Gender and Multidimensional Poverty in South Africa: Applying the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Recent work has shown that the gender gap in income poverty has widened in post-apartheid South Africa even though overall poverty levels have declined. One of the main criticisms of money-metric studies of gendered poverty differences is that income is only one dimension of poverty and that other measures of welfare may better reflect the relative well-being of women and female-headed households. This article presents a multidimensional approach to measuring the gender poverty gap in post-apartheid South Africa. Using data from the 2008 wave of the South African National Income Dynamic Study, the internationally comparable multidimensional poverty index (the MPI) is used to estimate gender differences in a number of different achievements. The findings suggest that the multidimensional gender poverty gap is similar to the poverty gap measured by the conventional money-metric approach at several national poverty lines. However, the MPI poverty differential between female- and male-headed households is slightly narrower than the income poverty gap between these two household types. In order to explore these findings further, the paper decomposes the components of multidimensional poverty by gender and for both female- and male-headed households. The paper concludes by considering how greater investments in health care delivery and in basic services, particularly in rural areas, may yield progress towards gender equality.     

Income and Beyond: Multidimensional Poverty in Six Latin American Countries

This paper studies multidimensional poverty for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay for the period 1992–2006. The approach overcomes the limitations of the two traditional methods of poverty analysis in Latin America (income-based and unmet basic needs) by combining income with five other dimensions: school attendance for children, education of the household head, sanitation, water and shelter. The results allow a fuller understanding of the evolution of poverty in the selected countries. Over the study period, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico and Chile experienced significant reductions in multidimensional poverty. In contrast, in urban Uruguay there was a small reduction in multidimensional poverty, while in urban Argentina the estimates did not change significantly. El Salvador, Brazil and Mexico, and rural areas of Chile display significantly higher and more simultaneous deprivations than urban areas of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In all countries, deprivation in access to proper sanitation and education of the household head are the highest contributors to overall multidimensional poverty.     

Multidimensional Poverty in China: Findings Based on the CHNS

This paper estimates multidimensional poverty in China by applying the Alkire-Foster methodology to the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2000–2009 data. Five dimensions are included: income, living standard, education, health and social security. Results suggest that rapid economic growth has resulted not only in a reduction in income poverty but also in a reduction in multidimensional poverty in the last decade, both in terms of its prevalence and intensity. However, many challenges remain. There are wide disparities across provinces and between urban and rural areas, with poverty being 1.5 times higher in rural areas than in urban ones in 2009. Moreover, rising deprivation in education in rural and less developed provinces should also be a policymaking concern.     

Multidimensional Poverty in Paraguay: Trends from 2000 to 2015

The paper discusses Kenneth C. Land and Alex C. Michalos’ review and assessment of the evolution of research on social indicators, quality of life and well-being over the past fifty years. The contribution deals with the impacts of three major societal changes on the future research agenda of social indicators research: firstly, impacts of the changing class structure of post-industrial society, secondly, globalization impacts, including its economic, political, cultural and institutional dimensions, and thirdly, the impacts of an increasingly networked digitalization of production and consumption.     

Rethinking Dimensions: The South African Multidimensional Poverty Index

The growth of literature on multidimensional poverty measures generates an uncertainty about which dimensions best capture the extent of poverty. This paper applies multiple correspondence analysis in the context of multidimensional poverty in South Africa to identify statistically valid additional dimensions using National Income Dynamics Study data of 2012. The results confirm the argument that economic status (lack of employment) and financial commitment (over-indebtedness) can be regarded as important dimensions, as their occurrence constrains households from participating in the activities essential in modern society. It is therefore proposed that, in addition to health, education, and living standard dimensions, both economic status and financial commitments should be included in the framework for the South African multidimensional poverty analysis. A central contribution of this work is a proposal of a hybrid multidimensional measure which recommends a combination of both non-monetary and monetary indicators, in particular over-indebtedness.     

Extreme Energy Poverty Incidence and Determinants in Nigeria: A Multidimensional Approach

Social Indicators Research - Energy poverty has emerged in recent times as a crucial aspect of poverty, afflicting the developing world in general and Nigeria in particular. Drawing from some of...     

The Dynamics of Multidimensional Poverty in Contemporary Australia

Progressively more researchers argue that successfully measuring social inequalities requires moving from income-based to multidimensional poverty indicators, but evidence on Australia is still largely reliant on the former. Using long-running panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey we examine trends in multidimensional poverty in Australia between 2001 and 2013. We find that this has been relatively stable, with some evidence of an upwards trend following from the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. However, a closer examination of the individual components reveals a more dynamic picture. Deprivation concerning health, material resources, social support and education increased over the 13-year observation period, offsetting decreases in deprivation concerning safety perceptions, employment and community participation. Additionally, using counterfactual simulations, we examine the relative roles of different poverty domains in explaining changes in Australian multidimensional poverty. We find that recent year-on-year changes in multidimensional poverty are mainly driven by fluctuations in social support, health and material resources. Altogether, our findings suggest that Australian poverty-reduction policies would enhance their effectiveness and efficiency by focusing on improving disadvantage in the domains of health and material resources.     

