New thinking on poverty:

Three main changes in thinking about poverty have gained increasing currency over the past decade. First, the concept of poverty has been broadened. This is reflected in the move from a physiological model of deprivation to a social one, and subsequently, in the increasing attention afforded issues of vulnerability, inequality and human rights. Second, the causal structure has been broadened to include a range of causal variables which previously received little attention. These have been phrased as 'forms of capital' and include social, political, cultural, coercive and environmental capital. Third, the causal structure has been deepened to focus on flows of individuals into and out of poverty, rather than on changes in the stock of poverty, and on strategies of social protection vs. poverty reduction. The paper reviews these changes as well as their implications for globalisation and policy.