Unraveling Poverty: A Multidimensional Perspective

Over the last 10 years or so, the way of looking at the concepts like poverty and social exclusion has changed by a million miles. More and more people are drawn towards the idea of thinking about such things in a more detailed manner so as to gain a deeper understanding of it. For that is the only way, we can actually move towards truly dealing with them, instead of being the bird that puts its most sincere efforts in trying to catch the horizon which always moves away from it. The reason behind this shift in people’s mentalities is the broad acknowledgment that poverty is about more than just low incomes. What lies at the heart of how most people understand ‘poverty’ are their observations of instances of lower than reasonably required consumption and inadequate living standards. Aspects of poor health, a shortened lifespan, limited access to education, knowledge and information, and powerlessness in various domains are also associations that this term has conjured up.
With so many different aspects branching out

It can’t be seen at from just one single angle, trying to find one single indicator. This gets clearer once we look at the other side of the coin i.e. the definition of social inclusion that was given by the EU Employment and Social Affairs Directorate, “The development of capacity and opportunity to play a full role, not only in economic terms, but also in social, psychological and political terms.” Practically speaking, if the idea of who qualifies as eligible to be called socially included, was based on only one determining factor, say, income, then, we would never have understood the plight of a person who might earn above that set standard of income, but does not have a say in who his/her country would be led by, ergo, a person who’s not poor yet, deprived of something essential. How can we even imagine living in a world framed by policies that ignore things as important as