Duration of Poverty

Prior to the 1960s, poverty was generally conceptualized as a static experience between those who were in poverty and those who were not, based on an assumption that individuals within either group rarely experienced economic displacement. However, poverty is now better understood as a dynamic phenomenon with most episodes of poverty being short rather than long, and with many people experiencing repeated spells of different durations and severity. Taking duration into account, and the distribution of episodes of poverty over time, the way that poverty has been conceptualized, measured, and understood has changed. It has challenged prior conceptions of the stability of poverty and shown them to be misleading. While duration is a key parameter in studies of poverty, only recently has it been possible ...