Estimation of Multidimensional Urban Poverty in South Asian Cities: A Case of Lahore Metropolitan Area

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of spatial variations in urban poverty is a complex multidimensional phenomenon. In urban areas of South Asian countries, various factors contribute to promote urban poverty e.g., rapid and unmanaged urbanization, high migration and inflation rates and fluctuations in land values. The poor community should be focused by policy makers to solve poverty related issues. This research was conducted in a metropolitan city Lahore in Punjab province of Pakistan which is confronting with urban poverty and need to construct a policy for poverty alleviation. Alkire-Foster approach was used to compute urban poverty by selecting poverty cut off point k=2/5 for this study. It demonstrates that 70.8% of households were poor whereas 29.8% households were living out of poverty with positive potentials. The results can be taken as a reference point to alleviate poverty in other regions of country.