South Asian Economics the \"Spatial

South Asian Economics

The "spatial poverty trap" identified by Deaton and Dreze refers to the tendency of poverty to concentrate in certain geographical locations within countries. The fact that this is a trap is substantiated by the inability of such residents to escape either the maligned location or their circumstances. Below is an examination of the most important contributing factors to this phenomenon. Most important is the fact that all the factors integrate to create the trap in the first place, as well as making it very difficult to escape. The greatest contributing factor at the heart of the other issues is the inability of policy makers to form a truly beneficial infrastructure for persons to escape spatial poverty traps. This issue then exacerbates other issues related to poverty, including education and nutrition, with their concomitant environmental issues. These are considered according to their integration and contribution to the problem in South Asia.

As mentioned above, government policy is the root from which the other specific problems spring. If this problem can be addressed more effectively, the other problems are likely to also become less significant. The case of government policy is not so much that it is absent as that it is inadequate to address the specific problematic issues related to the spacial poverty trap within India and the rest of south Asia. Indeed, significant attempts have been made by Asian authorities to deal with this problem. These attempts have however failed in many cases.

A specific problem mentioned by the authors are for example the issue of infant mortality. According to the statistics offered, after a reduction of 30% in infant mortality rates during the first half of the 1990s, the second half shows a stagnation of the rate. This issue and how it relates to the poverty issue has however received little political attention, even when poverty is specifically addressed in debate. It appears that the government simply chooses to turn a blind eye to obvious issues to be alleviated by targeted policy making.

Furthermore the authors mention the issue of overall living standards improvement as a factor that hides specific instances of poverty. While government relief subsidies are offered for relocation programs in cases of radical economic change such as the move from traditional to commercial farming, these are hardly enough to cover the expenses of a family losing an entire livelihood. Such livelihoods are for example specifically lost by families who have been involved in traditional economic ventures such as fishing for centuries. These industries are replaced by commercial shrimp farms, for example. Government subsidies hide the empoverished nature of traditional communities whose livelihood is removed from their immediate environment. Subsidies then hide the problem while exacerbating it instead of relieving it in a targeted fashion like an improved or new policy might have done.

There is therefore a general failure of state-sponsored development programs to target the issues underlying spatial poverty traps. This failure does not however mean that there has not been any attempts to address the issue at all. On the contrary, various "poor area programs" have been put in placed throughout south Asia to deal with the problem of spatial poverty. The Integrated Rural Development Porgram is one of these. On the surface, it does appear that such programs target the areas of poverty that need them most. Indeed, the gap between rural and urban income and consumption appears to be addressed by just such programs. However, it has been the concern of many critics that an in-depth examination of these programs reveal further shortcomings. While they are for example targeted at the general urban population, they do little to alleviate the problems of specific areas where the spatial poverty trap is worst. Indeed, the access of persons in these areas to the facilities offered by the programs is limited, thus rendering the efforts themselves of little use to those who need it most. This situation then fails to provide the tools that these people need to escape their poverty, further trapping them. Concomitantly, the existence of such programs creates the illusion that policies are indeed in place to alleviate the problem, perhaps curbing further research projects to further investigate the true nature of the situation.

Furthermore, the specific characteristics of an area may lead to a poverty trap. Extreme levels of poverty for example may be the result of poor infrastructure and a lack of access to and utilization of basic amenities. This lack of basic infrastructure may also be seen as resulting from a basic lack of adequate and targeted government policy. Specifically regional segregation and the urban/rural divide need to be examined much more closely in order to address the issue in a more effective manner. Programs currently in place target the urban/rural divide only in general terms, and therefore cannot hope to adequately address the problem of spatial poverty gaps. It is as if those most in need have vanished beneath a surface of social programs, policies and subsidies that serve only to further hide a growing problem.

