Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index

Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index

#GS-02 Social Justice

For Prelims

About Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI):

  • Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an annual report produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI).
  • It replaced the Human Poverty Index.
  • The MPI is published along with the HDI (Human Development Index) in the Human Development Report.

Global MPI – Dimensions, Indicators, Deprivation Cutoffs, and Weights

DIMENSIONS
OF POVERTY
INDICATOR DEPRIVED IF LIVING IN A HOUSEHOLD WHERE… WEIGHT
Health
(1/3)
Nutrition Any person under 70 years of age for whom there is nutritional information is undernourished. 1/6
Child mortality A child under 18 has died in the household in the five-year period preceding the survey. 1/6
Education (1/3) Years of schooling No eligible household member has completed six years of schooling. 1/6
School attendance Any school-aged child is not attending school up to the age at which he/she would complete class 8. 1/6
Living Standards (1/3) Cooking fuel A household cooks using solid fuel, such as dung, agricultural crop, shrubs, wood, charcoal, or coal. 1/18
Sanitation The household has unimproved or no sanitation facility or it is improved but shared with other households. 1/18
Drinking water The household’s source of drinking water is not safe or safe drinking water is a 30-minute or longer walk from home, roundtrip. 1/18
Electricity The household has no electricity. 1/18
Housing The household has inadequate housing materials in any of the three components: floorroof, or walls. 1/18
Assets The household does not own more than one of these assets: radio, TV, telephone, computer, animal cart, bicycle, motorbike, or refrigerator, and does not own a car or truck. 1/18

For Mains

What did the MPI report say about India?

  • About 41.5 crore people exited poverty in India during the 15-year period between 2005-06 and 2019-21, out of which two-third exited in the first 10 years, and one-third in the next five years.
  • Incidence of poverty fell from 55.1% in 2005-06 to 16.4% in 2019-21 in the country and that deprivations in all 10 MPI indicators saw significant reductions as a result of which the MPI value and incidence of poverty more than halved.
  • Bihar, the poorest State in 2015-2016, saw the fastest reduction in MPI value in absolute terms.
  • The incidence of poverty there fell from 77.4% in 2005-2006 to to 34.7% in 2019-2021.
  • India has the largest number of poor people worldwide at 22.8 crore, followed by Nigeria at 9.6 crore.
  • There were also 9.7 crore poor children in India in 2019-2021 — more than the total number of poor people, children and adults combined, in any other country covered by the global MPI.
  • South Asia for the first time is not the region with the highest number of poor people, at 38.5 crore, compared with 57.9 crore in Sub-Saharan Africa.