Reducing spending on preventative, proactive services that reduce poverty can be self-defeating in the long-run, merely adding to the fiscal cost of poverty.
Work no longer assures a route out of poverty — More than half of people living in poverty in the UK are in a working household. The bottom end of the labour market often becomes a trap for people, stuck in low-paid, insecure jobs that offer no prospects for progression - four fifths of those that enter low-paid work remain low paid 10 years later.
Globalisation and technology change are shaping a more polarised, hollowed out, labour market with more high and low-skill jobs but fewer mid-skill jobs. This means fewer opportunities for progression as the rungs on the ladder become further apart. New business models are also emerging which are increasing the number of insecure jobs on flexible contracts. The recent High Court rulings in cases against Uber and Deliveroo highlight how policy and employment law is still catching up with practices.
These labour market developments make it more important than ever to consider the nature of growth, and who the proceeds are going to. Many communities across the country feel disconnected and do not feel benefits of economic growth - The Brexit vote has been a wake-up call to national and local politicians, here in the UK, and provided a major impetus for an inclusive growth agenda.
Even if greater inclusion did not contribute to economic growth, it would widely be regarded as a good thing in itself. It is shocking that we have such high levels of poverty in our society and, for many people, addressing this is quite simply the right thing to do.
The rise of populism on both sides of the Atlantic has highlighted the potential social and political consequences of growth which is not inclusive. Uneven growth - Our research highlights the growing spatial inequalities between towns and cities in the UK. The dominance of London and the South East has led to a skewed economy, where economic opportunity is determined by where people live. Rebalancing the economy represents a key challenge for inclusive growth.
Growth has also been uneven within every town and city too. When the fortunes of a deprived neighbourhood are improved, the challenge is to ensure that the original residents benefit.
If they are unable to access the new jobs being created, the risk is that they are simply displaced elsewhere as the area gentrifies. This holds for countries with rapid growth China, Myanmar , moderate growth Vietnam, Ghana and negative growth Burundi, Venezuela. As expected, there are some outliers that reflect specific country circumstances.
Timor Leste TLS stands out as a country that has had rapid GDP growth, largely due to oil and gas production, but it has saved significant amounts for future consumption in a Petroleum Fund. Conversely, Lesotho LSO has enjoyed more rapid consumption growth than GDP growth thanks to large remittances received from overseas workers.
The next step is to look at how consumption growth is distributed. Figure 2 below shows the relationship between consumption growth of the bottom 40 percent and average consumption growth for the overall population across countries. The estimated coefficient of the best-fit line is almost exactly one. We repeated this exercise for different groupings of countries, and different time periods to see if there are any characteristics that would clearly show more or less inclusive patterns of growth.
The results are summarized in Table 1 below. The Table columns show the number of times a country displays inclusive growth, using the definition above, over the three-decade period To illustrate, the first row shows 33 high income countries in our sample. Seven of these did not have inclusive growth in any of the three decadal periods; another 7 had one episode; 15 had inclusive growth for two of the three decades; and 4 had inclusive growth for all three decades. The first three rows classify countries by income level.
The next 7 rows classify them by region. The last 4 rows classify them by a long-term national characteristic at the beginning of the period. We do not find significant variation across these classifications. In each case, we find that countries mostly have had 2 episodes of inclusive growth in the thirty-year period; one episode is the next most common frequency. The tails—either inclusive growth over all periods or none of the periods—are the least common.
About 30 percent of all countries fall into one or other of these tails. The results hold some surprises. Third, countries must establish a stable environment that enables business to flourish. Business wants a level playing field and to be connected to major markets.
It also wants a simple regulatory framework that makes it easy to start, operate, and close a business. Small and medium firms that employ the most people are especially restricted by complicated regulations that can breed corruption. Fourth, in order to bring new prosperity and new opportunities, growth must also usher in new ways to support sustainable consumption and production.
It must also enable sustainable development. The SDG Fund supports initiatives that tackle inclusive growth from a multisectoral perspective and address the following dimensions:. Poverty reduction in San Pedro region. Two of the MDG-F thematic windows encouraged practices related with inclusive growth, especially providing opportunities for the most vulnerable: youth, employment and migration and private sector and development.
Some programmes on culture and development also tried to boost the economic potential of cultural industries to create livelihoods. Lessons learned from these programmes have been translated into a broader perspective on inclusive growth as a means of poverty reduction.
Skip to main content.
0コメント