Working poor in Bangladesh : an attempt at understanding its nature and causes

In developing countries, an overwhelming portion of the total population lives in abject poverty, experiencing deprivations and vulnerabilities. Among them are people who work but remain in poverty; they are known as the working poor. The working poor constitute the vast majority of the total poor population in Bangladesh. The condition of the working poor has become a growing concern for policy makers, demanding urgent interventions for the sake of socioeconomic stability. Necessary policy interventions require understanding and identification of the causes determining the poverty of workers. Identification of a few macroeconomic indicators is not enough to visualise policy interventions. Research studies conducted so far have emphasised macroeconomic aspects of the issue, giving less importance to issues at the household level. This research is an exception. It provides micro level data which will provide fresh insight into policy options for addressing worker poverty. Addressing the problem of poverty in general and working poverty in particular is not simple. Even identification of the poor and diagnosis of poverty are not enough to address the problems because of their multidimensional nature. Apart from socioeconomic issues, there are technical issues which need to be resolved if we seriously want complete elimination of poverty. Notwithstanding, this research is expected to provide necessary background information which may be useful in conceiving and formulating appropriate and effective policies. The thesis is concerned with the issues related to working poverty. The research focuses mainly on identifying the nature and causes of working poverty in Bangladesh, and presents a plain picture of the situation of the working poor in that socioeconomic context. A brief but exhaustive description of the working poor and the methodology underpinning the study is provided in chapter 1. Before constructing a picture of the working poor, a review of relevant literature is presented in chapter 2. The salient features of the working poor in both developed and developing countries are considered in the review. Working poverty is a phenomenon of developed countries, which nowadays is gaining importance in developing countries such as Bangladesh. To construct a complete picture of the working poor needs information on a variety of issues covering almost every aspect of the life and living of poor workers. Obviously, we cannot capture the whole gamut of life and living through a sample survey covering only a small area and a few hundreds of workers. However, with the data obtained from the sample survey, we present a plain picture of the working poor in chapter 3. Issues such as household structure, age, education, training, income, expenditure, consumption, assets, living conditions, and social protection are discussed in this chapter. The picture that appears provides a profile of the working poor in Bangladesh. The research examines individual cases of poverty, investigating household and labour market issues that affect and sustain poverty. Chapter 4 contains an in-depth analysis of the factors that increase the risk of being poor at household level. The factors taken into consideration for analysing poverty of a household are occupational status, age, education, household status, health status, household size, dependency burden, proportion of female workers to total workers, and sex ratio. Discrimination between men and women is a stark reality of everyday life. The scourge of discrimination is severely felt by women workers, who receive fewer wages than male workers for same work. Discrimination at work, as demonstrated by gender wage gap, is examined in chapter 5. The inability of workers to eke out a living demands an exploration of the nature of their jobs, the wages they earn, the number of hours they work, their job security, occupational safety and the conditions they work in. All these issues have been addressed in chapter 6. Reduced productivity in turn results in low income, which is an important determinant of the wellbeing of a household. Because of seasonal nature of jobs workers in rural areas tend to migrate to urban areas. Issues related to the nature of employment igniting rural-urban migration have been examined in chapter 7. Chapter 8 analyses how discrimination perpetuates working poverty in the informal sector with special reference to Bangladesh. Chapter 9 concludes with a summary of major findings and recommendations