Counting and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

This paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of an identification method ρκ that extends traditional approaches, and a class of poverty measures Mα that satisfies several desirable properties including decomposability. Our identification step employs two forms of cutoff: one within each dimension and a second across dimensions that identifies the poor by counting their deprivations. We aggregate using Foster-Greer-Thorbecke measures adjusted for multidimensionality. Our adjusted headcount ratio is well suited for use with ordinal data. Examples from Indonesia and the US illustrate our methodology.

Authors: Sabina Alkire and James Foster

Year: 2008

Citation: Alkire, S. and Foster, J. (2007, revised in 2008). 'Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement', OPHI Working Paper 07, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), University of Oxford.

Spanish version: Recuento y Medición Multidimensional de la Pobreza

See also OPHI Working Paper 32 (2009) and OPHI Research in Progress 1a.

Also published in Journal of Public Economics, 2011, Vol. 95(7–8), pp. 476–487.