Cities Transformed Demographic Change and Its Implications in the Developing World (2003) / Chapter Skim
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5. Diversity and Inequality
5. Diversity and Inequality
Pages 155-198
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From page 155... ...
This study (described in UNCHS [1996:1961; see also Malpezzi [19991) laid the groundwork for a more nuanced understanding of urban living conditions and drew attention to the variety of housing markets in which the urban poor participate.
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From page 156... ...
We then explore one of these dimensions in detail, examining how access to basic public services differs between rural and urban populations, and differs within urban populations along the lines of city size and relative poverty. Next, we critically assess current estimates of urban poverty in developing countries, arguing that national and international statistics are likely to have understated its prevalence.
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From page 157... ...
When other aspects of children's lives in the city are examined we review what is known about street children a fuller picture emerges of diversity and inequality in urban children's lives. A SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE In the cities of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the spatial expressions of poverty and affluence are often as vivid as they are in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
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From page 158... ...
Inequality as measured by differences in provision of basic services (water, sanitation, and housing) is three times greater than inequality measured in terms of education and health status.
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From page 159... ...
/ Low FIGURE 5-3 A number of gated communities lie adjacent to poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. SOURCE: Torres (2001~.
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From page 160... ...
HUMAN CAPITAL: SCHOOLING As a principal measure of human capital, adult educational attainment is of fundamental importance to incomes and socioeconomic standing. Figure 5-5 depicts the distributions of schooling in urban and rural areas, and Table 5-1 provides further region-specific detail.)
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From page 161... ...
A portion of the urban/rural difference might well be due to the outmigration of better-educated, formerly rural residents.2 As will be seen later in this chapter, however, urban children have strikingly higher levels of school enrollment than their rural counterparts. Hence, the urban/rural differences shown above must also reflect long-standing differences in educational investments between the countryside and the city.
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From page 162... ...
Comparing educational attainment across city size classes (see Figure 5-6) , we find that adults living in large cities (especially in those of 1 million or more population)
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From page 163... ...
Again, however, there is evidence of substantial diversity in schooling levels, even in the larger cities. For the 16 countries having two or more DHS surveys, we are able to examine changes over time in the educational attainment of adults.3 Over the period between surveys about 5 years on average there was a decline in the percentage of adults having no schooling or at most incomplete primary schooling.
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From page 164... ...
Such restricted definitions testify to the difficulties involved in measuring poverty's multiple dimensions, but they can also distort understanding of its causes and may unnecessarily narrow the scope for intervention on the part of local and international agencies. Box 5.1 lists some of the key dimensions of urban poverty identified in the literature.4 Although we emphasize its implications for urban poverty, this research owes a great deal to studies of rural poverty (see especially Chambers, 1983, 1995; Beck, 1994~.
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From page 165... ...
For many of the urban poor, significant proportions of income go to repay debts (see, e.g., Amis and Kumar, 2000~. Time costs Conventional poverty lines do not directly incorporate the time needed for low-income households to travel to work or undertake other essential tasks.
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From page 166... ...
Fifth, a nuanced understanding of urban poverty helps policy makers expand the set of agencies charged with roles in poverty reduction. Most municipal agencies do not see their principal responsibilities as lying in the area of poverty alleviation when poverty is defined in terms of income alone.
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From page 167... ...
As that case shows, the quality of the relationship between the poor and external organizations depends on organizational transparency and the degree to which outside organizations are accountable to the poor. A number of case studies demonstrate how much the urban poor can achieve when they have good relationships with local and external organizations (Baumann, Bolnick, and Mitlin, 2001; Patel and Mitlin, 2001~.
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From page 168... ...
There is an enormous gap between urban and rural areas in the provision of piped drinking water: the percentages in urban areas range from nearly 5 times those of rural areas in the case of sub-Saharan Africa to a ratio of about 2 to 1 in the case of North Africa.6 Access to drinking water through standpipes and other neighborhood sources is less unevenly distributed, with the rural and urban percentages being roughly equal in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, but higher in rural areas in the 6The only countries surveyed in North Africa are Egypt and Morocco.
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From page 169... ...
