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Figure 2-1 shows a simplified version of the conceptual framework designed for this study. It can be seen that the relationship between education and poverty is bi-directional. It may be noted that each relationship in the diagram constitutes a complex and interlocking stage in the process. The implication is that if an individual’s schooling does not result in poverty reduction, their children’s education is also likely to be negatively affected; thus, the vicious circle of ineffectual education and deprivation continues for the rest of the first individual’s life as well as that of future generations.

Figure 2-1 Conceptual framework: The potential influence of education on poverty and vice versa

International factors National factors

Community factors Employment

School factors Wider influence Other factors Social capital Socio-economic effects Migration Monetary-based (income/expenditure) Basic needs/capabilities Subjective wellbeing Education outcomes

health, fertility, citizenship, political participation, value, attitude Poverty Education particularly informal employment

Source: The author.

2.5.1. Linkages between Education and Poverty, and Poverty and Child Education

As with other social groups, slum dwellers can be educated at different types of institution, such as formal schools, informal schools, and vocational training centres; or through in-service training at work for different lengths of time. Access to various types, levels and degrees of education is expected to generate a wide range of outcomes, including the acquisition of different skills, values and behaviours; ‘signalling’ or qualification; increased productivity; participation in the public sphere; or any combination of these (Rose and Dyer, 2008).

The initial outcome of this process results in intermediate and interrelated factors that ideally lead to poverty reduction, principally through the manifestation of three factors. The first constitutes earnings through livelihood opportunities – employment, particularly informal employment in the case of slum dwellers – which could be regarded as representing the main instrument in the alleviation of income/expenditure poverty, since the poor largely depend for their livelihood on labour rather than assets (e.g. Sacks, 2005).

possessing externality, which influences a wide range of areas, such as health, nutrition, fertility, political participation, and better decision making (Lochner, 2011).

The third factor constitutes other socio-economic elements. Education may lead to enhanced social capital, migration and the improvement of other socio-economic aspects, which in turn can make a positive impact on poverty reduction (Lipton and Ravallion, 1995).

These interrelated issues – although only the first is examined in this thesis in detail – are presumed to influence the factors associated with deprivation reviewed in this chapter, that is, monetary poverty, basic needs/capabilities, and subjective wellbeing. The linkages and processes that determine how different types and levels of education lead to different forms of poverty alleviation are examined separately and the results compared to assess whether schooling has the desired effect on poverty reduction.

It should be noted that the unit of analysis adopted by this study for assessing the linkage between education and poverty employs disaggregated data on the household and individual respectively, while the unit of analysis for determining the correlation between poverty and education is the individual child only.

2.5.2. Approach to the Present Study

The main approach in this study is quantitative, but such a methodology is insufficient by itself to comprehensively investigate education–poverty and poverty–child education linkages in order to understand schooling outcomes (or rather the results of lack of schooling, since slum dwellers’ education levels tend to be low); why education leads to the reduction of some aspects of poverty but not others; or why some children are marginalised in terms of their education. In this regard, qualitative augmentation is also necessary.

Hulme (2004) tracks one particular poor household in rural Bangladesh, capturing the interplay of various causes of poverty, including a low level of education. The household perceived themselves as poor not only because they were uneducated, but

also due to the fact that they had no opportunity to improve the skills necessary to escape from poverty. However, this study fails to provide insights into how a lack of basic education or skills leads to poverty; that is, whether such deficiency has a direct adverse impact on already limited employment opportunities, or whether such a situation influences the household’s economic wellbeing through other factors, such as low productivity, lack of participation in the public sphere, and so forth (Rose and Dyer, 2008).

Poor people may distinguish between education and literacy/numeracy. For example, the founder of the India-based Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), Bhatt (2006), describes the lives of such women engaged in different occupations in the informal sector, such as rag picker, vendor, seamstress, and embroiderer among other jobs at the bottom of the economic ladder. This study implies that illiteracy and innumeracy rather than a lack of formal education or skills is an impediment in any self-employed occupation that involves bookkeeping, and negotiating with authorities or contractors, money lenders, etc. It thus seems that the working poor under investigation in this study valued literacy/numeracy more than schooling per se, but why they felt this is not analysed.

In tracking the activities of eight households in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh over a decade, Lalitha (2003) found that low-income parents regarded the schooling of their children to be essential for the successful exploitation of opportunities in the labour market. However, the poor quality of education and the negative influence of peers who, for example, stole and drank alcohol often resulted in children dropping out of or changing school. Thus, the quality of the school and learning environment seem to be important factors in determining education access and learning outcomes.

Together with other participatory research (e.g. Narayan, 2000; Narayan et al., 2000; Narayan and Petesch, 2002), Lalitha (2003) also shows that poor households who are interested in sending their children to school in order to improve future prospects seem unable to pinpoint precisely how education will benefit their children; the extent to which they have considered post-schooling employment opportunities; or, in terms of

direct and indirect costs, as well as the level of education the household can actually afford, the degree to which the returns to schooling can be expected to offset the expense of other household outgoings.

One study that employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research on poverty and education is Kabeer (2004), which utilises both panel data and qualitative analysis to examine poverty in rural Bangladesh from 1994 to 2001. The panel data show that the higher the household head’s level of education the more likely it is they will be able to avoid sliding into income/expenditure poverty; while the case studies provide insight into social relations, and the structural causes of upward and downward mobility.

Thus, quantitative data analysis can identify and characterise the correlation between education and poverty and that between poverty and child education, but cannot clearly explain, why some remain poor while others move out of poverty, or how education or non-education is perceived in terms of escape from poverty. In order to capture the dynamics of deprivation among slum dwellers, it is necessary to understand the social, cultural, economic and political relationships that give rise to the different concepts of poverty and access to education with which the poor interact in their attempts to survive. Accordingly, it is crucial to employ both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the details of which are discussed in Chapter 4.