Sarawak needs its own poverty index for better assessment, targeted interventions, says institute
As a first step towards developing the MPI, SDI conducted a pilot study in partnership with the Society for Kuching Urban Poor (SKUP) to identify Sarawak-specific poverty indicators and provide granular data on urban poverty.
The study, which was completed in April, surveyed 137 SKUP food aid recipients across five areas in Kuching.
SDI research lead for social inclusivity Dr Yuen Kok Leong said the study looked beyond income to include education, health and living standards as indicators.
"Income is an indicator, but it doesn't provide us with a full picture of understanding the difficulties that people face," he said when presenting the study findings on Tuesday (Aug 5).
Based on the Statistics Department's poverty line income of RM2,860 for Sarawak, he said all the respondents were below the threshold, with 88.3% categorised as destitute.
The study also found that the respondents spent nearly half of their money on food despite receiving food aid from SKUP.
"They still need food, even though they are beneficiaries of SKUP, and that leaves them very little to spend on non-essentials," he said.
In terms of education, nearly all the households surveyed had attended school but 37.2% of the adults had less than 11 years of schooling, limiting their economic mobility.
Under the health indicator, the majority of respondents were able to afford subsidised government healthcare services but faced qualitative gaps such as transport costs for treatment.
As for living standards, 33.6% of respondents faced overcrowded home conditions and 27.7% lived in poor housing, especially in squatter settlements.
The study recommended further research to develop separate MPI frameworks for urban and rural Sarawak to address their specific poverty challenges and needs.
It also recommended including rural wealth indicators like land ownership and qualitative factors like mental health to capture Sarawak-specific dimensions of wellbeing and deprivation.
Yuen said the study also identified emerging trends such as naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs), where elderly people increasingly lived alone or in small households; and the high costs of urban poverty, such as expensive private transport and informal utilities in squatter areas.
He said the study recommended supporting NORCs with caregiving services and mobility assistance to reduce elderly isolation and dependency, as well as improving public transportation and regulating informal utility expenses for low-income households.
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