The Poverty Line


  • Photographer
    stefen chow
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    feng studios
  • Date of Photograph
    2010
  • Technical Info
    Digital

This body of work explores a simple question. What does it mean to be poor? This is not an emotional analysis of what it means to be poor. It is an examination of the choices one would face being poor in Asia each day. This is an ongoing project, with the first series understanding China, Japan, Nepal, Thailand and Malaysia. Everything else is left up to interpretation.

Story

We decided to generally use a per-person, per-day rate of a national poverty line, to have a visual portrayal of items found in that country that could be bought with that amount.

Countries maintain their own definitions to monitor socio-economic conditions and formulate poverty alleviation policies.

In coming up with the poverty line, developing countries largely use an absolute standard based on consumption amount, while developed countries use a relative income standard.

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