Indeed, as seen from surveys and research such as that conducted by Deaton and Dreze, even these fail to address poverty issues in enough depth to truly highlight the extent of the spatial poverty trap. Generally income and consumption research address general averages, rather than regional disparities. It is only when specific regions are targeted by research that the true divide becomes apparent.

Government policy can therefore hardly hope to adequately address the issue if the issue is not properly addressed by the research. On the other hand, areas of concern that are indeed offered by research results should be specifically targeted by government policy. There are therefore two sides of the problem relating to adequate government policy or the lack thereof: research should be adequate and targeted, and government policy should follow research results by directly addressing regional problems, rather than generally addressing them country-wide with a uniform program.

The most important factor is that governments be aware of the problems relating to spatial poverty traps, area characteristics, infrastructure, and the linkages between these. Once these factors are properly researched and addressed, policy making can be adjusted according to specific rather than general needs. This is the root of other contributing factors in the dilemma related to spatial poverty traps.

What is interesting about these factors is their cyclical nature. The lack of governmental policy and infrastructure result in a lack of other elements such as proper education, nutrition and environmental stability. Because of a lack of proper policy, these three factors serve as major contributing factors to spatial poverty traps.

One major contributing factor to the slow growth of educational attainment in poorer states is integrated with policy and infrastructure factors. High quality shools are often not available in poverty-stricken areas.

There is therefore a lack of access to quality education facilities such as schools, libraries and universities. Concomitantly there is also a lack of regular and reliable transportation to places of education that might indeed be available in the area. If schools are available, these are often not of an acceptable quality for the needs of the children in order to attain a rate and level of education required to help them escape their poverty trap.

Economically, the home situation often requires children to remain at home for large amounts of time to help parents with whatever businesses or home matters they can use to sustain the family. This is ironically often seen as more important than education. Such families are not educated regarding the benefits of formal schooling, once again bringing the cycle to the basis of infrastructure. There are no systems or policies in place to raise the awareness of poverty-stricken persons regarding the importance of formal education to their children.

Furthermore, regular school attendance is hindered by the economic status of parents who cannot afford elements such as transport, school uniform, lunches, learning materials and the like. The lack of funds to support these needs serve as a large contributing factor to the general lack of education in these areas. These problems appear so overwhelming to the local communities struggling with such issues, that the general attitude towards education is negative, as mentioned above. Rather than struggle to afford additional needs, parents and children work together at home to serve their existing needs. Cyclically, the lack of education results in a lack of adequate job opportunities. The trap is strengthened in this way both by a lack of infrastructure and a lack of intracommunity motivation to gain adequate education in order to escape the poverty trap. Children grow up without proper education and become entrenched in the same cycle of poverty as their parents. The area where they live does not support them in terms of jobs or education, each of which is necessary for the other to be economically viable.

Changing economic conditions also contribute largely to the schooling situation of young people in the spatial poverty trap. The above-mentioned elements of commercial industries replacing traditional industries pose a problem. This in fact creates spatial poverty traps where these previously did not exist. The areas no longer support the traditional businesses in which families engaged, and such families are obliged to become migrant laborers or to be away from their areas for extended periods of time. This in itself contributes to a lack of school attendance. Young children in a continual state of migration find it extremely hard to reach any consistency in terms of school attendance.

A lack of adequate parent supervision and motivation also play a large role in school attendance. Many educational publications and academics support the fact that the home environment plays a large role in the success or lack thereof in an educational career, especially at the primary school level. Where parents have stress factors such as extreme poverty, lack of education and lack of income, it is unlikely that school going children would be encouraged either in their school work or to attend school in the first place. Families living in the spatial poverty trap simply do not have either the physical or psychological equipment to deal with the educational needs of their young.

This in turn results in the unwillingness and/or inability of young people growing up in these environments to emerge to more affluent rural areas. Rural areas do not offer many opportunities to young people who do not have the required educational or skills background to function adequately within this environment. The result is that not only parents and the home situation, but also the social and financial divisions between physical environments, discourage these people to attempt breaking away from their circumstances.

