Three-quarters of world’s poor live in middle-income countries: Study

If you think that most poor people in world live in the poorest countries, you are mistaken. A new study of 1.65 billion of the world’s poor by Oxford University, UK, shows that 72 per cent (1,189 million) live in middle-income countries compared with 459 million in low-income countries.

What’s more, higher percentage (586 million) live in ‘severe poverty’ in middle-income countries than in low-income (285 million), says the study released in London on Wednesday.

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative Director, Dr Sabina Alkire, said: “The findings are startling … If you apply our global poverty measure, nearly three quarters of the poor live in middle- income countries.”

Another key finding is that 50 per cent (827 million) of the poor live in South Asia, which includes India, and 29 per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa (473 million).

“Multidimensionally” poor people in middle-income countries have simply been bypassed as their nation’s comparative wealth increased, says the study. It used a poverty measure devised jointly by Oxford University’s Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, according to a release.

The poverty measure– the Multidimensional Poverty Index or MPI – took into account a range of deprivations in areas such as education, malnutrition, child mortality, sanitation and services.

The researchers analysed the most recent publicly available household survey data for 109 countries, covering 93 per cent of people living in low and middle-income countries.

Middle-income countries are classed as those with an average yearly wage of between $1,006 and $12,275, while low-income countries are those with a national average wage of $1,005 or below.

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