Measures of Poverty, Consumption-Based

Poverty is multidimensional. Poverty is pervasive. Poverty has many faces, many names and multiple dimensions. It has an enormous number of methods within the realms of which it is fought, referred, experienced, described and measured. Such complexity has led to as many attempts to define and measure poverty, among practitioners and scholars alike. Meyer and Sullivan state that the broader literature on measuring poverty proposes a wide variety of approaches for identifying the poor. Some approaches are multidimensional, emphasizing functional capabilities, social inclusion, relationships, the environment, and other components of well-being. Another approach is the single-dimensional poverty measure, which, among others measures resources using income or consumption. Typically, a number of methods these days combine different approaches to poverty measurement, the most common ones being ...