Realising the Demographic Dividend: Policies to Achieve Inclusive Growth in India

Abstract

almost never prioritise direct income-generation or transfer policies. Often, it is for the practical reason that investments in other areas, such as the social sectors, are easier to undertake and with more immediate tangible results than investments in income generation schemes (such as support for SMEs or social procurement). In general, the link between the conceptualisation of poverty and the policy framework is much weaker than implied. Likewise, Putnam’s excellent chapter which argues that poverty may be best conceived as a social relation would have benefitted from the significant empirical literature which defines it in exactly this way. Both cases illustrate the broader point that the volume’s aim of presenting “interdisciplinary perspectives on poverty” is reflected primarily in the inclusion of different disciplinary perspectives within one volume rather than their systematic integration within individual chapters. The volume’s engagement with the post-development literature is presented in Part II (“Epistemic Injustices in Poverty Research”). One is struck by the varied depiction of the nature and objects of domination/subjugation presented. For example, Dübgen’s restatement of one characterisation of intellectuals in the Global South as lacking in “self-confidence” and “imprisoned” in a “scientific ghetto” seems starkly at odds with contributors to the volume who appear as anything but. Similarly, the oft-heard injunction to rely on local knowledge or to heed the marginalised voices of the poor/subaltern (Chimakonan), sits uneasily with the alleged inability of illiterate African women to “differentiate want from need” (Omotoso). Nevertheless, a core contribution of the volume is to direct attention to the fact that most poverty analysis is conducted by researchers from the North (or trained in the North), drawing on limited theoretical and methodological approaches. The effect is undoubtedly to restrict the field of inquiry and privilege one set of cognitive biases. Dimensions of Poverty makes a useful contribution to the literature on poverty and should be a standard reference for those working in this field. It joins the chorus of voices arguing for broadening of the concept of poverty, the ways of understanding it and the diversity of those researching it, with a view ultimately to reduce it more effectively (however defined and measured and by whom).