New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty

Ravallion, Martin; Chen, Shaohua; Sangraula, Prem

New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty

2007

Ravallion, Martin | Chen, Shaohua | Sangraula, Prem

The authors provide new evidence on the extent to which absolute poverty has urbanized in the developing world, and the role that population urbanization has played in overall poverty reduction. They find that one-quarter of the world's consumption poor live in urban areas and that the proportion has been rising over time. By fostering economic growth, urbanization helped reduce absolute poverty in the aggregate but did little for urban poverty. Over 1993-2002, the count of the "$1 a day" poor fell by 150 million in rural areas but rose by 50 million in urban areas. The poor have been urbanizing even more rapidly than the population as a whole. Looking forward, the recent pace of urbanization and current forecasts for urban population growth imply that a majority of the poor will still live in rural areas for many decades to come. There are marked regional differences: Latin America has the most urbanized poverty problem, East Asia has the least; there has been a "ruralization" of poverty in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; in marked contrast to other regions, Africa's urbanization process has not been associated with falling overall poverty.

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AGROVOC Keywords

agricultural production basic needs child health cities developing countries development economics development indicators development research economic development economic growth extreme poverty growth rate household consumption household income household surveys housing income income distribution infant living standards migration population dynamics poverty reduction public services remittances rural areas rural poor rural population rural poverty social sciences sub-saharan africa urban areas urban poor urban population urban poverty urbanization

Bibliographic information

Publisher

World Bank, Washington, DC

Other Subjects

Poor; Demographic change; Rural poverty rate; Economic inequality; Social affairs; Development policy; Relative importance; Labor markets; Rural infrastructure; Aggregate poverty; Urbanized countries; Population data; Level of poverty; Household welfare; Distributional effects; Food bundle; Purchasing power; Number of people; Progress; Pace of urbanization; Distributional implications; Rural; Poverty line; Richer countries; Measurement of poverty; Poverty comparisons; Population division; Policy research; Transition process; Income inequality; Reduction in poverty; Measuring poverty; Urbanization process; Poverty incidence; Food policy; Poverty gap; International food policy research institute; Economic opportunities; Rural poverty reduction; Rural labor; Mean income; Welfare measure; Urban population growth; Infant mortality; Poverty measure; Population size; Urban growth; Rural poverty incidence; Rural poverty line; Global poverty; Welfare indicator; Rural poverty rates; Population shift; Rural consumers; Total poverty; Urban poverty reduction; Poverty measures; Poverty assessment; Rate of growth; Food poverty line; Fixed effects; Estimated elasticity; Cumulative distribution; Rural sectors; International poverty line; Exchange rates; World population; Food poverty; Urban residents; Poverty assessments; Purchasing power parity; Point decline; Poor people; Absolute poverty; Decomposable poverty measures; Consumption data; Low share; Poverty profile; Data sets; Higher inequality; Rural growth; Policy research working paper; Local poverty lines; Migrant; Country level; Urban transition; Policy issues; Country data; Rural sector; Household size; Citizens; Developing world; Population share; Rural migrants; Urbanization of poverty; Inequality measures; Urban sector; Economic activity; Poor countries; Household survey; Poverty rates; Rural headcount index; Developing regions; Growth rates; Distributional effect; National research council; Low-income countries; Population shifts; Urban population dynamics; Development report; Rural headcount; Distributional changes; Rural residents; Population forecasts; Poverty measurement; National accounts; Infant mortality rates; Micro data; Distribution data; Poverty gap index; Food goods; Per capita consumption; Rural poverty lines; Respect; 0 hypothesis; Decomposable poverty; International poverty lines; Population and development; Rural workers; Household consumption per capita; Migration process; Changes in poverty; Inequality will; Consumption expenditure; Empirical results; Distributional change; Relative prices; Growth elasticity; Error term; Estimated coefficient; Poor living; Negative externalities; National poverty; Economic transition

License

Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4199http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/World BankCC BY 3.0 Unported

Source

Policy Research Working Paper; No. 4199

In AGRIS since: 2014-09-15

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Links

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7277

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