Urban poverty and adaptations of the poor to urban life in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

This thesis explores urban poverty and the adaptations of the urban poor in the slums of the megacity of Dhaka, Bangladesh. It seeks to make a contribution to understanding and analysis of the phenomenon of rapid mass urbanisation in the Third World and its social consequences, the formation of huge urban slums and new forms of urban poverty. Its focus is the analysis of poverty which has been overwhelmingly dominated by economic approaches to the neglect of the social questions arising from poverty.This thesis approaches these social questions through an ‘urban livelihood framework’, arguing that this provides a more comprehensive framework to conceptualise poverty through its inclusion of both material and non-material dimensions. The study is based on primary data collected from slums in Dhaka City. Five hundred poor households were surveyed using a structured questionnaire to investigate the economic activities, expenditure and consumption, access to housing and land, family and social networking and cultural and political integration. The survey data was supplemented by qualitative data collected through fifteen in-depth interviews with poorhouseholds. The thesis found that poverty in the slums of Dhaka City was most strongly influenced by recent migration from rural areas, household organisation, participation in the ‘informal’ sector of the economy and access to housing and land. Almost half of the poor households in the study locations were identified as ‘hardcore poor’, that is having insufficient income for their physical needs. The remainder were found to be ‘absolute poor’, those who experienced poverty and vulnerability but varied in their levels ofincome and consumption. This level of poverty was also characterised by their social, cultural and political marginalisation. In summary, the urban poor remain very much dependent on their household and social networking, the main social capital they use to adapt to life in Dhaka City. Overall, the urban poor in this study experience the highest level of poverty and vulnerability in their everyday life. The thesis argues that the experience of poverty inthe megacity of Dhaka for these households follows the pattern of urbanisation without development, the very opposite to their expectations and aspirations