Monetary and Multidimensional Poverty of the Tea Garden Labour Community of Dibrugarh District of Assam, India

Abstract

This paper aims at measuring the level of both monetary poverty and multidimensional poverty of the tea garden labour community of the Dibrugarh district of Assam. The paper also aims at comparing the monetary poverty and multidimensional poverty of the tea garden labour community of the Dibrugarh district of Assam. The present study is mainly a primary survey based study. Monetary poverty is measured on the basis of the official state specific rural poverty line and using Foster-Greer-Thorbecke class of poverty indices. Multidimensional poverty is measured using Alkaire-Foster methodology. Then for comparing monetary and multidimensional poverty the study used the simple cross tables. The findings of the study show that monetary poverty headcount ratio of the sample tea garden labour community is 48.89 percent. The value of the multidimensional poverty index declines with higher multidimensional poverty cutoffs. The comparison of the monetary and multidimensional poverty shows that for all the three multidimensional poverty cutoffs the similarity between the two poverty measures is higher than the mismatch between them.