Poverty and Inequality

The relationship between poverty and inequality is neither clear nor direct. Poverty and inequality are analytically distinct concepts. They vary independently of each other, and it is misleading beyond a point to treat the one as a marker of the other. The study of both poverty and inequality has been closely associated with an interest in economic and social change. But poverty and inequality do not change at the same pace, and they may even change in opposite directions. It is difficult to make any meaningful statement about the relationship between the two without specifying which conception of poverty and which aspect of inequality one has in mind.