According
to the statistics of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the
reduction in poverty has slowed down to 5.9 percentage points during
the period of 2010-2014 from 8.5 percentage points of the years
2005-2010, and from 8.9 percentage points of the period 2000-2005.
The government approximates that 25.6 percent of the population lives
below the so-called poverty line as of 2014. It is also difficult to
find causation between deliberate policy of government and reduction
in poverty. Economic growth in Bangladesh is mostly consumption-based
which can also otherwise be called "auto-pilot rate of growth".
The underemployed people in rural areas, who either migrated to
cities or abroad and fuelled consumption through remittances, largely
contributed to Bangladesh's reduction in poverty.
There
has been much said about economic growth, yet the process in
Bangladesh has not matched with jobs. Evidently, a considerable
number of people have entered into the labour market with wages below
the requirement for graduating out of the so-called poverty line —
people who can be termed as "working poor." According to
the BBS' latest labour force survey for the calendar years of 2014
and 2015, the country generated only 600,000 employments (300,000 per
annum) out of two million eligible to enter the job market on an
annual basis. Youth unemployment rate also rose sharply to 9.5
percent in 2015 from 8.1 percent in 2013. The unemployment rate is
high amongst educated youth. The number of underemployed increased by
over 10 million between 2011 and 2013 and reached 21.5 million in
2014. A World Bank-ILO report states that about 41 percent of
Bangladeshi youth were NEET (not in employment, education or
training) in 2013.
The
fruits of economic growth have not been shared fairly, and that the
current economic crisis has further widened the gap between the rich
and the poor. According to BBS estimates, nominal wage indices have
increased by 24.7 percent during the period 2010-11 to 2014-15 while
the consumer price index (CPI) grew by 32.6 percent during the same
period, implying labourers have lost 7.9 percent of the real wage
income they used to earn in 2010-11. The degree of income inequality,
as measured by the Gini coefficient, has increased from an average of
0.38 in the 1980s to 0.44 in the 1990s and further to 0.46 in the
2000s, meaning the gap between the rich and the poor is still
widening. Bangladesh is being run by a ruling class which is
interested only in securing wealth by any means.
Over
the years, through the actions of successive regimes, aspirations of
equality, human dignity and social justice have been supplanted by a
completely different kind of aspiration for the power elite -
primitive capital accumulation.
The World Socialist Party (India): 257 Baghajatin ‘E’ Block (East), Kolkata – 700086,
Tel:
2425-0208,
E-mail: wspindia@hotmail.com
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