Multidimensional Poverty andWomen: Insights from Sri Lanka
Sepali Kottegoda. M.Phil, D.Phil (Sussex)
Women and Media Collective, Sri Lanka
Asia Pacific Women’s Watch

Demographic Highlights• In 2021 the total population was estimated to be 22.256 million;
comprising 10,727 million men and 11,429 women. The population
above 60 years of age comprised 16.4%, between 0-4 years was15.9% and between 15-24 was 14.8%.

Women and Men in and out of the LabourForce• Labour force participation of men in 2022 was 70.5 (5.5 million) andof women was 32.1 (2.9 million).
• The Economically Active or labour force participation of men was
65.3% for men and 34.7% for women.
• In the category ‘Economically Inactive’ it was 27.1 for men and 72.6%
for women. Looking further into the disproportionately highrepresentation of women here, it is found that 58% of these womenare categorized a ‘Engaged in Housework’ as against 4.1% of men.

Sri Lanka Social Development Policies• Government healthcare services have, with the exception of theperiod of the ethnic conflict/war, been extensive and accessible to thepopulation. Our literacy levels, especially of women (at 92.3), hasbeen on par or better than some developed countries.

Poverty Allevation by Policy• We moved from universal ration cards in the 1960s to targeted
economic support or Poverty Alleviation programmes in the 1980s
with successive governments ‘improving’ such programmes. Social
safety nets also include state supported pensions, payment to theelderly. These measures were, for the most part, relatively effective.

Economic Crisis 2021
• In 2023, 100,000 households had their electricity connections cut dueto households’ inability to pay electricity bills that went up by almost
300% in a few months.
• Very rapid rise in transport, food, school books etc• Children are dropping out or not attending school regularly.
• Women’s access to paid work – greater numbers pushed in to
informal sector or not able to obtain work for decent wages

Population in Poverty• Poverty which had been 11.3 in 2019 went up to 12.7 in 2020, adding
300,000 new poor. In 2022, poverty was at 25% which was anadditional 2.5 million to the population in poverty.

Nutrition – women and children• The economic crisis has also had serious impact on access to nutrition
by pregnant and lactating women. Due to the escalation of prices offood along with cooking fuel (gas, kerosene), many poor and evenmiddle-class households have reduced their food intake, especially
protein rich food such as eggs, fish and meat.

• UNICEF found that 2.8 million children and women require nutrition
services, and 480,187 lactating mothers were in need of cash
assistance.

• UNICEF “Humanitarian Action for Children” 2023.
unicef.org/media/131556/file/2023-HAC-Sri-Lanka.pdf

Multidimensional Poverty – Sri Lanka• One in every six (16%) persons in Sri Lanka are multidimenstionally poor.
• People aged 65 and older are the poorest age group• Deprivations in health facilities, cooking fuel, drinking water and based
facilities have the highest levels of deprivation.
• The Child MPI shows that more than four out of every ten (42.2%) children
under the age of five are multidimensionally poor.
• One third (33.4%) of children aged 0-4 years are multidimensionally andeither underweight or stunted.
• One sixth (16.4%) of children aged 0-4 years are multidimensionally poorand deprived in early child development.

Snapshots from the ground• Moneragala – Uva Province, South West Sri Lanka (1)• Nandani is a 35 year old mother of one child. She has a disability in
her leg. Her husband is a carpenter who had been unemployed forthree months, but had found work a few days before. He travels
around looking for daily work. Nandani sews cloth bags and doeshome gardening. Before the covid pandemic, she earned a living
through selling vegetables from her garden. But after covid and theeconomic crisis, she finds it difficult to grow vegetables and to sellwhat she harvests. Her electricity bill which used to be around Rs. 750
per month is now around Rs. 3000.

Moneragala - Rural• Her child is in a pre-school nearby. She takes him to the monthly clinic
run by the government. They have told her that he is underweight.
She says, because of economic hardship, she had stopped giving thechild milk. They do not buy meat, on occasion, they buy river fish.
They used to give the child an egg every few days, but these days, it
might be once a week. The family used to get a food supplement‘Thriposha’ from the clinic for the child, but had not it received for ayear. The clinic had started distributing this a few months ago. Her
son has been included in the clinic records of undernourishedchildren.

Moneragala – Rural (2)• Damayanthi is 40 years old. Her husband is 42. They have threedaughters aged 15, 13 and 8. All are in school. The youngest daughter
is included in the government programme of providing one meal forchildren up to 10 years. The school meal has a cup of rice, somegreens, one vegetable and sometimes a dry fish gravy. A slice ofboiled egg used to be given several times a week instead of dry fish,
but not now. For the older girls, she would cook rice and a vegetable
for them to take to school, fish would only be cooked in the night, ifat all.

• Their economic hardship started with the Covid pandemic. Now, they
have cut down on their meals to the point that any protein, such asdry fish is bought mainly for the youngest child. If they cook a sprats
head curry or a fish curry, the two older daughters would only eat
from the gravy, they leave any pieces for the youngest sister. They
used to buy fresh milk from a nearby farm at low cost, but now theprice is higher and they can have milk only about twice a week.

Colombo - Urban• Naya Bibi is a 68 year old woman living in low and middle income
settlement in Colombo. She is unemployed. Her husband passedaway 9 years after they got married. She has two children, a daughter
and a son. The daughter is married and has four children (three boys,one girl). The daughter and son both live with her. The daughter’shusband drives a three wheeler/auto rickshaw. There are threefamilies in the same house–Naya Bibi, her daughter’s family; Naya
Bibi’s sister and her husband. The daughter’s children are all in theschool-going age. Her grandchildren are 7, 14, 10, the youngest goesto a montessori.

Urban• She gets Rs. 1000 every month as ‘pin padi’/social protection handout
from government.
• She noted that the entire family ate breadfruit with coconut sambol
as a meal the day before. That was the only meal they had the entire
day. She said that sometimes she feels terribly hungry, but that shetries to stifle it with some water or plain tea. It is quite difficult in themorning, the children would only get some biscuits and tea before
they leave for school. Lunch would be rice and whatever else they canfind at home.

Multisectoral Poverty and Women• The experiences of women in times of economic hardship need to bealso recognized and recorded. It might be more useful to add somedimensions and indicators to the Multidimensional poverty index tocapture a closer picture of the specific types of deprivation thatwomen undergo. The MPI has been able to bring out the poverty
levels of children under four years of age, of the elderly over 60 yearsof age. It should be similarly expanded to estimate the poverty
dimensions of women as well.

• THANK YOU.