A leading example is a lack of voice within political systems that keeps the concerns of the poor from being heard; another example is the poor's inadequate security and lack of protection from violence, theft, and fraud. It is the multiplicity of deprivations and the connections among them that characterize the circumstances of many urban poor.
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From page 170... ...
Where waste disposal is concerned, a marked urban advantage is seen in access to flush toilets, an advantage that is due mainly, no doubt, to differences in the provision of piped water. The use of pit toilets and latrines is quite common in the cities of sub-Saharan Africa, where about two-thirds of urban households dispose of their wastes in this manner.
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From page 171... ...
In North Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, however, it would suggest that only 5 percent of the urban population resides in slums. Many researchers, we suspect, would reject 5 percent as being far too low a number.
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From page 172... ...
Differences by City Size Within the urban population, are large and small cities equally well served? As discussed in Chapters 1 and 3, much of the urban population of developing countries is found in smaller cities, which are also likely to accommodate much of the developing world's future population growth.
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From page 173... ...
DIVERSITY AND INEQUALITY TABLE 5-3 Percentages of Urban Households with Access to Public Services, by City Population Size 173 City Size DHS Surveys in Under 100,000 to 500,000 to 1 to Over Region 100,000 500,000 1 million 5 million 5 million Piped or Well Water on Premises North Africa 79.6 89.0 91.2 82.6 94.8 Sub-Saharan Africaa 35.4 45.1 42.3 55.1 Southeast Asia 36.1 50.2 39.2 56.1 53.2 South, Central, West Asia 64.0 72.4 67.0 74.1 61.0 Latin America 66.0 73.8 79.8 64.9 90.1 TOTAL 49.2 60.3 60.6 65.5 69.5 Minutes Needed to Fetch Water Outside the Home North Africa 23.2 20.2 20.9 22.8 22.6 Sub-Saharan Africa 19.1 14.1 19.7 13.5 Southeast Asia 8.6 9.1 8.4 7.2 11.4 South, Central, West Asia 26.1 15.0 13.1 14.2 20.3 Latin America 17.9 19.4 18.0 19.4 20.8 TOTAL 20.0 15.3 17.0 15.9 18.2 Access to Flush Toilet North Africa 88.3 95.4 95.4 93.1 98.5 Sub-Saharan Africa 18.0 20.6 25.4 30.5 Southeast Asia 78.1 82.5 89.1 84.8 South, Central, West Asia 36.8 56.0 71.5 75.9 82.1 Latin America 42.6 57.7 61.6 65.3 82.3 TOTAL 32.2 44.1 55.0 59.4 84.5 Access to Pit Toilet or Latrine North Africa 6.9 3.5 1.7 4.2 1.0 Sub-Saharan Africa 65.7 70.6 72.6 63.5 Southeast Asia 14.4 10.3 9.2 13.9 South, Central, West Asia 44.4 25.9 17.2 19.2 13.5 Latin America 44.1 29.9 30.1 28.6 14.5 TOTAL 52.3 44.3 39.1 35.2 12.2 Availability of Electricity North Africa 90.9 94.4 93.8 88.7 99.1 Sub-Saharan Africa 33.8 46.7 52.0 65.5 Southeast Asia 83.7 90.4 85.6 97.2 98.8 South, Central, West Asia 81.0 89.1 93.3 94.3 91.6 Latin America 84.0 89.9 97.4 98.0 99.1 TOTAL 57.1 70.4 77.1 85.0 96.2 (continued)
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From page 174... ...
, ours is a "relative affluence" indicator. Table 5-4 compares levels of access to services among three groups: rural households, urban households that are relatively poor by our definition, and urban nonpoor households.8 The remarkable aspect of this table is the near uniformity of the results.
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From page 175... ...
175 Cot ~ ,~ ·> ~ i .~ o Em ·E-°4 ~ ~I ~ Do Do o ·_.
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From page 176... ...
The differences in the access of relatively poor urban households and rural households are almost always statistically significant.9 In the case of piped and in-home water, all of the estimates shown in Table 5-4 indicate that the urban poor are significantly more likely to have access than rural households. Much the same is true for the likelihood of having a flush toilet and electricity.~° In the cases of water in the neighborhood and access to either pit toilets or latrines, however, the urban poor are not always significantly advantaged relative to rural households.)