Dynamics of Multidimensional Poverty and Uni-dimensional Income Poverty: An Evidence of Stability Analysis from China

Social Indicators Research - In this paper, we construct an illustrative multidimensional poverty index for China and compare it with income poverty using the panel data from multiple waves of the...     

Multidimensional Child Poverty: From Complex Weighting to Simple Representation

Within the debates on poverty measurement among experts as well as the discussions about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) an interesting shift has taken place in recent years, away from uni-dimensional measurements (based on a poverty line) and towards multi-dimensional approaches. Any multi-dimensional approach is, by definition, dealing with the complexity of poverty across a range of aspects which need to be assessed separately before they can be combined (weighted) to produce an overall, synthetic measure. This measure, in turn, if it is going to be more than a theoretical curiosum, must be translated for and presented to the public at large and decision-makers in order to impact programs and policies to reduce and eliminate poverty. In this paper, all the steps involved in the last two sentences are explored. This is done in the context of the measurement of Child Poverty that was initiated over a decade ago by UNICEF. After a brief review of the history and evolution of the measurement of Child Poverty, three consecutive sections dealing with the issues raised above are introduced. First, based on the experience of over 70 countries from all developing continents, the selection of indicators is discussed. This is followed by a simple simulation showing the pitfalls of endogenous weights. The third of these sections explores the challenges in presenting these results to a wide, lay audience which are shown to be less intractable than the issues faced by weighted composite indexes and the “dollar-a-day” uni-dimensional metric. An additional section deals with the problem of embedding the Child Poverty measurement within the larger poverty picture of the country (i.e. comparing and complementing metrics of adult and overall poverty). The final section summarizes the main results and conclusions of the paper.     

Considering the Extremely Poor: Multidimensional Poverty Measurement for Germany

This paper applies the Alkire and Foster (J Public Econ 95:476–487, 2011) index of multidimensional poverty to German data. This is done with respect to the politically most important dimensions of poverty mentioned in the German Federal Government’s report on poverty and wealth. Additionally, a modification of the identification step of the Alkire–Foster index is proposed to guarantee that individuals, who are extremely poor in only few dimensions, are not omitted by the index.     

The Multidimensional Measurement of Poverty in Belgium and Britain: A Categorical Approach

In recent years, both in socialscience and policy circles, there has been agrowing consensus on the multidimensionalnature of poverty. However, theoperationalisation of the concept has notfollowed this development, as most studies arestill primarily based on income. In thisarticle, we propose to measure the concept ofpoverty using both monetary and non-monetaryindicators. To this end, a latent classmeasurement model is used, allowing us to takeaccount of the multidimensionality of the dataand the discrete nature of most availablepoverty indicators. The proposed measurementinstrument allows for poverty to manifestitself in different ways or forms for differentsubgroups in the population. Furthermore, theoccurrence of multiple deprivation, rather thana `negative' score on only one indicator, istaken into account. In addition, specialattention is paid to the feasibility ofconstructing a multidimensional poverty measurewhich can be used to study poverty dynamicswith longitudinal panel data. We presentfigures on the size and the social distributionof the `poor' population in Belgium andBritain. These figures indicate that theresults of our multidimensional measurementprocedure are both plausible and substantivelyinterpretable.     

Child Poverty in Vietnam: Providing Insights Using a Country-Specific and Multidimensional Model

Despite a wide under-prioritization, the issue of child poverty has received increasing attention worldwide over the last decade. The acknowledgement in Vietnam that child-specific poverty measurement is crucial for poverty efforts directed towards children, and the current lack thereof, instigated the development of a Vietnam child poverty approach. This paper proposes a country-specific, multidimensional and outcome-based approach for the measurement of the incidence, depth and severity of child poverty. It does so at the level of the individual child using household survey data. The development of such an approach at the level of the individual child presents an appropriate alternative for or supplement to the widely used monetary poverty approach, allowing for the use of compatible analytical methods. Findings suggest that 37% of all children in Vietnam live in poverty, with the most pressing areas of deprivation being water, sanitation and leisure. We do not find evidence for a gender bias but do observe a large urban–rural divide, regional disparities and large ethnic inequalities. We argue that this tailor-made approach is a valuable new tool for policy makers and analysts in Vietnam as it enables identification and analysis of poor children, their characteristics and most pressing areas of deprivation within the country’s specific social and cultural context.     

