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New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty
Author(s) -
Ravallion Martin,
Chen Shaohua,
Sangraula Prem
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
population and development review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.836
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1728-4457
pISSN - 0098-7921
DOI - 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2007.00193.x
Subject(s) - urbanization , poverty , latin americans , quarter (canadian coin) , urban poverty , geography , population , development economics , socioeconomics , rural area , east asia , economic growth , china , economics , demography , political science , archaeology , sociology , law
One‐quarter of the world's consumption poor live in urban areas, and that proportion has been rising over time. Over 1993–2002, the count of the “$1 a day” poor fell by 150 million in rural areas but rose by 50 million in urban areas. The poor have been urbanizing even more rapidly than the population as a whole. By fostering economic growth, urbanization helped reduce absolute poverty in the aggregate. There are marked regional differences: Latin America has the most urbanized poverty problem, East Asia has the least; there has been a “ruralization” of poverty in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; in marked contrast to other regions, Africa's urbanization process has not been associated with falling overall poverty.