Defining and Measuring Poverty

• Absolute Poverty• Relative Poverty

• Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index

“Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of

human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in

society. It means not having enough to feed and cloth a family, not having a

school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a

job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity,

powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It

means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile

environments, without access to clean water or sanitation”

(UN Statement, June 1998 – signed by the heads of all UN agencies)

Defining Poverty

Have a think about that definition:

Q1. Which countries in the world have no poverty whatsoever by this definition?

We need to consider

Developed world poverty Developing world poverty

Two ways to think about poverty

Absolute PovertyAbsolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries.

Relative PovertyRelative poverty views poverty as socially defined and dependent on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income.

Poverty is…….

A very complicated phenomenon that is inherently problematic to measure

Defining Absolute Poverty

World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995,

Absolute poverty was defined as

"a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services."

Measuring Absolute Poverty

Absolute poverty is often measured in very simplistic ways (such as the number of people living on less than $2 a day) in order to allow easy comparisons between countries and to see trends over time. However such measurements are of little practical use in MEDC countries and do not measure absolute poverty as defined by World Summit on Social Development on the previous slide.

In an attempt to develop a more robust and relevant measure of absolute poverty the UN

created the Multi Dimensional Poverty Index in 2010.

This measurement of poverty is in principal far superior to less sophisticated measures but

seriously handicapped by a lack of data

The Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

The Significance of Measurement

The Significance of Measurement

Poor places can have less poverty and rich places can have more poverty

Poverty and marginalization are products of both economic and societal factors

Summary• Marginalization is the process of being relegated to an unimportant or

powerless position within society or a group.

• This is effectively relegating them to the periphery of society

• People in poverty are marginalized

• Poverty is hard to define and even harder to measure

• Nations are probably less inclined to measure poverty than development

• Every country in the world has people in poverty.