Book Review on Urban Poverty Essay

Urban penury is the outcome of urban-bias development projects being predominantly financed by the external capital, either in the form of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) or Aid. The urban-bias industrialization strategy performed as a pull factor for the artless unemployed. This strategy contributed to the expanding of urban easy sectors where unskilled as sanitary as highly unorganized day labours remain concentrated in the urban and semi-urban beas.It is also debated that the redistribution of capital investment towards the rural based agricultural activities including plantation sectors with the coordinated efforts of both public and private sectors such as civil and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can go a prospicient way to break the growing negative effects of over urbanization on poorness, moral and societal crimes as consequent of unequal economic growth. The author, Pramanik discusses urban privation in Malaysia cases.He begins with the overview of the penur y scenario followed by research methods and research findings along with summarization & policy suggestions. This book contented five chapters including appendices, references and index. In the preceding chapter (pp. 1-5), Pramanik says poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that is hard to come up with a universally acceptable definition of poverty. Most commonly argued issue on poverty is whether poverty should be looked at from absolute or sex act perspective.Absolute poverty based on specific income level called poverty line income (PLI) that can be calculated either using the market value of a basket full of goods and services considered essential for reasonably acceptable standard of living. On the contrary, relative poverty arises when we talk about how good or bad one member is doing in relation to another member living in the like society. According to OBoyle, poverty is a concept that is both absolute and relative because gay beings are at the same time individual a nd social (OBoyle E.J, 1990).In chapter two (pp. 7-20), Pramanik talks about poverty scenario in Malaysia. He argues that the income poverty using official poverty line income seems near to the absolute poverty whereas the human poverty based on the degree of human deprivation resembles relative poverty, which is ensuing of unequal access to income earning opportunity. Because of this, the author focuses more than on human aspect of poverty in call of its long term implications of social factors.Micro level study (Pramanik, 2004) do suggest that family size either in urban or rural areas of the four concentrated states namely, Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perak is quite above the family size used for the national level. Pramanik (1997 & 2000) examined that rural poverty in the four poverty-concentrated states on multi dimensional aspects of the problem such as, social, economic, demographic, psychological, political, moral, historical, attitudinal, and natural factors. In chapt er three (pp. 5-20), the author discusses regarding research methodology. The study is based on the primary data as wellhead as secondary information.The primary data collected through the administration of well-structured questionnaire in the middle of 2006. The sampling technique used is purposive as well as random and based on participatory observation method. Around 3112 households from 8 major cities living in poverty concentrated areas classified by squatters, low-cost buildings, longhouses etc. were selected for data collection.He defined household as an entity of those living under the same roof as well as have from the same kitchen. In chapter four (pp. 21-97), he talks about the research findings. The author uses purposive and collecting sampling technique to identify the level of poverty suffered by those living in the squatters and in the area/blocks/buildings designed for the lower income groups in the major cities of Malaysia. This is because those who are living in these areas suffer different degrees and types of poverty measured by the level of deprivations.The household having less than RM 398(less than half of the poverty line) is called loyal poor, household earning equal to RM 398 but less than 663 is called overall poor and more than RM 663 is called non-poor. The best performing state in terms of lowest incidence of overall poverty (0. 9) with no hardcore poor followed by KL (2. 6) and JB (8. 1) inclusive of hardcore and overall poor. While less developed states- KB, KT, and AS, KB experiences the highest incidence of poverty hardcore poor and overall poor of 33. 7 followed by KT (23. 4) and AS (14).On the other hand, Sabah and Sarawak are worst performing states reported in 9MP and his survey data. The author suggests that as far as poverty reduction is concerned Sabah and Sarawak are still the worst among all other regions states in Malaysia in 2007. The poverty is gender bias is a universal when hardcore poverty is concerned. In te rms of hardcore and overall poverty, the female headed households are more likely to be poorer by 50 percent compared the male-headed households. The higher dependency of more members on a few incomes of earners in the households also creates a constraint on resources allocation by the poor households.Approximately 60 percent of poor households more than two members depend on the income of one earner. The lower dependency has implication for the ability of the poor households to hold out poverty at quantify of economic recession or downturn since higher dependency manifest through the lower dependency ratio is positively related to higher unemployment. Pramanik launch on the distribution of households based on the dependency ratio and cities seem to suggest that the relatively higher percentages of households (68. 8) from LDS are associated with higher dependency as emerged through the lower coefficients of DR (