Collection

Addressing Poverty in Post-Pandemic Society

Submission status
Open
Open for submission from
10 May 2023
Submission deadline
10 May 2024
Societies around the world are rapidly transforming and experiencing various unprecedented social challenges such as – globalization, poverty, hunger, inequality, unemployment, health crisis, gender disparity, climate change, land dispossession, war, etc. Global poverty is considered one of the most important social evils. In 2015 United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 and eradication of poverty is the very first goal as a tagline “Goal 1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere” within it. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has jeopardized the very first sustainable development goal and resulted in a negative impact. The COVID-19 pandemic has been an added disadvantage to contemporary social issues. Societies across the globe have not only been in tremendous health crises but encountered several challenges as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid-lockdown in 2019-21 spans. Estimation suggests that the declining rate of poverty reduction has been moving in the reverse direction in the last 25 years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while the number of extreme poverty has been increasing for the first time ever in the last 25 years. United Nations (2022) reported that the global poverty rate increased sharply by 0.9 percent (8.3 percent in 2019 and 9.2 percent in 2020) between 2019 and 2020. It was estimated that the COVID-19 pandemic pushes an additional 75 million to 95 million people into extreme poverty. Lockdown restricted human mobility, and increasing healthcare costs have been the reasons for increasing poverty. The impact of poverty has been reportedly a geographic concentration, worst in the case of developing countries, especially in South Asia and the sub-Saharan Africa region. Furthermore, studies have reported that marginalized section people have been exacerbated in response to the global pandemic. Poverty cannot be analyzed through the income dimension only; while the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) includes both social and economic dimensions. The nuance analysis of poverty through the lens of the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) has revealed that the policy responses (lockdown, strict human mobility, closure of schools, etc.) lead to 8 to 9 years of set-back in MPI, and around 5 years (approximately) of set-back in educational attendance due to global pandemic hit. However, ascertaining the incidence of poverty for policy implication has been a difficult task due to the lack of household survey data and constantly changing social realities. Moreover, the global pandemic has added a different dimension to global poverty. In this context, the editors are keen to include the following themes as a part of this topical collection:

• Understanding the poverty (new dimension, patterns etc.) in post-COVID Society

• Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on poverty

• Approaches, measures of poverty

• Poverty and Marginalized Community

• Poverty and Post-pandemic policies

• Poverty and inequality

• Multidimensional Poverty analysis for the vulnerable populations

• Poverty reduction strategy

• Social welfare policy in the context of poverty

• Poverty alleviation programs and policies in context of pandemic

• Case study related to poverty and poverty reduction strategy

• Sustainable Development Goals and Poverty

• Challenges for achieving Sustainable Development Goals in post-pandemic society

Keywords: Redevelopment, Poverty, Poverty Reduction Strategy, Inequality, COVID-19 Pandemic, Globalization, Multi-Dimensional Poverty, Social Welfare, Vulnerability

Editors

  • Rajendra Baikady Rajendra Baikady , 

    Rajendra Baikady

    Dr. Rajendra Baikady, Assistant Professor, Central University of Kerala, India; Senior Research Associate, University of Johannesburg, South Africa; Faculty Fellow, York University, Canada He is also associated with International Socioeconomic Laboratory, Harvard University as a Principal Investigator (Summer Research Fellowship). He has completed Post-Doctoral research in Taiwan, China, Israel and South Africa. His research interests are in international social work, social change, social problems, social welfare, social justice, human rights, poverty, critical social work, social policy and globalization.

  • Koustab Majumdar Koustab Majumdar  &

    Koustab Majumdar

    Dr. Koustab Majumdar, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute, India He is a Visiting Scholar at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. He is awarded with Taiwan Fellowship by Ministry of Foreign Affairs to conduct post-doctoral research on Comparative Indigenous Social Welfare Policy at ICSS_NYCU. He received tuition fee scholarship (2019) to attend Chula Right Livelihood Summer School, Thailand. His research interests include agrarian change, environmental education, social work education, international social work, social welfare policies, rural and tribal livelihood, poverty & participatory research.

  • Michal Plaček Michal Plaček

    Michal Plaček

    Dr. Michal Plaček, Associate Professor, Charles University, Czech Republic; global research affiliate, Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative, Arizona State University, USA His research is focused on public procurement, corruption, and efficiency. He has publications in high‐ranking journals such as Public Management Review, Waste Management, Public Money and Management, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Journal of Public Procurement, and Public Works Policy and Management. He won the award for the best comparative conference paper from the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis in 2017.

Articles (3 in this collection)