Stuck in poverty

Nearly 79,000 Jamaicans, or 2.8 per cent of the population, remain trapped in multidimensional poverty, the newly released 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report has indicated.

The figure accounts for Jamaicans enduring deprivations in health, education, and basic living standards, even as the country boasts a record-low poverty rate of 8.2 per cent in 2023, down from 16.7 per cent in 2021.

Multidimensional poverty measures poverty beyond income, capturing deprivations in multiple areas of life that affect citizens’ well-being. It establishes that poverty is not based solely on lacking money, but involves deficits in health, education, living standards, and other critical dimensions. The concept aims to provide a fuller picture of how poverty impacts people’s lives by assessing overlapping disadvantages.

The report, ‘Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazard’, produced through the United Nations Development Programme and Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, also revealed that an additional five per cent, or 142,000 Jamaicans, are classified as vulnerable to multidimensional poverty.

The intensity of deprivations in Jamaica, which is the average deprivation score among people living in multidimensional poverty, is 38.9 per cent, the report said.

Additionally, it said the MPI value, which is the share of the population that is multidimensionally poor adjusted by the intensity of the deprivations, is .011. In comparison, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago have MPI values of 0.009 and 0.002, respectively.

Of the 79,000 Jamaicans experiencing multidimensional poverty, 52.2 per cent suffered deprivation in health, 20.9 per cent in education, and 26.9 in standard of living.

The three areas are the multiple dimensions, or key features, of multidimensional poverty.

Instead of focusing only on income, looking at how many people are living below the US$3.00 per day extreme poverty line, it evaluates deprivations in the aforementioned areas.

It looks at access to healthcare, nutrition and child mortality, for health; years of schooling and school attendance, for education; and access to clean water, sanitation, electricity, housing and cooking fuel, for standard of living.

Other factors may include employment, security, social inclusion, or environmental conditions.

The report notes that the findings indicate that monetary poverty only tells part of Jamaica’s story.

According to the report, incidence of multidimensional poverty at 2.8 per cent is 1.4 percentage points higher than the incidence of monetary poverty at 1.4 per cent.

“This implies that individuals living above the monetary poverty line may still suffer deprivations in health, education and/or standard of living,” it said.

Added to that, it noted that 0.2 per cent of the Jamaican population is living in severe multidimensional poverty.

Above average

Still, the figures put Jamaica above the average for Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the report, 5.6 per cent of Latin America and the Caribbean is living in multidimensional poverty, with a 42.4 per cent intensity of deprivation measurement.

It said 5.9 per cent of the region is vulnerable to multidimensional poverty, 1.4 per cent is in severe multidimensional poverty, while 4.1 per cent is below the income poverty line.

Broken down, 38.3 per cent of those in Latin America and the Caribbean population living in multidimensional poverty suffered health deprivation; 25.9 per cent concerning education; and 35.8 per cent in standard of living.

In the meantime, the report indicated that nearly eight in 10 people living in multidimensional poverty – 887 million out of 1.1 billion globally – are directly exposed to climate hazards, such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, or air pollution.

It asserts that climate crisis is reshaping global poverty.

It indicated that by overlaying climate hazard data with multidimensional poverty data for the first time, the findings reveal “a world where poverty is not just a standalone socio-economic issue, but one that is deeply interlinked with planetary pressures and instability”.

The findings further revealed that among those assessed to be living in acute multidimensional poverty, an overwhelming 651 million endure two or more climate hazards, while 309 million face three or four hazards simultaneously.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com