic agriculture sector and a well-developed informal sector provide employment of sorts for the poor. In Grenada and Trinidad the absence of such a sector and the pervasiveness of export agriculture do not allow for this to happen.

In terms of health one very interesting finding that we have had right across the region is that the poor report lower levels of illness than the non-poor. Are we then correct in assuming that the poor in the Caribbean lead healthier lives than the non-poor? However, what struck us is that where we have primary and secondary health institutional data by socioeconomic status, what we see is that the poor get sick and die at a greater rate than the non-poor. The answer to the puzzle is really quite ominous. It has to do with the fact that levels of reported illness will vary with educational levels and awareness. Usually educated persons are more aware of the nature of illness and the need for regular check-ups at the doctor. In most cases they also have greater access to proper medical care than do poor persons. Invariably non-poor persons with higher levels of education and greater access to health care are more aware of when they are sick. This means of course that where the lifestyle diseases [the silent killers] dominate the epidemiological profile, poor persons are more likely to be unaware of their condition. This will lead to greater levels of morbidity (illness), an increase in health care costs to the national budget and a needless loss of valuable human resources.

These instances provide you with some idea of the kinds of understanding of poverty we have been able to arrive at using these conceptualizations and methodology. There are a number of other features of poverty that we are able to look at on the basis of the data available. These include education, and regional distribution.

A Short Note on Causes and Strategies for Reduction

Ultimately, the point of studying poverty in this way, is to try and identify its causes and devise strategies for its reduction. In this regard we should recognize that causes operate at a number of levels. Thus there are causes of poverty that operate at the macro level. These are inherent to the way in which the society is organized and are outside of the control of the individual. These we identify during the course of an institutional analysis of the society that we conduct, as part of the survey. This analysis provides us with insight into the ways in which the major social and economic institutions interact with each other and either contributes to the perpetuation or eradication of poverty.

Then there are causes that operate at the level of the individual that have to do with the ways in which the individual responds to the circumstances with which he or she is faced. These we identify during the community situational analysis that allows us to more closely scrutinize the circumstances of the poor and to hear from them of the ways in which they interpret and respond to these circumstances. The poverty eradication strategies that we devise will therefore address causes that operate at the micro as well as the macro levels. One important dimension of these strategies is government policy that effectively engages these causes.

Without going into detail I will list some of the general areas within which strategies could be devised for the reduction of poverty. [3]

Human Resource Development
Income and employment growth in targeted sectors
Improvement in labour market relations
Income and employment growth in small and medium sized enterprises
Creation of a social safety net
Community development and empowerment
Correcting gender inequalities
Fiscal Review
Income and employment growth in agriculture
Life long learning
Primary health care
Environmental sanitation and protection
Expanding the housing stock.

[1]Sen, Amartya, The Standard of Living, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

[2] C.Y.Thomas, “The interrelationship between economic and social development”, in N.Girvan (ed) Poverty, Empowerment and Social Development in the Caribbean

[3] St. Kitts and Nevis. (2000) Poverty Assessment Report. Submitted to the Caribbean Development Bank by Kairi Consultants Ltd.