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This article aims to examine the role of capital assets in rural household poverty transitions of poverty escape and poverty descent over periods of 2014–2016 and 2016–2018.

Based on the sustainable livelihood approach, this paper uses binary logit model to explore the influence of multidimensional capital assets on poverty transitions and use instrumental variable estimation to solve the endogeneity between total net asset and poverty transitions.

Capital assets have significant impacts on household poverty transitions. The role of capital assets in households' poverty escape and poverty descent are not symmetrical. The authors verify that rural households with rich total net asset are more likely to escape poverty and less likely to descend into poverty by using instrumental variable estimation. The authors verify that there is a mediation effect that total net asset can help households' escaping poverty and prevent them from falling into poverty through promoting rural households to engage in business activities.

This paper is the first to explore how capital assets affect poverty transitions in rural China based on the sustainable livelihood approach. The findings of this research can provide valuable policy implications for the pursuit of common prosperity in China and references for other developing countries.

During the transition from socialist to post-socialist regimes, many Central and Eastern Europe societies have developed a broad sector of informal work. This development has caused substantial economic and social problems. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper aims to answer two questions regarding European countries with a relatively weak economy and welfare state: what are the differences in the social characteristics between workers in formal and informal employment? And how might they be explained? According to the main assumption, a key reason why people work in undeclared employment in such countries is that they are in particularly vulnerable positions in the labour market. This paper uses the example of Moldova. The empirical study is based on a unique survey data set from the National Statistical Office of Moldova covering formal and informal employment.

The findings show that, in informal employment, workers in rural areas, workers with a low level of education, young workers and older workers – in the final years of their careers and after the age of retirement – are over-represented. It seems that a significant reason why these workers are often engaged in informal employment is the lack of alternatives in the labour market, particularly in rural areas, compounded by limited social benefits from unemployment benefits and pensions.

Research about social differences between workers in formal and informal employment in the countries of the European periphery is rare. This paper makes a new contribution to the theoretical debate and research regarding work in informal employment.

The paper aims to compare applied social policy approaches to child poverty and economic inequality, the latter being mainly operationalised in the UK in terms of social mobility.

The paper considers the theoretical stance underpinning New Labour's approach towards social policy, with particular reference to “individualisation”, and reviews Government strategies towards tackling poverty and economic inequality.

Despite a decade of unprecedented investment, there is an impasse in reducing child poverty and economic inequality has increased. Policy now relies on education as being the clinching factor to break this impasse. Education is vital but education alone will not tip the balance in eradicating poverty. The assumption that education will facilitate social mobility, by serving to position the UK at the high end of the global labour market, fails to address the prevalence of the “low‐pay‐no‐pay” cycle associated with the flexible labour market. Further measures are necessary to ensure that the labour market accommodates the needs of those entering it.

The paper shows that, given the failure of current social policy to address poverty and inequality, especially given that post‐recession conditions are likely to be less favourable than in the last decade, there is an urgent need for bold, new policy thinking. Pinning all hopes on education – and seeing solutions only in terms of individuals' skills and aspirations, without critical consideration of the nature of the labour market – cannot be accepted as the best way forward.

The concept of poverty traps based on a critical threshold that distinguishes transitory from chronic poverty gives rise to a crucial policy distinction between cargo nets and safety nets. While safety nets are designed to prevent the non‐poor and transitorily poor from falling into chronic poverty, cargo nets are meant to help those who fall below the critical threshold to help them climb out of chronic poverty. The study attempts to determine the factors that affect a beneficiary artisan's decision to use the toolkits provided, i.e. to climb up using the cargo net of improved toolkits and become more active economically.

The paper is based on primary data collected from the supply of improved toolkits to rural artisans (SITRA) programme in 2001‐2002. It is performed on the dataset consisting of 6,788 observations (beneficiary artisans). Due to some missing data 700 observations could not be used. Thus, only 6,088 observations are considered for the purpose of the ordered logit analysis.

The paper develops the related concepts of conditional and structural rigidities restraining the movement and studies the role of these rigidities in determining the economic mobility of a beneficiary household when a climbing cargo net is provided. The paper finds that there is strong evidence that governments are confused about the concept of poverty reduction and alleviation strategies. The study reveals that narrower targeting on beneficiaries with lower conditional rigidities is better as they are more likely to use the toolkits and hence increase their income from craftsmanship and so promote both economic growth and poverty reduction.

The study focuses on a specific poverty alleviation programme. The findings are restricted to a special economic group at all India level. Nonetheless, the study highlights that a thorough understanding of the conditional and structural rigidities faced by a beneficiary artisan and how these affect his economic behaviour would be very useful in both designing and implementation of poverty reduction programmes.

This paper will be of value to researchers, policy makers seeking to gain better understanding of targeting. The paper observes that appreciation of significant conditional rigidities are useful while designing programmes – particularly while targeting the beneficiaries – structural rigidities are more important while implementing and monitoring these programs.

Poverty numbers have decreased in the United States over the past few decades but these statistics tend to mask trends for different demographic groups. Aged women living alone make up 95 per cent of non‐family households, and 47 per cent of these women had annual incomes of less than $10,000 and most were living at the poverty threshold in 1989. Concern about poverty among the aged is addressed from two perspectives. First, changes in the magnitude, characteristics and incidence of poverty among the aged population are reviewed. Secondly, analytical models of the severity of poverty are presented and these models are used to describe techniques that may be employed in attempting to alleviate poverty in one category of the aged poor where it seems most acute and most intractable, i.e. aged women living alone. Three poverty models are presented: (1) concentrating economic aid to those just below the poverty threshold and reducing numbers; (2) concentrating aid to those in deepest need; and (3) a sliding scale. The modified welfare ratio model showed that concentrating economic aid to the aged poor in deepest need (furthest from the poverty threshold) yields greater social and economic benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the hardcore poor, moderately poor and just poor among zakat recipients in southwest Nigeria. It seeks to explain the criteria and basis used in determining the most deprived among zakat recipients considering the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and modern-day situations.