Synergies Among Monetary,Multidimensional and Subjective Poverty: Evidence from Nepal

In this paper we construct a Nepal specific multidimensional poverty index using the Nepal Longitudinal Sample Survey (NLSS) for the period 1995–2010. The indicators for Nepal Multidimensional Poverty Index (NMP) have been chosen using the goals set by the Government of Nepal and the perceptions of adequacy as reported by households. In doing so this study combines multidimensional and subjective methods of measuring wellbeing. The subjective data is used to guide the choice of dimensions for the multidimensional analysis. Our findings show that Nepal has had a dramatic fall in multidimensional poverty along with the observed fall in consumption poverty in this period. Comparing the extent to which consumption poverty accurately identifies the multidimensionally poor, we find the error has reduced over time but remains large in proportion to the poverty rate implying the need for a multidimensional measure. For the different ethnic groups and regions the patterns of reduction in poverty are not homogenous and are different from those of consumption poverty with the NMP outperforming the consumption poverty in tracking targeted policy actions.     

Multidimensional Measurement of Poverty Among Women in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the seminal work of Sen, poverty has been recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon. The recent availability of relevant databases renewed the interest in this approach. This paper estimates multidimensional poverty among women in fourteen Sub-Saharan African countries using the Alkire and Foster multidimensional poverty measures, whose identification method is based on a counting approach. Four dimensions are considered: assets, health, schooling and empowerment. The results show important differences in poverty among the countries of the sample. The multidimensional poverty estimates are compared with some alternative measures such as the Human Development Index, income poverty, asset poverty and the Gender-related Development Index. It is found that including additional dimensions into the analysis leads to country rankings different from those obtained with the mentioned four measures. Decompositions by geographical area and dimension indicate that rural areas are significantly poorer than urban ones and that a lack of schooling is, in general, the highest contributor to poverty. The paper also conducts robustness and sensitivity analyses of the multidimensional estimates with respect to the number of dimensions in which deprivation is required in order to be considered poor, as well as to the poverty lines within each dimension. Several cases of dominance between countries are found in the first robustness test.     

A Distributional Analysis of Uni-and Multidimensional Poverty and Inequalities in Ethiopia

Social Indicators Research - This study analyzes uni-and multidimensional poverty and inequalities in rural and small towns in Ethiopia. Unlike the unidimensional measure, the multidimensional...     

Deriving Multidimensional Poverty Indicators: Methodological Issues and an Empirical Analysis for Italy

Theoretical and empirical studies have recently adopted a multidimensional concept of poverty. There is considerable debate about the most appropriate degree of multidimensionality to retain in the analysis. In this work we add to the received literature in two ways. First, we derive indicators of multiple deprivation by applying a particular multivariate statistical technique, the non-linear principal component analysis (NLPCA), which overcomes traditional limits of many of the mostly used methodologies for poverty measurement. Second, on the basis of the aforementioned indicators, we provide an accurate identification of the poor in Italy by analyzing deprivation both as a distinct phenomenon in different life domains and as a single multidimensional concept. The main determinants of poverty in Italy are then investigated by estimating logit regressions and an ordered probit model. Our empirical analysis is based on data from the Italian component of European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC-2004).     

贫困地区人口健康存量与减缓贫困的实证研究

本文利用四个调研县的数据调查资料为背景,定量地评估与分析了贫困地区农户的健康状况以及健康存量对农户收入水平的影响。结果发现,虽然贫困地区人口健康水平有所提高,但仍然存在着农户健康存量普遍不高的现象： 不过,实证研究还显示,个体健康存量与其家庭经济收入水平和农户脱贫致富有着积极的作用。因此,提高农户健康存量是贫困地区人力资源开发的一个重点。     

Effect of Financial Inclusion on Poverty and Vulnerability to Poverty: Evidence Using a Multidimensional Measure of Financial Inclusion

This study examines the effect of financial inclusion on poverty and vulnerability to poverty of Ghanaian households. Using data extracted from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey in 2016/17, a multiple correspondence analysis is employed to generate a financial inclusion index, and three-stage feasible least squares is used to estimate households’ vulnerability to poverty. Endogeneity associated with financial inclusion is resolved using distance to the nearest bank as an instrument in an instrumental variables probit technique. Results showed that while 23.4% of Ghanaians are considered poor, about 51% are vulnerable to poverty. We found that an increase in financial inclusion has two effects on household poverty. First, it is associated with a decline in a household’s likelihood of being poor by 27%. Second, it prevents a household’s exposure to future poverty by 28%. Female-headed households have a greater chance of experiencing a larger reduction in poverty and vulnerability to poverty through enhanced financial inclusion than do male-headed households. Furthermore, financial inclusion reduces poverty and vulnerability to poverty more in rural than in urban areas. Governments are encouraged to design or enhance policies that provide an enabling environment for the private sector to innovate and expand financial services to more distant places. Government investment in, and regulation of, the mobile money industry will be a necessary step to enhancing financial inclusion in developing countries.

     

Multidimensional Poverty Among Older People in Five Latin American Countries

Social Indicators Research - This paper offers an updated picture of the nature of deprivation in old age in Latin America, as well as an analysis of its different dimensions. Based on harmonized...