Which among the following is/are NOT a social indicator of poverty ? 1. Illiteracy 2. Safe drinking water 3. Job opportunities 4. Size of the house Select the correct answer from the code given below : Code :
- (a)1 and 2
- (b)3 and 4
- (c)Only 4
- (d)Only 1
Correct — C, Only 4. The question asks for the odd one out, and only 'size of the house' falls outside the standard list of social indicators of poverty. Illiteracy is the education deprivation — in the Multidimensional Poverty Index the education dimension is measured through years of schooling and school attendance. Access to safe drinking water is one of the standard-of-living deprivations counted in the same index, alongside sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, housing and assets. Lack of job opportunities is the livelihood deprivation, listed with illiteracy and malnutrition whenever poverty is described through social rather than income indicators. The size of a dwelling is none of these: multidimensional measures look at housing quality — the material of the roof, walls and floor — not at floor area, because a large but derelict house tells you nothing about deprivation. Hence only item 4 is not a social indicator.
- (a)1 and 2 — Both are indicators. Illiteracy is the textbook first example of a social indicator of poverty, and access to safe drinking water is one of the standard-of-living deprivations in multidimensional poverty measurement.
- (b)3 and 4 — Half right and half wrong. Item 4 is indeed the exception, but item 3 is not — lack of job opportunities is a recognised social deprivation, quoted alongside illiteracy and malnutrition. Adding it makes the option wrong.
- (d)Only 1 — The weakest choice of all: illiteracy is the least deniable of the four. Education is one of the three equally weighted dimensions of the Multidimensional Poverty Index, so it cannot be the item that fails to qualify.
Poverty is measured along two tracks. The income or consumption track draws a poverty line from a minimum consumption basket anchored to a calorie norm and reports the Head Count Ratio — the share of people below that line. The social or non-income track instead counts deprivations directly: illiteracy, malnutrition, lack of access to health care, lack of employment opportunity, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation. It is the second track this question is testing. The same logic drives the global Multidimensional Poverty Index, built by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support, whose three equally weighted dimensions — health, education and standard of living — are unpacked into ten indicators.
The trap is that all four items sound like things a poor household lacks, so intuition alone will not separate them. The discriminator is whether the item is a recognised deprivation variable that a measurement framework actually uses. Illiteracy maps to education, safe drinking water to standard of living, and job opportunities to livelihood. Floor area maps to nothing: where housing appears in these frameworks it is housing quality — the material of roof, walls and floor — rather than how big the dwelling is. One more reading habit: items 2 and 3 are printed as positives, so read them as 'access to safe drinking water' and 'availability of job opportunities', whose absence is the deprivation being measured.
- The global Multidimensional Poverty Index has three equally weighted dimensions — health, education and standard of living — unpacked into ten indicators
- Drinking water, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, housing and assets all sit inside the MPI's standard-of-living dimension; nutrition and child mortality sit in health; years of schooling and school attendance in education
- Where housing enters these measures it is as housing quality — the material of the roof, walls and floor — not as the size or floor area of the dwelling
- India's official income-side poverty estimates rest on household consumption expenditure measured by NSSO surveys, benchmarked to a calorie norm and expressed as the Head Count Ratio
- NITI Aayog's National MPI keeps the same three dimensions but uses twelve indicators, adding maternal health and bank account
Only item 4 is outside the standard list, so the answer is (c) Only 4.
- Reading 'safe drinking water' and 'job opportunities' as positives and therefore marking them as non-indicators — they are shorthand for the lack of access to each
- Confusing the income or consumption track (poverty line, Head Count Ratio) with the social-indicator track this question is about
- Assuming that because housing appears in poverty frameworks, house size must count — what is measured is housing quality, not area
UPPSC asks the definitional version — which item is or is not an indicator of poverty; UPSC prefers the measurement machinery — which committee fixed the line, which index uses which dimensions, and what an index deliberately leaves out.
The Multi-dimensional Poverty Index developed by Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with UNDP support covers which of the following? 1. Deprivation of education, health, assets and services at household level 2. Purchasing power parity at national level 3. Extent of budget deficit and GDP growth rate at national level Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 and 3 only
- (c) 1 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer(a) 1 only
The same distinction, tested from the index side: the MPI counts household-level deprivations in education, health, assets and services and deliberately excludes macro variables. That is exactly why illiteracy and drinking water qualify as social indicators in the 2025 question.
Persons below the poverty line in India are classified as such based on whether
- (a) they are entitled to a minimum prescribed food basket
- (b) they get work for a prescribed minimum number of days in a year
- (c) they belong to agricultural labourer household and the scheduled caste/tribe social group
- (d) their daily wages fall below the prescribed minimum wages
Answer(a) they are entitled to a minimum prescribed food basket
The other track of poverty measurement — the income or consumption line built on a minimum food basket. Reading the two together shows why 'social indicator' means something separate from the poverty line.
Multidimensional poverty index includes : i. Health ii. Education iii. Living Standard Select correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a) Only i is correct
- (b) Only ii and iii are correct
- (c) Only i and ii are correct
- (d) i, ii and iii are correct
Answer(d) i, ii and iii are correct
The dimensions behind the answer: health, education and standard of living. Illiteracy sits in education and safe drinking water in standard of living, which is why neither can be the odd one out in 2025.
Which of the following methods has/have been used to estimate poverty in India? 1. Head Count Ratio 2. Calorie intake 3. Household Consumption Expenditure 4. Per Capita Income Select the correct answer from the codes given below. Codes:
- (a) 2 and 3
- (b) 1, 2 and 3
- (c) 3 only
- (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer(b) 1, 2 and 3
The income side of the same syllabus block — Head Count Ratio, calorie intake and household consumption expenditure as the methods India actually uses to estimate poverty.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The three dimensions of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index are
- (a)income, health and employment
- (b)health, education and standard of living
- (c)education, income and sanitation
- (d)health, income and assets
Answer(b) health, education and standard of living — three equally weighted dimensions, unpacked into ten indicators.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is an income-based rather than a social indicator of poverty?
- (a)Adult illiteracy rate
- (b)Head Count Ratio based on consumption expenditure
- (c)Lack of access to sanitation
- (d)Incidence of child malnutrition
Answer(b) Head Count Ratio based on consumption expenditure — India's official estimates are built on a calorie-anchored consumption basket, not on deprivation counts.