The importance of the weighting schemes used when compiling multi-dimensional poverty assessments has been highlighted in a research paper. The paper, written by a team in the Netherlands, points out that different weightings can result in different prescriptions for anti-poverty policies, where effectiveness is assessed by looking at the reduction in the numbers of those counted as being in poverty.
The paper uses data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to evaluate how alternative weighting structures affect the measurement of poverty for the population of over-50s in ten European countries. It considers the three dimensions of income and wealth, housing conditions and health condition (including mental health).
The way in which poverty is assessed needs to take into account inequality among those counted as multi-dimensionally poor, according to a new paper from researchers at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative.
The authors provide two illustrations, using Demographic Health Survey datasets, to demonstrate how an inequality measure adds important information to the 'adjusted headcount ratio' poverty measure.
A call has been made for a new headline indicator designed to measure progress towards eradicating global poverty in its many dimensions.
The case for the new indicator is made in the latest Development Co-operation Report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in a chapter written by Sabina Alkire (Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative - OPHI).
The poverty line measure used by the World Bank has many unsatisfactory features, according to a discussion paper from an Oxford economist.
The paper compares historical poverty baskets with modern food security and poverty lines, arguing that the latter could be improved by emulating the historical methods.
Do views in Scotland on the necessities differ from those in the rest of the UK? Is reasonable to have a single poverty standard for the whole of the UK or should Scotland have a separate standard. In this this research analysis working paper, Maria Gannon and Nick Bailey examine the PSE UK findings.
At their annual conference in September, the Royal Statistical Society organised a session on the government’s consultation on child poverty. With the next announcement on consultation now expected before Christmas, Paul Allin and John Veit-Wilson summarise the presentations and discussion.
Progress in reducing or preventing poverty in the UK could be helped by the answers to 100 important research questions, according to a new report. The questions have been identified by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge, based on an exercise involving 45 participants from government, non-governmental organisations, academia and research. They cover a range of themes, and indicate areas of particular research interest.