Abstract:
The urban poor refers to individuals found mostly in the slums, ghettoes and
shanties; they are unable to have decent and dignified life-styles. Multiple
deprivations faced by the urban poor are distinguished from all the other types
of poverty mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, their deprivations are greatly
attached to the qualitative dimensions such as independence, security, selfrespect,
identity, close and non-exploitative social relationships, decisionmaking
freedom, and legal and political rights. Secondly, this group of people is
commonly identified as one of the most marginalized. Hence, it is argued that
people's own conceptions about their deprivations may considerably be
different from the general conception. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special
attention to subjective wellbeing in order to get efficient interventions to assist
them with the specified policy formations to stabilize their social and economic
life for a long lasting solution to eradicate poverty. The main objective of the
present study is to examine poverty perceptions of the urban poor in the
country. In order to achieve this objective, this study utilized principal
component method based linear robust composites and logistic regression to
explore subjective poverty. It employed a sample of 2438 households in urban
underserved settlements in Colombo. It was found that productive capital is
more strongly related to probability of being poor while human and physical
capitals are significant albeit less effect in sizes. Among the predictors,
neighborhood effect has the strongest impact on the probably of being
perceptional poor while institutional responses are also considerable.
Households which are pessimistic were more likely have perceived poverty than
the individuals. This study demonstrated that the neighborhood effect that the
urban poor reside matters as much as or even more than their dwelling, any
other assets or characteristics for their poverty. Actions have to be taken to
change socia-cultural environment rather than providing mere alternatives for
their geographical setting. Further, this study specified the need of bottom -top
approach which ensures people's participation at the grass roots for the design
and in the implementation of wellbeing development efforts.
