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Map of world poverty by country, showingpercentage of population living on lessthan $1.25 per day. Information is basedon different years (2000­2006) fordifferent countries. Data is missing forcountries colored grey.

World map showing life expectancy.

World map showing the HumanDevelopment Index.

The Gini coefficient, a measure of incomeinequality, 2014.

Measuring povertyFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Although the most severe poverty is in the developing world,there is evidence of poverty in every region. In developedcountries, this condition results in wandering homeless peopleand poor suburbs and ghettos. Poverty may be seen as thecollective condition of poor people, or of poor groups, and inthis sense entire nation­states are sometimes regarded as poor.To avoid possible stigma, they are commonly referred to asdeveloping nations.

Contents

1 Absolute vs relative poverty2 Measurements3 Definitions4 Non­monetary indicators5 Income inequality6 Stats7 Other factors8 References9 External Links

Absolute vs relative poverty

When measured, poverty may be absolute or relative. Absolutepoverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over timeand between countries. An example of an absolutemeasurement would be the percentage of the population eatingless food than is required to sustain the human body(approximately 2000–2500 calories per day).

Relative poverty, in contrast, views poverty as socially definedand dependent on social context. One relative measurementwould be to compare the total wealth of the poorest one­third ofthe population with the total wealth of the richest 1% of thepopulation. In this case, the number of people counted as poorcould increase while their income rises. There are severaldifferent income inequality metrics; one example is the Ginicoefficient.

Measurements

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The percentage of the world's populationliving on less than $1 per day has halved in20 years. Most of this improvement hasoccurred in East and South Asia. Thegraph shows the 1981–2001 period.

Life expectancy has been increasing andconverging for most of the world. Sub­Saharan Africa has recently seen a decline,partly related to the AIDS epidemic. Thegraph shows the 1950–2005 period.

The main poverty line used in the OECD and the EuropeanUnion is a relative poverty measure based on "economicdistance", a level of income usually set at 60% of the medianhousehold income.[1](http://www.poverty.org.uk/summary/eapn.shtml)

The United States, in contrast, uses an absolute povertymeasure. The US poverty line was created in 1963–64 and wasbased on the dollar costs of the U.S. Department ofAgriculture's "economy food plan" multiplied by a factor ofthree. The multiplier was based on research showing that foodcosts then accounted for about one­third of money income. Thisone­time calculation has since been annually updated forinflation.[1]

The US line has been critiqued as being either too high or toolow. For example, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative U.S.think tank, objects to the fact that, according to the U.S. CensusBureau, 46% of those defined as being in poverty in the U.S.own their own home (with the average poor person's homehaving three bedrooms, with one and a half baths, and agarage).[2] Others, such as economist Ellen Frank, argue thatthe poverty measure is too low as families spend much less oftheir total budget on food than they did when the measure wasestablished in the 1950s. Further, federal poverty statistics donot account for the widely varying regional differences in non­food costs such as housing, transport, and utilities.[3]

Both absolute and relative poverty measures are usually basedon a person's yearly income and frequently take no account oftotal wealth. Some people argue that this ignores a keycomponent of economic well­being. Major developments &research in this area suggest that standard one dimensionalmeasures of poverty, based mainly on wealth or calorieconsumption, are seriously deficient. This is because povertyoften involves being deprived on several fronts, which do not necessarily correlate well with wealth. Accessto basic needs is an example of a measurement that does not include wealth. Access to basic needs that maybe used in the measurement of poverty are clean water, food, shelter and clothing. [4][5] It has beenestablished that people may have enough income to satisfy basic needs,but not use it usely. Similarly,extremely poor people may not be deprived if sufficiently strong social networks, or social service systemsexist. For deeper discussion see.[6] See also the Wikipedia article on Multidimensional poverty.

Definitions

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The World Bank defines poverty in absolute terms. The bank defines extreme poverty as living on less thanUS$1.25 per day>[7] (PPP), and moderate poverty as less than $2 a day. It has been estimated that in 2008,1.4 billion people had consumption levels below US$1.25 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day.The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty has fallen from 28percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001. Much of the improvement has occurred in East and South Asia. InSub­Saharan Africa GDP/capita shrank with 14 percent, and extreme poverty increased from 41 percent in1981 to 46 percent in 2001. Other regions have seen little or no change. In the early 1990s the transitioneconomies of Europe and Central Asia experienced a sharp drop in income. Poverty rates rose to 6 percentat the end of the decade before beginning to recede.[8] There are criticisms of these measurements.[9][10]

Non­monetary indicators

Some economists, such as Guy Pfeffermann, say that other non­monetary indicators of "absolute poverty"are also improving. Life expectancy has greatly increased in the developing world since World War II andis starting to close the gap to the developed world where the improvement has been smaller. Even in Sub­Saharan Africa, the least developed region, life expectancy increased from 30 years before World War II toa peak of about 50 years — before the HIV pandemic and other diseases started to force it down to thecurrent level of 47 years. Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world.[11] Theproportion of the world's population living in countries where per­capita food supplies are less than 2,200calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid­1960s to below 10% by the 1990s.Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world. Women made up muchof the gap: Female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in2000. The percentage of children not in the labor force has also risen to over 90% in 2000 from 76% in1960. There are similar trends for electric power, cars, radios, and telephones per capita, as well as theproportion of the population with access to clean water.[12]

Income inequality

Income inequality for the world as a whole is diminishing. A 2002 study by Xavier Sala­i­Martin finds thatthis is driven mainly, but not fully, by the extraordinary growth rate of the incomes of the 1.2 billionChinese citizens. However, unless Africa achieves economic growth, China, India, the OECD, and the restof the middle­income and rich countries will diverge away from it, and global inequality will rise. Thus, theeconomic growth of the African continent should be the priority of anyone concerned with decreasingglobal income inequality.[13][14]

The Poverty Gap Index is the mean distance below the poverty line as a proportion of the poverty linewhere the mean is taken over the whole population, counting the non­poor as having zero poverty gap.

