Intensity of Time and Income Interdependent Multidimensional Poverty: Well-Being and Minimum 2DGAP – German Evidence

Extending the traditional income poverty concept by multidimensional poverty has been of growing interest within the last years. This paper contributes with an analysis of interdependent multidimensional (IMD) poverty intensity of time and income, which in particular restricts social participation. The interdependency of the multiple poverty dimensions under a strong (union approach) and weak focus axiom (compensation approach) are regarded in particular when measuring the intensity of multidimensional poverty. In addition to various poverty gap measures including the multidimensional well-being gap, for the first time we propose a minimum multidimensional poverty gap (2DGAP). To respect Sen's capability approach with its social participation aspects we define the time dimension as genuine personal leisure time. Based on a CES well-being function and a multidimensional poverty line evaluated by the German population (estimated with the German Socio-Economic Panel) the individual poverty intensity of the active population is analysed for various regimes of multiple poverty. For this purpose the German Time Use Surveys 1991/92 and 2001/02 and its time use diary data are used. Analysing the active population this paper contributes too to the poverty situation of the working poor. All the empirical results, including the microeconometric Heckman type estimation of the IMD poverty intensity (2DGAP) and the IMD poverty risk, indicate the overall importance of the time dimension with its social participation aspect incorporated within an interdependent multidimensional time and income poverty approach. An important dimension would be neglected in the poverty analysis and in targeted poverty policies if time additional to income is not respected.intensity of time and income poverty, interdependent multidimensional time and income poverty, union and compensation approach, minimum multidimensional poverty gap (2DGAP), extended economic well-being, satisfaction/happiness, working poor, CES well-being function, German Socio-Economic Panel, German Time Use Surveys 1991/92 and 2001/02

Intensity of Time and Income Interdependent Multidimensional Poverty: Well-Being and Minimum 2DGAP ; German Evidence

Extending the traditional income poverty concept by multidimensional poverty has been of growing interest within the last years. This paper contributes with an analysis of interdepend-ent multidimensional (IMD) poverty intensity of time and income, which in particular restricts social participation. The interdependency of the multiple poverty dimensions under a strong (union approach) and weak focus axiom (compensation approach) are regarded in particular when measuring the intensity of multidimensional poverty. In addition to various poverty gap measures including the multidimensional well-being gap, for the first time we propose a minimum multidimensional poverty gap (2DGAP).. - To respect Sen's capability approach with its social participation aspects we define the time dimension as genuine personal leisure time. Based on a CES well-being function and a multi-dimensional poverty line evaluated by the German population (estimated with the German Socio-Economic Panel) the individual poverty intensity of the active population is analysed for various regimes of multiple poverty. For this purpose the German Time Use Surveys 1991/92 and 2001/02 and its time use diary data are used. Analysing the active population this paper contributes too to the poverty situation of the working poor. . - All the empirical results, including the microeconometric Heckman type estimation of the IMD poverty intensity (2DGAP) and the IMD poverty risk, indicate the overall importance of the time dimension with its social participation aspect incorporated within an interdependent multidimensional time and income poverty approach. An important dimension would be ne-glected in the poverty analysis and in targeted poverty policies if time additional to income would is not respected.Intensity of time and income poverty, interdependent multidimensional time and income poverty, union and compensation approach, minimum multidimensional poverty gap (2DGAP), extended economic well-being, satisfaction/happiness, working poor

Comparing Multidimensional Poverty between Egypt and Tunisia

It is common to argue that poverty is a multidimensional issue. Yet few studies have included the various dimensions of deprivation to yield a broader and fuller picture of poverty. The present paper considers the multidimensional aspects of deprivation by specifying a poverty line for each aspect and combines their associated one-dimensional poverty-gaps into multidimensional poverty measures. An application of these measures to compare poverty between Egypt and Tunisia is illustrated using robustness analysis and household data from each country.Multidimensional poverty indices, Robustness analysis, Egypt, Tunisia

Multidimensional Poverty and its Discontents

More data on non-income dimensions of poverty are available than at any previous time in history. Alongside this, multidimensional measurement methodologies have advanced considerably in the past fifteen years. These advances together have created new possibilities to measure multidimensional poverty at the local, national and international level. Yet the fact that overall measures can be constructed does not mean that they will necessarily add value. This paper focuses on the question of when, how and why certain multidimensional poverty measures add value, sketches the limits of the contribution, and introduces a set of standing questions. The key value-added of a rigorously implemented multidimensional poverty index is that it conveys additional information not captured in single-dimensional measures (or in a dashboard) on the joint distribution of disadvantage and the composition of poverty. It also provides a consistent account of the overall change in multidimensional poverty across time and space. The paper discusses the joint distribution approach to multidimensional poverty measurement and presents one class of poverty measures within this approach. It then introduces one recently implemented measure within this family: the 104-country Multidimensional Poverty Index 2010 and uses concrete examples to explain its construction further. For example, without weights one can only identify the multidimensionally poor by the union or the intersection approaches; by these approaches the 2010 MPI would have identified an average of 58% or 0% of people across the 104 countries as poor. It also shows how to ‘unfold’ the MPI by sub-group or dimension, and also by intensity – because similar ‘intensities’ of poverty can conceal different distributions of intensity among the poor. Pointing out the added value of multidimensional poverty indexes is not to suggest that single-dimensional measures be abandoned but rather supplemented. Investing further in multidimensional measures has the potential to generate significant advances in understanding and useful policy tools.

