Poverty, Inclusivity and Wellbeing

Poverty manifests not only as insufficient income but also as constrained access to health, education, energy and social participation. Inclusive approaches view poverty as multidimensional and relational, focusing on the capabilities individuals require to lead healthy, dignified lives. Recent work highlights the interplay between material deprivations and psychosocial outcomes—showing that lack of energy, stable livelihoods or basic services worsens mental and cognitive health, deepens exclusion of marginal groups and traps communities in chronic disadvantage. An inclusive wellbeing agenda calls for measures that capture both absolute deficits (for example, minimal standards of nutrition or lighting) and relative gaps (such as unequal access across regions, genders or abilities), and that guide policy towards tailored interventions—ranging from targeted subsidies and social transfers to infrastructure expansion and participatory governance—to break persistent poverty cycles and foster equitable human development.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Satellite-based mapping of unlit settlements has revealed that nearly one fifth of global built-up areas emit no detectable night-time radiance, disproportionately affecting rural and low-income regions in Africa and Asia. Augmenting conventional income metrics with high-resolution light data improves prediction of household wealth and helps pinpoint underserved communities for infrastructure investment. In urban China, longitudinal analysis shows that households experiencing energy poverty report significantly worse cognitive and mental health over time, with physical health serving as a key mediating factor; older adults are especially vulnerable, underscoring the need for affordable, reliable energy access and integrated health-energy programmes. In South Africa, an intersectional study demonstrates that while women-headed households face moderate risk of energy deprivation, women with disabilities are over two and a half times more likely to experience severe energy poverty—often mediated by food insecurity and life dissatisfaction—and that targeted subsidies for this group yield the greatest equity gains, pointing to the importance of nuanced policy design for the most marginalised.

Poverty, Inclusivity and Wellbeing publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in poverty, inclusivity and wellbeing across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

State dependence: The phenomenon by which having experienced poverty at one point directly raises the likelihood of experiencing poverty again in the future, independent of other factors.

Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): A composite indicator that identifies who is poor and measures the intensity of multiple deprivations in health, education and living standards at the household level.

Energy poverty: A condition in which households lack access to affordable, reliable and adequate energy services needed for health, comfort and economic activities.

Intersectionality: An analytical framework recognising that overlapping social identities—such as gender and disability—combine to create unique modes of disadvantage.

Genuine state dependence: The causal effect of a previous episode of poverty on the probability of future poverty, after controlling for both observed and unobserved heterogeneity.

References

1. Estimating global economic well-being with unlit settlements. Nature Communications (2022).
2. Impact of energy poverty on cognitive and mental health among middle-aged and older adults in China. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2022).
3. Invisible among the vulnerable: a nuanced perspective of energy poverty at the intersection of gender and disability in South Africa. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023).
4. The dynamics of poverty in Europe: what has changed after the great recession?. The Journal of Economic Inequality (2022).
5. Public pensions and low-income dynamics in Canada. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (2022).