Klahsd

Shaffer
- casual analysis of poverty.
What is Vulnerability:
Vulnerability, also known as ‘downside’ risk is not poverty: “it is the likelihood of falling into poverty or falling into greater poverty” (p.6).
related to flows of poverty, rather than chronic poverty.
chronic poverty: “refers to the persistence of poverty over time”
flows of poverty:
“Conjunctural poverty refers to increasesin poverty due to circumstances which are likely to persist over the medium term.”
“Fluctuating or seasonal poverty, (‘Churning’), refers to income variability in ‘normal’ times, such as over the course of a season” (p.22)
It is a function of exposure and response to downward pressures (sometimes referred to shocks and stresses)
illness, violence/conflict, natural disaster, harvest failure,terms of trade deterioration, loss of employment.
responses to downward pressures at the individual/community level are often referred to as coping or adaptive strategies
(like borrowing, migration, selling assets).
At the policy level, responses fall under the heading of social protection.
risk reduction - avoiding the shock (macroeconomic policy that reduce the risk of currency crises andlabour standards which reduce the risk of injury in the workplace)
risk mitigation - minimizing the consequences of a shock (extension of micro-finance and provision of insurance)
risk coping - after the shock (social assistance schemes, commodity subsidies)
An Example: Sustainable Livelihoods Approach to Poverty
Chambers and Conway (1992 as cited in Shaffer, 200?) define sustainable livelihoodsas: A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resources base. (p.25)
Livelihoods depend of for categories of assets:
storesresources
claims
access

Lipton:

Damaging Fluctuations:
“a change through time which potentially harms welfare” and encompases more than risks and shocks. (p.187)
The term "shock" unhelpfully conflates four issues which determine for the poor the damage from a fluctuation: the source, the stress it imposes on systems, the resulting strain on persons, and the resulting damage (p.187)
A riskis a damaging fluctuation that is not certain in any given future period
Why the poor are different: Exposure, vulnerability and aversion
results varied: the poor were more risk-averse than others, but only moderately so” pthers showed an obvious difference p. 190

The Big Six:
“welfare depends on more than consumption, but we feel such dimensions are also unfavourably affected” by the “bigsix” (p.191)
violence - exposure
war
the poor are less likely to be able to escape in times of war
affects agricultural production
community violence
higher-income groups can protect themselves through private security.
- murder rates are much higher in poor zones
domestic violence
women and children
various studies should that levels of domestic violence increase when households areunder financial crises.
violence- vulnerability
infants
higher rates of malnourshiment in wartimes
women
destruction of livlihoods, increased work burden when men are at war

Natural Disasters - exposure
developing countries “accounted for 97 percent of the world’s natural disasters between 1970 and 1985 and 99 percent of all disaster-related deaths” (United Nations Environment Program, 1993ac cited in Lipton & ????, ????)
exposure to risk is higher among low-income groups because they tend to lack good housing/infrastructure and services that reduce the effects of disaster and lack of land rights means the authorities can refuse services to illegal settlements.

Hulme:

In common with many other researchers we believe that livelihoods analysis (Ellis, 2000) has particular...