Hope as a Policy to Alleviate Poverty

This week's Free Exchange-column in the Economist summarizes some of Esther Duflo's work on the economics of poverty. I read the book she co-authored, Poor Economics, half a year ago, and can recommend it to anyone who has followed the poverty debate (Sachs, Easterly, Moyo, etc.) or is in general interested in why some anti-poverty policies that seem to be common sense do not work in practice (e.g. why do people who receive free malaria nets or free life-saving jabs for their children not use these services?).

The focus of the column is on "hope" as an anti-poverty measure. Many poor people suffer from depressions, and do not have the "mental space" to think of even small, incremental improvements to their lives - they use all of their energy simply to survive. This point is exemplified through several stories in Poor Economics, and I find it a good one (although no-one claims it is the fix to poverty - as the whole point of their work is to highlight how multi-faceted and complicated poverty is).

The article ends with the following story (also to be found in the book), which I find worth sharing, as it is applicable for gender issues in general:

"Surprising things can often act as a spur to hope. A law in India set aside for women the elected post of head of the village council in a third of villages. Following up several years later, Ms Duflo found a clear effect on the education of girls. Previously parents and children had far more modest education and career goals for girls than for boys. Girls were expected to get much less schooling, stay at home and do the bidding of their in-laws. But a few years of exposure to a female village head had led to a striking degree of convergence between goals for sons and daughters. Their very existence seems to have expanded the girls' sense of the possible beyond  a life of domestic drudgery. An unexpected consequence, perhaps, but a profoundly hopeful one."