By What Criteria Do Researchers Say People are Poor

Development Gateway at http://www.developmentgateway.org/ has posted a brief article providing some perspective… The entire site is rich in information helpful to understanding poverty, its systemic causes and what is necessary to combat it.Poverty Indicators – Article by Simone Cecchini – February 17, 2004

Before looking for data on poverty, any researcher should first make sure to have a clear idea of what s/he means by “poverty”. There are, in fact, different definitions of this social phenomenon, and according to the definition chosen, the indicators to be used for analysis change.

The most commonly used indicators of poverty are based on income or consumption measures. The poverty headcount, for instance, gives the percentage of people in a country or region who live below the “poverty line,” a threshold often defined in monetary terms. This is the approach followed by agencies such as the World Bank or the United Nations ECLAC to measure poverty in the developing world. In much of the developed world –mostly in Europe– the poverty line is defined in relative terms, i.e. as a percentage of median income, while in the developing world reference is made to an absolute poverty line. This means that people who are found to live below the poverty line cannot satisfy their basic needs.

The primary sources of income/consumption data are household surveys that are conducted more or less regularly. In much of the developing world, these surveys are not conducted yearly and for this reason time series are not available or have large gaps.

Income/consumption poverty measures must be complemented by the analysis of a series of social indicators such as those on health, education, employment, gender, housing, water and sanitation and many others. The indicators chosen to monitor the Millennium Development Goals provide a good example of the kind of data needed to analyze poverty and human development.

A somewhat different approach has been followed by UNDP, the agency that has created indices such as the Human Development Index and the Human Poverty Index. These indices add up several indicators and attempt to give a concise picture of the multidimensionality of poverty.

Researchers should also try to complement poverty statistics with qualitative data from participatory poverty assessments such as those conducted for the study “Voices of the Poor.”

Qualitative data helps in fact to gain a clearer and more nuanced picture of the poverty situation in a certain country or region. Listening to poor people is fundamental if we want to understand the challenges they face in their lives.

Poverty Indicators