Technical Note No. 7. Trends in Andhra Pradesh with a Focus on Poverty.

Abstract

As background to the Young Lives study, this paper looks at demographic, socio-economic, and poverty trends for the state of Andhra Pradesh during the 1990s. Substantive changes in the demographic structure, composition of economic activity, and trends in poverty are noted. Additionally, it reviews the literature on poverty measurement issues for generic populations as well as for children. A major unresolved issue is a standard and widely accepted definition of childhood poverty although a number of indicators are commonly presented when discussing quality of life for children. Following this, this paper also presents trends in immunisation coverage, nutrition, and various educational indicators for children in Andhra Pradesh over the 1990s.

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 discusses recent and anticipated changes in the demography, economy and society. Section 3 discusses the methods for analysing poverty over space and time and presents the issues on which the current debate on poverty is centred on focusing particularly on Andhra Pradesh (AP). Section 4 discusses measuring childhood poverty, one attempt at conceptualising childhood poverty and trends in three variables that are important dimensions of scarcity for a child: vaccination, nutrition, and participation in primary education. Section 5 concludes.

Citation

Young Lives, Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, UK. 30 pp.

Technical Note No. 7. Trends in Andhra Pradesh with a Focus on Poverty.

Published 1 January 2008