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From page 177... ...
Although they are far from being definitive, these data suggest that the conventional views of migrant disadvantage may need to be reconfirmed. Discussion The DHS household-level data on service provision are broadly consistent with the findings of city-level reviews of water and sanitation in African, Asian, and Latin American cities (e.g., Hardoy, Mitlin, and Satterthwaite, 2001~.
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From page 178... ...
. Understandably, the DHS surveys do not make inquiries about water quality and contamination, which probably could not be recorded reliably through survey questions.
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From page 179... ...
Little information has been collected by the DHS surveys on the number of people who share toilets, the quality of toilet maintenance, and the monetary or time costs of access.~5 In some cities, pay-as-you-go public latrines consume a not-insignificant percentage of the cash incomes of poor households (for Kumasi, Ghana, see Devas and Korboe, 2000; for Bhilwara, India, see Ghosh, Ahmad, and Maitra, 1994~. With all the aspects of reliability and adequacy taken into consideration, it is likely that the simple indicators used by the DHS tend to overstate the advantages of urban residence with regard to securing access to public services.
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From page 180... ...
Locational Price Differences and Nonfood Needs There is reason to believe that the official poverty lines adopted by developing countries can be seriously deficient in two aspects the treatment of locational price differences and allowances for nonfood essentials. Income-based poverty lines are usually determined according to estimates of the cost of an adequate i6Most governments use the household as the unit of analysis and do not examine intrahousehold differentials in access to income.
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From page 181... ...
It has not escaped notice that poverty lines ought to be adjusted for locational differences in prices, and a number of governments have established different poverty lines for urban and rural areas (e.g., the Philippines)
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From page 182... ...
Is an allowance equivalent to 15-30 percent of minimum food expenditures really sufficient to account for all such needs? When official income-based poverty lines were calculated in the United States in the 1960s, it was thought reasonable to set the poverty threshold at three times the cost of a minimum food basket, rather than at 1.15 to 1.3 times that cost as is current practice in many developing countries.
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From page 183... ...
Even with allowance for the omitted items, Deaton and Tarozzi maintain that the official poverty lines overstate urban costs of living and thus the extent of urban poverty relative to rural. Evidently there is ample room for controversy and dispute, even in countries with sophisticated statistical systems.
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From page 184... ...
Urbanization underscores the need for rigorous justification of the basis for urban poverty estimates and clear statements of the limits and uncertainties that surround such estimates. RISK AND VULNERABILITY Because they must live in the narrow margin above subsistence, the urban poor face many difficulties in managing risks in coping with rising prices, falling incomes, and other personal and societal shocks.
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From page 185... ...
The Dar es Salaam study notes that before seeking outside assistance, urban households "self-adjust" to the extent that they can. It appears that households will restrict food consumption before they borrow money or take food on credit.
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From page 186... ...
shows the coping strategies used. Coping Strategy Used Percent Using Seek more sources of income Pull children out of school Reduce quality of medical care Return to home village Obtain food from rural areas Consume less-preferred or less-expensive foods Borrow money Purchase on credit Reduce the number of meals per day Reduce food portions Limit adult food to give more to children Borrow food Send children to neighbors to eat Skip eating for complete days 24 24 52 25 37 78 39 36 52 56 41 21 16 In cities, environmental hazards represent another dimension of the risk faced by poor households.
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From page 187... ...
High percentages of the urban poor live in housing that is vulnerable to fire, made of inflammable materials such as wood and cardboard. The risk of accidental fires is much increased when these households cook on open fires or use portable stoves and when kerosene lamps or candles are used for light.
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From page 188... ...
School Enrollments in Urban Areas The tables and figures that follow show enrollment proportions for two age groups of children: those aged 9-10, who are of an age to be enrolled in primary school, and those aged 15-16, whose enrollment rates are likely to reflect a mix of the late primary, middle, and early secondary school levels.2i For both age groups, Table 5-6 shows strikingly large differences in enrollment between urban and rural children. On average, the difference is on the order of 2iThese analyses are based on 62 DHS surveys from 45 countries; see Table C-l in Appendix C
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From page 189... ...
