Gender Dimensions in Rural Poverty: A Case Study
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Date
2011
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Abstract
The concept of poverty is multi-dimensional. It covers not only levels of
income and consumption hut also health, education, vulnerability and
risk, marginalisation and exclusion of the poor from the mainstream of
society. The majority of the rural population who constitute the poor of
India, are small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers,
local artisans, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and women. The rural
poor in India suffer from various forms of deprivation, such as economic,
social, education, health, etc., besides suffering from malnutrition and
under nutrition, due to the low levels of incomes and the inequitable
distribution of productive assets. Rural poverty, thus, continues to he a
concern because a significant portion of the population (56 percent)
continues to live in rural areas.
While there is a plethora of literature on the estimation of poverty and
inequality among rural and urban households in India and her states,
based either on secondary data available from NSS and / or conducted at
the national or state level, literature based on in-depth village studies is limited. Such studies can provide important insights that cannot be
derived from secondary data due to lack of relevant information. In this
context, the present study attempts an in-depth household survey to focus
on the identification and determinants of rural poverty in selected villages
in Tirupur district with special emphasis on gender dimensions of rural
poverty. The study finds that poverty was quite severe in the villages in
Vellakovil municipality, and the severity was more intense among the
male headed households characterized by large size, low literacy levels
and increased dependency.