By A Sivarajan
Malaysia prides itself as having slashed its poverty rate from 49% in the 1970s to just 6.2% in 2022.
However, the perspectives and goals of poverty eradication have changed significantly since the 70s.
For an effective assessment, poverty must be defined accurately to capture the lived reality of the poor. Last year, several states reported they had eradicated hardcore poverty. (The hardcore poverty line was RM1,198 and the poverty line income was RM2,589 in 2022.)
But any activist working with poor communities will tell you that the reality on the ground is so different, especially the level of urban poverty. Working-class families struggle daily to provide for their families, even though they hold full-time jobs. Their most pressing challenges are the costs of food, housing, education and healthcare.
Unicef’s 2023 “Living on the Edge” report on urban poor households in Malaysia reports that 41% experience poverty, with eight out of 10 families struggling to meet basic needs.
Thus, when politicians make claims of having have successfully eradicated poverty based on a unidimensional income-based poverty line, the figures do not reflect the reality on the ground. The definition of poverty based solely on material needs has drawn criticism among scholars and activists for not capturing the lived realities of the poor.
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Low poverty lines are meaningless when relative incomes and living costs have soared over the years.
After much criticism from the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Aston, Malaysia increased its poverty line income from RM980 to RM2,208 in 2019.
Even with this increase, a stark disconnect exists between the severity reflected by Unicef and Malaysia’s poverty rate of only 6.2%.
As poverty is multidimensional, it is less relevant to hold on to unidimensional income or consumption-based poverty lines to determine the poor. Nobel Prize economist Amartya Sen rejected income as a measure of wellbeing and conceptualised development as improving the capability for people to do what they value most.
Hence, the deprivation of such capabilities should be the measure of poverty instead of income. Inspired by Sen’s work, global poverty measurement took a major shift by incorporating non-monetary dimensions – such as health, education and living standards – to determine poverty levels.
Malaysia adopted the multidimensional poverty index (MPI) in 2016, using the framework developed by Akire and Foster from Oxford University.
Malaysia uses a modified MPI, suitable for middle-income countries, as most of the original dimensions and indicators were chosen to capture poverty from the poorest regions of the world.
Using this methodology, the Malaysia’s Department for Statistics reported Malaysia’s multidimensional poverty rate to have reduced from 1.5% in 2016 to just 0.8% in 2022.
Does that mean we have successfully addressed multidimensional poverty? Here again, the figures do not seem to reflect the realities on the ground.
The plausible causes for this could be that the deprivation cut-off levels adopted by the department are too low.
For example, for the education dimension, the cut-off is 11 years of education (up to Form 5, ie Year 11). The cut-off can be argued to be unrealistic as even those with higher qualifications earn just above the minimum wage in the current competitive job market.
Similarly, health deprivation is decided by measuring those having to access healthcare more than 5km from their residence. With increasing urbanisation, healthcare is available in the vicinity, but a more suitable deprivation could be the affordability of healthcare services.
Other indicators used are the availability of flush toilets and rubbish collection. These are available in most urban dwellings and hence serve as less accurate indicators to separate the poor from the non-poor.
Such low thresholds could explain the impressively low MPI poverty rates that the government reports at international forums on sustainable development goals.
The government needs to seriously review its dimensions and deprivation levels relative to the standards of living.
This raises the question, if Malaysia has a mechanism to measure poverty in a multidimensional way, why are policymakers still referring to unidimensional poverty lines to report their achievements? Is it because it is easier to lift people’s income above hardcore poverty thresholds and celebrate the government’s success in fighting poverty?
Income and food poverty can be overcome by cash transfers. But housing, healthcare, education and other living standards require a whole-of-government approach, as it requires numerous ministries to work together cohesively.
Placing the poverty eradication portfolio under the Ministry of the Economy reveals the tendency of the current administration to continue looking at poverty as an economic problem.
Hence, the ministry’s poverty alleviation programmes – such as “program pemerkasaan ekonomi komuniti bandar” (urban community economic empowerment programme), “skim pembangunan kesejahteraan rakyat” (people’s wellbeing development scheme) and “program pembangunan ekonomi orang Asli” (Orang Asli economic development programme) – reflect this approach. These programmes mainly seek to address poverty solely through economic means.
For people to escape poverty, they need to have adequate housing, accessible affordable healthcare, the capability to pursue educational goals, and the ability to enjoy relatively decent living standards.
This requires the measurement and reporting of multidimensional poverty to be mainstreamed. National narratives around poverty eradication must shift beyond monetary-based anti-poverty interventions.
The poor must be determined as those falling below more realistic thresholds for housing, education, healthcare and living standards.
The government cannot ease their foot off the pedal by claiming they have overcome hardcore poverty.
Multidimensional deprivations that the people face must be an urgent priority.
A Sivarajan is a central committee member of the socialist party PSM.
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