There are a number of factors contributing to the educational issue in the spatial poverty trap. Children are discouraged from regular and consistent school attendance by their economic situation at home. This situation influences the attitude of parents towards their children's education, and concomitantly the children's attitude towards the same. Neither parents nor children understand that there is any benefit in educating children who could provide more immediate profit by helping around the home or with existing businesses.

Contributing to such difficulties are external factors such as infrastructure and public policies and views. There is a lack of adequate infrastructure to educate families regarding adequate schooling. There is a further lack of adequate systems to allow children from spatial poverty areas to attend school with any consistency or regularity. Schools are physically located in difficult locations to reach, and inadequate transport is available to reach these schools. In society itself, the rural/urban divide is too strong to overcome for the uneducated, poor youth to break away from their circumstances. The youth from these areas can therefore do very little to change the circumstances created by internal and external factors beyond this control. Hence the cyclical trap created by spatial poverty.

The issue of malnutrition is closely related to both public policy making, infrastructure and education. Not addressing the issue of spatial poverty and its causes adequately results in an inadequate provision of food resources to the poor. This occurs especially in locations where the environment has been modified to serve commercial rather than traditional needs. A piece of land serving a family for generations is suddenly found inadequate to support even their most basic nutritional needs. Hence the family is forced to live on whatever food sources they can find, often resulting in malnutrition.

Deaton and Dreze for example mention the issue of underweight births as a result of malnutrition in pregnant mothers. Like the infant mortality issue, this has not been adequately addressed by government policy. Fewer infant deaths have furthermore curtained the issue of underweight births. Malnutrition also has serious implications for education, especially at the primary school level. Brain and physical development in malnourished children for example impact negatively upon their ability to learn, concentrate and physically exercise.

Furthermore, a lack of education regarding nutrition issues is also a serious shortcoming in spatial poverty areas. As with the education issue, no programs are in place to educate parents or children regarding their nutritional needs. This is especially the case with pregnant mothers, who also do not have access to adequate medical care and advice during their pregnancies. These issues are all interrelated and further the cycle of the poverty trap in which these communities are obliged to live. On the one hand the physical lack of adequate nutritional resources lie at the root of the issue, while on the other external and infrastructural factors serve to strengthen rather than break the cycle.

Nutrition, like education, is also directly related to the physical characteristics of the environment in which the community lives and works. A lack of adequate government policy relating to environmental issues then also translate to a lack of addressing the malnutrition issue. The erosion of the natural environment by commercial endeavors makes the area unviable for human habitation or its support. Nevertheless, families living in spatial poverty traps do not have the financial means or educational skills to escape their area, and other natural areas that could support their lifestyle are diminishing as a result of industrial activity.

A further related issue is once again infrastructure. Natural resource pollution has made access to safe drinking water and health care vital for continued health and productivity. As is the case with educational facilities, there is often very little infrastructure available in spatial poverty areas that provides adequate health care, food, or water resources. To survive, these persons are obliged to make use of what resources are available, often with consequences such as malnutrition and poor physical development, as seen above.

A further factor of infrastructure related to the environment and health issues is poor sanitation. Spatial poverty traps are often degraded even further by the very communities that rely on their natural resources for survival. Poor sanitation facilities result in the polution of natural water resources, resulting in illness and exacerbating the already existing malnutrition problem.

Such problems of health and nutrition have a direct effect on the productivity and economy of the country. Malnourished persons can for example not function at their optimum productivity level. Valuable skills and labor are lost as a result of the malnutirition, pollution and environmental health problems mentioned above. The nature of spatial poverty traps is such that a cycle ensues and feeds itself, making it very difficult for persons in such environments to break away from their circumstances. Not only the poor suffer as a result, but also the country as a whole, because a large sector of the workforce and youth is trapped in this situation. Productivity, labor hours and the economy suffer as a result.