Relative deprivation and the working poor: An empirical analysis

In developing countries, we observe a new class of workers who work but live in poverty. Not only they are lowly paid but also deprived of opportunities available in the society. A person’s feeling of deprivation arises from incomes that are higher than his own income. Sen in his 1976 work on poverty measurement brought the term deprivation into focus. He posited that an individual’s level of deprivation in the income scale is an increasing function of the number of persons who are better off than the person in question, or, alternatively, the share of the given population that is better off. In a society where distribution of resources is unequal, deprivation of a particular group of workers is not unlikely. The idea behind deprivation theory is that merely lack of some goods and opportunities do not create a sense of deprivation among the workers. There are other factors that cause and perpetuate deprivation of the workers. This paper is an attempt to identify the factors and examine deprivation of the workers based on a sample survey conducted in Bangladesh in 2008-09. Findings of the study suggest that deprivation is acute among the uneducated aged workers with large household size predominated by low paid casual workers owning small landholding. Deprivation and age of the workers displayed a U-shaped curve indicating that deprivation increases with the increase of age. Deprivation is more pronounced among female workers compared to male workers. Food and health expenditure contributes significantly to reducing deprivation of the workers. Obviously, owners of better dwelling houses are less deprived than those owning poor dwelling houses. Interestingly, manufacturing workers have been found to be more deprived than other sectors under study.