Polarization: Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons

We investigate how to make poverty comparisons using multidimensional indicators of well-being, showing in particular how to check whether the comparisons are robust to aggregation procedures and to the choice of multidimensional poverty lines. In contrast to earlier work, our methodology applies equally well to what can be defined as "union", "intersection" or "intermediate" approaches to dealing with multidimensional indicators of well-being. When one of two indicators is discrete, our methods specialize to those that have previously been developed to deal with household composition heterogeneity. To make these procedures of some practical usefulness, the paper is also the first to derive the sampling distribution of various multidimensional poverty estimators, including estimators of the "critical" poverty frontiers outside which multidimensional poverty comparisons can no longer be deemed ethically robust. The results are illustrated using data from a number of developing countries.Multidimensional Poverty, Stochastic Dominance

The Concept of Multidimensional Poverty: Accounting for Dimensional Poverty

Increasing efforts have recently been directed towards the question of how to incorporate the idea of a multidimensional poverty concept into traditional poverty measurement. In response, several suggestions have been made to derive different classes of multidimensional poverty measures. In this paper we focus on five axiomatically derived classes of multidimensional poverty measures. Each of these classes follow the unidimensional approach to progressively weight the respective distances to the threshold levels in order to account for poverty intensity. In this paper we claim that this approach, though reasonable in a unidimensional setting, does not suffice in a multidimensional setting. An additional aspect of poverty intensity should be considered which we denote as dimensional poverty: the number of dimensions in which individuals are deprived. There exists no luminous explanation why a weighting scheme should account for one aspect of poverty intensity while at the same time ignoring the other one. In this paper we introduce a multiple cutoff method to identify the poor which allows us to extent the five classes of poverty measures to include an additional weighting scheme in order to account for dimensional poverty. We find that the additional weight has no effect on the axiomatic basis of the classes of poverty measures other than a partial violation of the well-known subgroup decomposability axiom.Multidimensional Poverty, Multidimensional Poverty measures, Axiomatic Approach, Poverty Intensity

Robust Multidimensional Poverty Comparisons

We investigate how to make poverty comparisons using multidimensional indicators of well-being, showing in particular how to check whether the comparisons are robust to the choice of poverty indices and poverty lines. Our methodology applies equally well to either of what can be defined as "union" and "intersection" approaches to dealing with multidimensional indicators of well-being. When one of two variables is discrete, our methods specialize to those that Atkinson (1991), Jenkins and Lambert (1993) and others have developed to deal with household composition heterogeneity. The results also extend the statistical results recently derived in Davidson and Duclos (2000) to cases where well-being is measured in two or more dimensions. We thus derive the sampling distribution of various multidimensional poverty estimators, including estimators of the "critical" frontiers of poverty lines above which multidimensional poverty comparisons are no longer ethically robust.Multidimensional Poverty, Stochastic Dominance

Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries

This paper presents a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 104 developing countries. It is the first time multidimensional poverty is estimated using micro datasets (household surveys) for such a large number of countries which cover about 78 percent of the world´s population. The MPI has the mathematical structure of one of the Alkire and Foster poverty multidimensional measures and it is composed of ten indicators corresponding to same three dimensions as the Human Development Index: Education, Health and Standard of Living. Our results indicate that 1,700 million people in the world live in acute poverty, a figure that is between the $1.25/day and$2/day poverty rates. Yet it is no $1.5/day measure. The MPI captures direct failures in functionings that Amartya Sen argues should form the focal space for describing and reducing poverty. It constitutes a tool with an extraordinary potential to target the poorest, track the Millennium Development Goals, and design policies that directly address the interlocking deprivations poor people experience. This paper presents the methodology and components in the MPI, describes main results, and shares basic robustness tests.Poverty Measurement, Multidimensional Poverty, Capability Approach, Multidimensional Welfare, Human Development, HDI, HPI

Rasch Model and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

The topic of the multidimensionality of poverty is currently at the heart of many theoretical, empirical and institutional debates in the European Union. Despite this increasing interest, there seems to be no consensus on how to define and measure multidimensional poverty. Two aspects may be considered in measuring poverty: the number of dimensions and the nature of the underlying continuum. The question of the dimensionality of poverty, one versus many dimensions, has to be resolved in applying specific multidimensional methods, like factor analysis, where the one-dimensional solution is a special case of the multidimensional procedure. The question of the nature of the continuum concerns the relationship between the items in each dimension. Two kinds of relationship are considered here: homogeneous and hierarchical. In this paper, the interest of the Rasch model for verifying the hierarchical and cumulative nature of the relationship between the items is underlined. After presenting the main characteristics of the model, and its adjustment for testing poverty, an application confirming the multidimensional nature of poverty is performed on a Luxemburgish dataset (PSELL-3).multidimensional poverty ; Rasch model ; accumulation of disadvantages

Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries

This paper presents a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 104 developing countries. It is the first time multidimensional poverty is estimated using micro datasets (household surveys) for such a large number of countries which cover about 78 percent of the world's population. The MPI has the mathematical structure of one of the Alkire and Foster poverty multidimensional measures and it is composed of ten indicators corresponding to same three dimensions as the Human Development Index: Education, Health and Standard of Living. The MPI captures a set of direct deprivations that batter a person at the same time. This tool could be used to target the poorest, track the Millennium Development Goals, and design policies that directly address the interlocking deprivations poor people experience. This paper presents the methodology and components in the MPI, describes main results, and shares basic robustness tests. --Poverty Measurement,Multidimensional Poverty,Capability Approach,Multidimensional Welfare,Human Development,HDI,HPI