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An encyclopedia entry for Malawi poverty profile is presented. A strategy for growth in Malawi was outlined by a World Bank paper. A poverty line of US$40 per capita per annum based on minimum nutrition requirements was identified by the profile. A profile was built in 1995 on the fortieth and twentieth percentiles of household income distributions or expenditures.

An encyclopedia entry for the principle of less eligibility is presented. According to the English Poor Law Report of 1834, the condition of the pauper should be less eligible than that of the independent labourer. The principle stipulates that those in receipt of benefit should not be better off than those in the lowest paid employment. It has operated in most social security systems around the world and has a direct descendant in present-day concerns with the maintenance of incentives to work.

An encyclopedia entry for Kuznets inverted U curve; Kuznets ratio is presented. The U curve refers to a hypothesis of the relationship between income growth and inequality. It says that income inequality must also be low as nearly everybody is close to a subsistence income level. Furthermore, income inequality increases as the momentum of growth picks up. The ratio is the proportion of output produced in agriculture relative to the rest of the economy.

An encyclopedia entry for "Human Poverty Index (HPI) is presented. It was introduced in 1997 in the United Nations Development Program's "1997 Human Development Report." The index is made up of five weighted components, including percentage of adults who are illiterate, percentage of people with access to health services and percentage of people with access to safe water.

A definition of the term "intergenerational continuity" is presented. It refers to the belief that poverty is maintained from generation to generation in certain families. It is linked with pathological modes of explanation such as genetic and familial explanations. A British study raised doubts on the validity of the belief on the cycle of deprivation.

A definition of the term "Institutional welfare" is presented. It is used to describe a model of welfare in which the collective provision of social protection is an accepted and normal part of social life. It is contrasted with the residual model of welfare confined to people who are unable to provide for themselves.

An encyclopedia entry for "housing" is presented. It is a major issue in the study of poverty as material deprivation, because it is a major resource in its own right and it is often a precondition for the receipt of other resources. The principal issues in housing poverty in developing countries are access and deprivation.

A definition of the term "income smoothing" is presented. It refers to the redistribution of income over time. At the household level, it refers to an adjustment by households to protect themselves from adverse income shocks before they take place by making conservative production or employment choices and diversifying economic activities.

A definition of the term "income maintenance" is presented. Generally, it refers to the provision of financial resources when personal income is interrupted or insufficient. It is often identified with social security. The main types of income maintenance benefit are social insurance, means-tested benefits, non-contributory benefits, universal or categorical benefits and discretionary benefits.

A definition of the term "human development" is presented. The United Nations Development Program defines human development as a process of enlarging people's choices. It also has two sides, the formation of human capabilities and the use people make of their acquired capabilities for productive purposes for leisure or for being active in cultural, social and political affairs.

An encyclopedia entry for "health" and "poverty" is presented. According to the "1995 World Health Report," extreme poverty is one of the ruthless killer and the greatest cause of suffering on earth. Poverty is also the main reason why infants are not vaccinated. Incidence of ill health by social class have clear differences. People in lower social classes are more likely to suffer from infective and parasitic diseases, pneumonia, poisoning or violence.

An encyclopedia entry for "head-count ratio or head-count index" is presented. It refers to the proportion of individuals, households or families that falls under the poverty line. The index/ratio provides useful information on the incidence of poverty and distribution of poverty among the population.

An encyclopedia entry for "Fourth World" is presented. It is the term used by the French organization Quart Monde (ATD) to refer to people in chronic poverty in developed countries. The term is linked, but not confined to the concept of exclusion. According to S. Williams, it is in the "Fourth World" where people can find all the disadvantages, inequalities and injustices of society compounded among people, families and communities at the very bottom of the social scale.

An encylopedia entry for the term "famine" is presented. It occurs in circumstances where many people die from lack of food. It was argued by J. Dr&eagrave;ze and A. Sen, that it is the result of lack of entitlement, rather than lack of food in itself. They also believe that no famine has occurred in a democratic state.

A definition of the term "extreme poverty" is presented. It is variously identified with minimum subsistence requirements, the denial of basic entitlement, and the experience of exclusion. The World Bank describes extreme poverty as an income of under $275 per annum. Sociologist Julio Boltvinik defines the term as the situation of those households which, although they devote all their income to food, do not appear able to satisfy their needs in this area.

A definition of the term "extended poverty minimum" is presented. An extended poverty minimum has been developed at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, building on the UN Human Development Index. It consists of minimum expenditure on food plus essential expenditure on non-food items plus government expenditure on needs.

An encyclopedia entry about explanations for poverty is presented. In his book "Poverty: Explanations for Deprivation," R. Holman identifies four classes of explanation for poverty, including pathological, sub-cultural, agency and structural explanations. Pathological explanations attribute poverty to the characteristics of the people who are poor, while sub-cultural explanations imply that the values of poor people are in some sense different from others.

An encyclopedia entry for the term "dependency culture" is presented. The term refers to the inclination of the poor to be dependent financially. According to Benjamin Franklin, the Poor Law gave the poor choice to become dependent. It is stated that prolonged dependency behavior could worsen poverty.

An encyclopedia entry for the term "cycle of deprivation" is presented. The concept refers to the situation wherein parents who were deprived during their childhood and now are also depriving their children. Former British Secretary of State for Social Services Keith Joseph coined the term which is also related to poor parenting.

An encyclopedia entry for the term "conversion capacity" is presented. The term refers to the ability to convert income into ways of meeting requirements such as calorific intake. Conversion efficiency, on the other hand, is the cost per unit of conversion. It is stated that the poor has low conversion efficiency.

An encyclopedia entry for the phrase "command over resources" is presented. The phrase was used by Titmuss which means the ability to use resources over time. It is associated with income and wealth. It mentioned that another way of commanding resources is by gaining credit. The phrase is also connected with the concepts of capabilities and entitlement.

An encyclopedia entry for Charity Organization Society (COS) is presented. The society was established in 1869 in Great Britain. The goal of the COS is to coordinate various charities that operate in London, England. It is stated that the COS was unsuccessful but it was able to serve as a pioneer of training social workers.

An encyclopedia entry for calorie-income elasticity is presented. The concept refers to the extent to which food intake varies with income. It is proposed that food intake represents a diminishing proportion of income as income increases.

An encyclopedia entry for the Bismarckian social insurance is presented. Germany was the first country to introduce this scheme of national insurance, covering sickness, industrial injuries and pensions. It is generally taken to include socio-professional social insurance, offering earnings-related benefits, in which the administration is delegated on a corporatist basis to independent insurance funds.

An encyclopedia entry for two tests of poverty measures namely, axiom of monotonicity and axiom of transfers, is presented. The axiom of monotonicity requires, that, given other things, a reduction in income of a person below the poverty line must increase the poverty measure, while the axiom of transfers requires that, all things being equal, a pure transfer from a person below the poverty line to anyone who is richer must increase the poverty measure.

An encyclopedia entry for Arabic definitions of poverty is presented. The standard Arabic dictionary "Lisan al-Arab," defines poverty as the inability of an individual to satisfy his own basic needs and the needs of his dependents. The "Fiqh al-Lugha," on the other hand, identifies eight different levels of poverty including loss of savings, loss of assets or property due to drought or natural disaster, or when an individual or household has no food available.

An encyclopedia entry for the term "amenities" is presented. It refers to resources that offer basic facilities for daily living. In developed countries, the focus on amenities tend to shift towards the amenities within the housing itself. In developing economies, the focus on amenities falls on the provision of basic services, such as water supply or sewerage.