As one might expect, enrollment rates in the smallest cities are somewhat lower than in the larger cities, but the differences are on TABLE 5-7 Enrollment Percentages for Urban Children, by City Population Size DHS Surveys in Region City Population Size Under 100,000 to 500,000 to 1 to Over 100,000 500,000 1 million 5 million 5 million Enrollment at Ages 9-10 North Africa 90.5 93.2 93.4 91.7 93.8 Sub-Saharan Africa 75.3 79.6 85.9 83.7 95.7 Southeast Asia 97.4 96.1 96.3 98.7 97.5 South, Central, West Asia 86.1 90.5 90.7 91.6 87.5 Latin America 92.5 92.8 95.0 95.1 97.2 TOTAL 82.6 86.6 90.6 90.4 92.9 Enrollment at Ages 15-16 North Africa 64.5 69.3 67.2 63.2 77.9 Sub-Saharan Africa 56.4 57.9 60.6 55.2 70.7 Southeast Asia 70.4 78.2 74.1 73.9 79.2 South, Central, West Asia 61.2 68.6 68.2 66.4 52.7 Latin America 74.0 76.9 79.0 80.3 85.6 TOTAL 61.9 66.0 68.6 66.7 70.7 NOTE: See note to Table 5-6.
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From page 190... ...
In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the enrollment differences are much larger nearly 20 and 13 points for the younger and older groups of children, respectively.22 Table 5-8 explores the implications of urban poverty for levels of school enrollment, presenting a comparison of urban poor children, their urban peers from nonpoor households, and rural children. We find that poor urban children are more likely to be enrolled than rural children, but less likely to be enrolled than nonpoor urban children.23 As was the case with public service provision, the urban poor generally occupy the middle position.
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From page 191... ...
In summary, there can be little doubt of an urban advantage in children's school enrollment. The source of this advantage is less clear.
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From page 192... ...
An estimated 40 million of these children live in Latin America, some 25 to 30 million in Asia, and 10 million in Africa (Barker and Knaul, l991~. For children living and sleeping on the street, the estimated total is about 10 million.
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From page 193... ...
They face a constant challenge in finding food, toilet and bathing facilities, and a protected place to sleep. Because of their poverty and exposed living conditions, street children also tend to have many health afflictions.
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From page 194... ...
Only a handful of studies have compared street children with other poor and nonpoor children of similar ages. Although the nutritional status of street children can be a problem, they are often found to be healthier than poor children who are not on the street (Gross, Landried, and Herman, 1996; Panter-Brick, Todd, and Baker, 1996~.
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From page 195... ...
By training an urban lens on human capital investment, poverty and well-being, access to basic services, risk and vulnerability, and the lives of children, we have sought a better understanding of urban/rural differences and intraurban diversity. Our main findings can be summarized in broad strokes: in the dimensions analyzed here, urban residents are better off on average than rural residents; residents of smaller cities are generally disadvantaged by comparison with those of larger cities, although advantaged by comparison with rural villagers; and the urban poor suffer from deprivations that can sometimes leave them no better off than rural residents, but generally situate them between rural residents and the urban nonpoor.
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From page 196... ...
The urban poor have significantly less access to basic services than other urban residents. Analyses of the DHS surveys reveal that in almost every country surveyed, the average urban resident enjoys better access to basic public services piped drinking water, flush toilets, and electricity than the average rural resident.
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From page 197... ...
Failure to recognize the multiple dimensions of poverty can skew understanding of its causes and needlessly narrow the scope of poverty alleviation efforts. In addition, the official methods used to establish income-based poverty lines often fail to account adequately for locational differences in prices and the high proportion of income that many of the urban poor must spend on nonfood essentials, especially housing.
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From page 198... ...
Reach the urban poor · Improve services in smaller cities · Increase the school enrollment rates of urban poor children; · Create or strengthen social safety nets Data collection Where data collection is concerned, there is an urgent need for collating of available data on socioeconomic conditions within cities, with a particular focus on city neighborhoods and subdistricts. New data collection efforts should also be encouraged, particularly data on access to services, income and assets, the multiple dimensions of poverty, and education that are comparable among and within cities.
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