New Thinking on Poverty

Three main changes in thinking about poverty have gained increasing currency over the past decade. First, the concept of poverty has broadened, with increasing attention to issues of vulnerability, inequality and human rights. Second, the causal structure has broadened to include causal variables, such as social, political, cultural, coercive and environmental capital. Third, the causal structure has deepened to focus on flows of individuals into and out of poverty, rather than on changes in the stock of poverty, and on strategies of social protection versus poverty reduction. The paper reviews these changes and their implications for globalisation and policy.