Generally, it is clear that things that make life less boring are a priority for the poor. This may be a television, or a little bit of something special to eat—or just a cup of sugary tea. Even Pak Solhin had a television, although it was not working when we visited him. Festivals may be seen in this light as well. Where televisions or radios are not available, it is easy to see why the poor often seek out the distraction of a special family celebration of some kind, a religious observance, or a daughter’s wedding. In our eighteen-country data set, it is clear that the poor spend more on festivals when they are less likely to have a radio or a television. In Udaipur, India, where almost no one has a television, the extremely poor spend 14 percent of their budget on festivals (which includes both lay and religious occasions). By contrast, in Nicaragua, where 56 percent of rural poor households have a radio and 21 percent own a television, very few households report spending anything on festivals. The basic human need for a pleasant life might explain why food spending has been declining in India. Today, television signals reach into remote areas, and there are more things to buy, even in remote villages. Cell phones work almost everywhere, and talk time is extremely cheap by global standards. This would also explain why countries with a large domestic economy, where a lot of consumer goods are available cheaply, like India and Mexico, tend to be the countries where food spending is the lowest. Every village in India has at least one small shop, usually more, with shampoo sold in individual sachets, cigarettes by the stick, very cheap combs, pens, toys, or candies, whereas in a country like Papua New Guinea, where the share of food in the household budget is above 70 percent (it is 50 percent in India), there may be fewer things available to the poor.
An interesting insight into the mindsets of the poor. Even when purchasing higher quality food might boost their physical and mental health, which translates to increased financial income in the future, most of them would opt to rather spend on entertainment, whether it be a TV (or mobile phone nowadays) or festivals.
It might be easy to dismiss this as irrational behavior on their part due to lack of education, but many of us whom have had higher educations also make the same mistakes. Have you ever stayed up late to catch a TV show or get caught in an addictive game, thus hampering your performance at work the next day? Or have you made some poor diet choices which impacts your overall physical health from time to time?
The key difference is that healthy food is a much smaller percentage of our disposable income as compared to the poor, and that we still have significant percentage of our income for entertainment as compared to them. The human need for entertainment is strong. And who are we to begrudge others whom spend their hard-earned cash on ways to pass their days more easily?