Stats

Even if poverty may be lessening for the world as a whole, it continues to be an enormous problem:

One third of deaths — some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day — are due to poverty­relatedcauses. That's 270 million people since 1990, the majority women and children, roughly equal to thepopulation of the US.Every year nearly 11 million children die before their fifth birthday.

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In 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than$2 a day.800 million people go to bed hungry every day.[15]

Other factors

The World Bank's Voices of the Poor initiative,[16] based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23countries, identifies a range of factors that poor people consider elements of poverty. Most important arethose necessary for material well­being, especially food. Many others relate to social rather than materialissues.

precarious livelihoodsexcluded locationsgender relationships

References1. US Department of Human Services (http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/faq.shtml), FAQ Poverty Guidelines and Poverty2. Rector, Robert E. and Johnson, Kirk A., Understanding Poverty in America

(http://www.fullemployment.org/Understanding%20Poverty%20in%20America.pdf), Executive Summary,Heritage Foundation, January 15, 2004, No. 1713

3. Frank, Ellen, "Dr. Dollar: How Is Poverty Defined in Government Statistics?"(http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2006/0106dollar.html) Dollars & Sense magazine, January/February2006. Accessed April 13, 2008

4. "Measuring Poverty ­ Poverty is defined by deprivation, and can be measured with economic or socialindicators." (https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless­sociology­textbook/stratification­inequality­and­social­class­in­the­u­s­9/poverty­78/measuring­poverty­463­3312/). https://www.boundless.com.Retrieved 12 March 2015.

5. Pogge, Thomas. "Measuring Poverty" (http://thomaspogge.com/thomas­pogge/measuring­poverty/).http://thomaspogge.com/. Retrieved 12 March 2015.

6. Thorbecke, E., 2008. Multidimensional Poverty: Conceptual and Measurement Issues. In: Kakwani, N., Silber, J.(Eds.), The Many Dimensions of Poverty. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, pp. 3–20

7. "New Data Show 1.4 Billion Live On Less Than US$1.25 A Day, But Progress Against Poverty RemainsStrong" (http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press­release/2008/09/16/new­data­show­14­billion­live­less­us125­day­progress­against­poverty­remains­strong). http://www.worldbank.org/. The World Bank. Retrieved13 March 2015.

8. Worldbank.org reference(http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:20153855~menuPK:373757~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html)

9. Socialanalysis.Org (http://socialanalysis.org/)10. TFF, 1999

(http://web.archive.org/web/19990427100741/http://www.transnational.org/features/chossu_worldbank.html)

02/05/2015 Measuring poverty ­ Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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External Links

Graph of poverty line across E.U. countries (http://www.poverty.org.uk/L01e/index.shtml)Poverty line definition at OECD (http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=6337)A map of world poverty (http://www.wacra.org/WORLD%20POVERTY%20MAP.pdf)

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Categories: Measurements and definitions of poverty Socioeconomics Economic developmentEconomic problems Injustice Social problems Social issues Income distributionMacroeconomics and monetary economics Wealth

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11. The Eight Losers of Globalization (http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=2429) by GuyPfeffermann. Pfeffermann, former Chief Economist of the International Finance Corporation, is the CEO ofGlobal Business School Network (http://www.gbsnonline.org). This is a non­profit organization supportingbusiness and management education in the developing world. 2002.

It is an area where not only is there little or no consensus among disciplines, but where economiststhemselves have widely differing views. So, what can one say with a fair degree of certainty aboutgrowth and inequality in developing countries? Life expectancy at birth — the most basic androbust of all social indicators — has increased very considerably around the world.

12. www.sciencedirect.org (http://www.sciencedirect.org/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC6­4F02KWN­8&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_orig=browse&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3c12cc79f8121ee4e000396b0273a1eb)

13. Sala­i­Martin, Xavier. "The Disturbing "Rise" of Global Income Inequality"(http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/papers/GlobalIncomeInequality.htm). http://www.columbia.edu/. Retrieved13 March 2015.

14. Brooks, David (27 November 2004). "Good News About Poverty"(http://www.columbia.edu/~xs23/papers/worldistribution/NYT_november_27.htm). The New York Times.Retrieved 13 March 2015.

15. millenniumcampaign.org (http://www.millenniumcampaign.org/site/pp.asp?c=grKVL2NLE&b=185518)16. "Voices of the Poor"

(http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,contentMDK:20622514~menuPK:336998~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html). worldbank.org. THe World Bank.Retrieved 13 March 2015.