Out of 200 questionnaires that were randomly distributed among the recipients of zakat from Al-Hayat Relief Foundation and Zakat and Sadaqat Foundation in southwest Nigeria, only 150 were completed. Headcount poverty index, poverty gap index, multi-dimensional index on standard of living, income ranges and monthly per-capita household expenditures using the national workers’ minimum wage as poverty threshold were adopted for analyzing the data collected.

On the basis of the income range of the recipients, 128 out of 150 recipients were found to be poor, whereas on using the MMPCHE 93 out of 150 recipients were found to be poor. Both results were further classified into hardcore poor, moderately poor and just poor recipients. The multi-dimensional index on standard of living was also used to capture poverty in terms of deprivation in standard of living, such as non-availability of electricity, drinking water, cooking fuel, sanitation, flooring and assets.

A limited number of recipients were evaluated in this study, and hence it would be difficult to generalize. Also, some recipients had difficulty in answering the survey questionnaire used in this study, which reduced the amount of information derived. Thus, an in-depth interview method coupled with a survey can be used in future studies.

The implication of this result is either that the threshold and measures adopted are not capturing the poor and the needy or that the zakat institutions are not reaching out enough to the poor and the needy eligible to receive zakat. This paper suggests the introduction of a more uniform and comprehensive zakat-based poverty threshold for the poor and the needy that will continuously be examined by Shariah scholars and researchers to best engage with the modern-day situation.

This paper examines the measures of poverty and concludes on the introduction of a well-comprehensive threshold that is Shariah compliant and based on the plight of the modern-day poor and needy, which can go a long way in achieving the objectives of zakat.

This study recommends a more comprehensive zakat-based poverty threshold that will capture the multi-dimensional nature of poverty in the present day for better outreach to the most deprived needy and poor.

The author proposes analyzing the dynamics of income positions using dynamic panel ordered probit models. The author disentangles, simultaneously, the roles of state dependence and heterogeneity (observed and non-observed) in explaining income position persistence, such as poverty persistence and affluence persistence. The author applies the approach to Chile exploiting longitudinal data from the P-CASEN 2006–2009. First, the author finds that income position mobility at the bottom and the top of the income distribution is much higher than expected, showing signs that income mobility in the case of Chile might be connected to economic insecurity. Second, the observable individual characteristics have a much stronger impact than true state dependence to explain individuals’ current income position in the income distribution extremes.

The purpose of this paper is to rationalise the continued conceptual utility of social exclusion, and in so doing addresses the prevailing question of what to do with it. This is relevant from social exclusion’s declining relevance in contemporary UK social policy and academia, where its consideration as a concept to explain disadvantage is being usurped by other concepts, both old and new.

The paper analyses criticisms of limitations of social exclusion which have typically centred on the operationalisation of the concept, but the author will argue that there are distinctive operationalisation and conceptual strengths within social exclusion which make it value-added as a concept to explain disadvantage. Specifically, there will be an analysis of both New Labour’s and the present Coalition government’s conceptualisation of the term in policy in relation to work.

The analysis highlights the significant difference that a focus on processes rather than outcomes of social exclusion can make to our understanding of inequality and social injustice, and locates this difference within an argument that social exclusion’s true applied capabilities for social justice requires a shift to a conceptualisation built on the processes that cause it in the first place.

The paper acts as a rejoinder to prevailing theoretical and political thinking of the limited and diminishing value of social exclusion for tackling disadvantage. In particular, the paper shows how social exclusion can be conceptualised to provide a critical approach to tackling inequality and social injustice, and in doing so foregrounds the truly applied capabilities of social exclusion for transforming social justice.

The purpose of this paper is to initiate a direct discourse towards an Islamic microfinance focus agenda for the economic enlistment of the poor minority community and to allow poorer households in the financial inclusion. The issue of the Indian conventional microfinance institutions in failing to attract the poorest of the poor amongst Muslims is important for the purpose of this paper. This study explores a Shari’ah-compliant microfinance system which will create a level of playing-field with respect to the financial inclusion of the poor.

The paper is a theoretical discussion on Islamic microfinancial services for financial inclusion of the poor. Therefore, there is little to say about “methodology” other than the conventional microfinance model is reviewed, and an alternative model of Islamic microfinancial service has been suggested to allow poorer households in the financial inclusion.

The paper finds that there are some opportunities capable of improving the economic condition of the poor Muslim communities through some innovative approaches. To illustrate this finding, the paper emphasises on designing and delivering Islamic microfinancial products suitable for the poor based on the principle of Islamic solidarity. It argues that this service will help the poor and turn their savings into sums large enough to satisfy a wide range of personal, social and asset-building needs as well as needs relating to small businesses and consumption.

The paper’s findings are limited to the matter of financial inclusion of the poor through Islamic microfinancial services in India.

Combining the Islamic social principle of solidarity for the less fortunate with the power of microfinance to provide financial access to the poor has the potential to reach out to millions more people. The ideas presented in this paper are designed to direct discourse towards an Islamic microfinance focus agenda for the economic enlistment of the poor Muslims in India.