Why Rural Poverty

The causes of poverty are more complex and no single factor is sufficient to understand and explain the dynamics of socio-economic process of poverty. However, impoverishment, illiteracy, unemployment, and underemployment may be identified as visible effect of poverty, but important causes of it are noted in a complex web of demographic, economic, social, political and natural factors. These individually and collectively affect access to economic resources and rural income distribution as well as economic status. There exists currently near consensus on the factors that sustain and propel the incidence of poverty. In this context, I would like to mention some effective factors that are directly or indirectly responsible to create poverty. Such as---

• High population growth and density
• Low level of economic growth
• Uneven social structure
• Low resource endowment and low productivity
• Inadequate and inappropriate rural development
• Adverse effect of terms of trade
• Illiteracy
• Unemployment and underemployment
• Natural calamities
• Political issues of rural impoverishment
• Capital intensive development
• Inadequate land reform
• Defective delivery system
• Low level of human resource development
• Unequal distribution of income and productive assets
• Lack of subsidiary occupation
• Improper use of existing resources
• Lack of transportation and communication system
• Exploitation
• High dependency ratio
• Lack of awareness
• Weak government etc