How is India top 5 in gdp while 81% of their population live in poverty
In: Economics
GDP measures consumption – that’s literally it. India has A LOT of consumers, even if they’re technically poor. So, since GDP just measures how much money is spent in an economy, it’s very high. The poverty portion of your question would refer (more closely) to GDP *per capita*.
To be clear, entire concept of poverty is a social construct – what it means in one context is very different than others. Canadian poverty, for example, is very different from Indian poverty. Our perceptions of how poor people are is largely in relation to our own conceptions of poverty.
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