Home ›› 18 May 2023 ›› Front
About 51 per cent of the total poor population in urban areas in 2022 belongs to the “new poor” category as the lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic took a heavy toll, according to a survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).
The country’s economy has also normalised from the beginning of 2022 although the poverty rate got doubled from April to June 2020 following the shocks of the pandemic, it said.
The policy and research-oriented think-tank revealed the information in the BIDS Research Almanac 2023 released during an event at the Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka on Wednesday.
“Evidence shows that the importance of the new poor as a new social category is emerging as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said the survey, titled “Urban Poverty Dynamics during Covid-19 Anatomy of Resilience” and conducted on 2,046 households.
Presented the findings, BIDS Director General Dr Binayak Sen said, “Most of the new poor have slipped below the poverty line, so the vulnerability of people should be kept in mind in order to ensure that development is sustainable.”
An analysis of poverty dynamics showed that urban chronic poverty is still at a considerable level even in a growing megacity like Dhaka, he said. “About one-tenth of the urban population belong to this category.”
Besides, the overall poverty headcount decreased by 4.3 percentage points in Dhaka city between 2019 and 2022, Dr Sen also said.
He added that the proportion of extremely poor households declined by 3.2 percentage points during the period. “This is considerable progress in poverty reduction under the duress of Covid-19.”
The reduction of poverty happened due to self-employment, income transfer both from the private and public sectors, and financial dissaving, he said, adding that digital technology like mobile financial services played a positive role in creating self-employment.
The government should try for the betterment of the new poor as the number of new poor has risen, Dr Sen said.
Govt working to reduce discrimination
Addressing as chief guest, Planning Minister MA Mannan said that the government’s research organisation should conduct more research and survey to increase the existing wealth to alleviate discrimination of the poor from society.
“The government is working to reduce the poor discrimination from the society as it takes various steps like giving allowances to older and widow people,” he said.
The minister added, “We want to create wealth and for this, we need to research how we can increase our existing wealth.”
He said that poverty can be alleviated as it cannot be eliminated. The government has adopted social safety net actions to improve the living standard of the poor.
Regarding domestic work, Mannan said, “The contribution of domestic work carried out by our mothers and sisters at home can draw a parallel picture of our economy. Different countries are working to publish domestic contributions in the real economy. It can help to understand the real economy of the country.”
Percentage of poor rose for 3 months
According to the latest Household Income and Expenditure Survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the country’s poverty rate went down by 5.6 per cent — to 18.7 per cent — in 2022 from 24.3 per cent in 2016.
In 2022, the rate in rural areas was 20.5 per cent and 14.7 per cent in urban areas. The rates were 26.4 per cent and 18.9 per cent, respectively, in 2016.
According to the BIDS Research Almanac, the percentage of poor increased for three months during the pandemic, but it declined shortly after.
Dr Sen said the number of poor people increased during April-June 2020. From June onwards, problems surrounding Covid started to dial down. The main reason for declining poverty back then was safe employment.
The renowned economist also said that both the public and the private sector played a strong role during that time through necessary financing to create sufficient employments in the country where information technology and agriculture extension technology played their due part.
During the pandemic, self-employment increased from 41.54 per cent to 45.65 per cent in the case of overall poverty, from 33.60 per cent to 38.56 per cent for the poor, and from 15.47 per cent to 33.21 per cent for the extremely poor, said the survey.
