Understanding why income poverty is a narrow measure
Question
Why is income poverty only one measure of counting the 'poor'?
Options
It talks of only one kind of deprivation ignoring all others.
Other deprivations in a human life have nothing to do with lack of purchasing power.
Income poverty is not a permanent condition, it changes from time to time.
Income poverty restricts human choices only at a point of time.
Explanation
The text states: "If poverty is ultimately about deprivations affecting human well-being, then income poverty is only one aspect of it." It further explains that true poverty also includes the "lack of real opportunity given by social constraints" and the "restricting [of] choices". Income poverty fails as a holistic measure because it captures only the economic deprivation, completely ignoring social, personal, and capability-based deprivations. Option (a) succinctly captures this limitation. Option (b) is extreme ("nothing to do with"), and (c) and (d) introduce unsupported temporal constraints.
Answer: (a).
Question details
Year
2022
Paper
CSAT
Question
Q13
Section
Reading Comprehension
Sub-topic
Social / Economic passage
Type
Factual single
Difficulty
Medium
Source hint
Passage 2 (Poverty line and deprivations) - Q13
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