“In this paper we reviewed the evidence on the interrelationship between demography,
growth, income distribution and poverty. We suggested that at the macro level such
interrelationships could be explored in the context of the standard money metric
approach to poverty analysis. In a sense this is an obvious suggestion in view of the
fact that the identification of the poor requires information on the distribution of
consumption expenditure so that automatically issues of income distribution are taken into account. Further, changes in poverty over time could easily account for
population change especially if the time periods involved are fairly long. Changes in
poverty over time involve a growth component and a distribution component. As a result it not surprising to note that most of the empirical literature forged the link between demography, growth, income distribution and poverty by looking at the ways and means by which population change can be introduced in standard empirical growth models. It is through these models, and mechanisms such as the Kuznets hypothesis, that the link with distribution is investigated.”
