Jaslin U. Salmon, Ph.D, ContributorSince 1989 the Government of Jamaica has been tracking poverty trends by way of the annual Survey of Living Conditions conducted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica and STATIN. The Survey of Living Conditions examines poverty in terms of consumption patterns. Here consumption of food and non-food items by a household is used as a proxy for income. Under this approach the principal indicator of poverty was the headcount index, which merely looked at the percentage of individuals or households below the poverty line.
Permit me to define what we mean by poverty. There is a difference between poor and being in poverty. A teacher, a social worker a secretary and a factory worker will tell you that they are poor, but they are not likely to claim that they are in poverty. Being poor is a relative condition, while being in poverty is an absolute condition. For example, if an individual is worth one million dollars and another is worth one billion dollars, the former is poor compared to the latter, but cannot be said to be in poverty. However, one is in poverty if one is living below certain minimum acceptable standards in such areas as health care, education, sanitation, potable water, roads or nutrition etc. Poverty is not a linear condition, rather it is curvilinear. That is one does not necessarily move out of poverty and remain out. Instead, a particular individual or family is likely to move in and out of poverty several times over a lifetime.
Let me point out that since 1991, there has been a consistent downward trend in the level of poverty. Whereas in 1991 the level of poverty in Jamaica was 44.6 per cent, by 1998 it had fallen to 15.9 per cent. Poverty is highest in rural areas and lowest in the Kingston and St. Andrew area. The level of poverty among the young segment of the population is unacceptably high, resulting in this vital segment of the population not contributing to national productivity as would be expected.
In 1996, the Foster-Greer Thorbecke (FGT) index, which measures the severity of poverty, was introduced. Here, the poverty gap is determined in relation to the poverty line. (The poverty gap is the total shortfall of the incomes below the poverty line of all those in poverty).
As a result of the work of Amartya Sen (1997), the UNDP and other social scientists now measure poverty in terms of capabilities, that is the individual's or family's ability to overcome the circumstances of poverty. This approach then led to the development, by the UNDP, of the Human Development Index (HDI). Since 1990, the UNDP through its Human Development report has presented the HDI in an effort to capture as many dimensions of human development as possible. The concept of human development is aimed at capturing a much deeper and richer phenomenon than can be represented by a composite index. It presents a complex reality in a more simple form.
The HPI is a logical offshoot of the Human Development Index. It is intended to complement the existing income/consumption measure. It facilitates comparison over time within a particular country and to a lesser extent between countries.
The HPI considers deprivation in three basic areas of human life:
longevity - indicated by the probability of dying before 40
illiteracy - indicated by the percentage of persons who are illiterate
standard of living - which is indicated by the weighted average of three variables:
a) lack of access to safe water
b) lack of access to health services and
c) malnutrition.
Why the need for a Jamaica Human Poverty Index? The index will provide a simpler way for understanding a very complex issue; it will facilitate looking at poverty as a multi-dimensional phenomenon; and it will provide policy makers and planners with an additional tool with which to address poverty.
In preparing the Jamaica Human Development Report, it was determined that the UNDP's 1997 estimate of the HPI for Jamaica was based on highly implausible data for the rates of illiteracy, malnutrition and access to safe water. Therefore, the UNDP estimate for 1997 was recomputed using data from official resources. The new estimate so produced, is 7.1 percentage points higher than the UNDP estimate.
The 2000 Jamaica Human Development Report presents an index of poverty for Jamaica (JHPI); in addition to the variables included in the UNDP Human Poverty Index, this index includes several variables not considered by the UNDP Human Poverty Index. These additional variables which are subsumed under standard of living are: (a) lack of security - measured by the number of victims of crimes against persons and property (b) access to quality housing and (c) incidence of poverty - measured by lack of access to a minimum diet. It is to be noted that the statistical approach used for computing the JHPI is similar to that used for computing the HPI. Table III.11, shows the JHPI and the HPI for 1990-1997, there is clearly a great degree of consistency when both are compared.
FINDINGS
Longevity remained constant from 1990-1997, at 5.5. Illiteracy rates have also remained relatively constant; Access to safe water was constant at 14 from 1990-1993 but increased to 17.2 in 1994, and remained at that level until 1996 when it again declined to 14.6.
The JHPI cannot be used across countries but is specific to Jamaica while the HPI can be used for cross-country comparisons.
IMPLICATIONS
The Jamaica HPI should become a point of departure for developing solutions for poverty. It will help to drive home the point that analysis of poverty cannot be confined to income poverty, but must include variables related to the quality of life. it will make it possible to address a particular dimension of poverty, and will allow for better tracking of the effectiveness of intervention.
