Scientific Definitions of Poverty

SCIENCE CAN BE DEFINED as the systematic application of human reason in order to answer specific questions about a subject of study. Poverty as a subject of study evokes a variety of questions with a corresponding variety of definitions and answers. Scientific definitions [Page 959]of poverty, unlike moral, theological, political, legal, or other definitions, seek to establish a universal definition that is rationally based, value-free, and objective for all to publicly see.

In Europe, the United States, and elsewhere, there have been for decades numerous debates about the definition of poverty. However, there has been no universal agreement about the definition nor has there been agreement about the approaches best used to define poverty. The struggle to define poverty in a scientific manner has been ongoing since the Industrial Revolution and its impoverished workers inspired intellectuals to seek solutions to the problem of poverty.

The problem is rather like the conclusion of a traveler to the desert Bedouin in an earlier time. The traveler, seeing people who move about in tents with little to eat except camel milk, concluded that they were poor. However, they in turn considered themselves rich because of their freedom and their elaborate oral culture of poems, stories, folklore, or songs.

Measuring poverty simply as a material condition may not be an accurate description of the reality because other factors can come into play. Measuring is difficult because of the numerous factors that comprise the making of a whole human life; the absence of those factors can produce deprivation.

Without a doubt income is important but access to other public goods such as education, clean water, reliable transportation, good roads, healthcare, and markets are also very important. Political decisions by the governments of the world are important because they will often be the institutions supplying great sums of money to meet the needs of the poor, or developing economic strategies for ending poverty.

While a monetary line is often favored for the definition of poverty, the use of income statistics problematically treats as equals things that are not equal. It would cost different amounts of money to supply the needs of adults versus babies. An additional problem with defining poverty in terms of income is that poverty is dynamic as well as relative. Factors such as a severe month of cold weather can wreck a family budget when it is assumed that its income is adequate because it has been measured against a historic norm. A scientific definition would allow for greater accuracy in measuring the dynamic features of poverty.

In attempting to define poverty, terms such as absolute, extreme, overall, relative, permanent, and peripheral have been used to describe the conditions or effects of poverty; scientists have sought to define poverty in terms other than just money. A scientific definition of poverty seeks to use broad universal concepts of resources rather than cash. This enables the scientific definition to be usable in poor countries, where payments in kind or barter is the rule for trade rather than using cash.

A scientific definition in terms of resources also is easier to use operationally as a measure of wealth in goats, sheep, services, or other values that are not readily stated in cash terms for the lack of a market or some equivalent mechanism for assessing value. The scientific definition also permits measurements that can be correlated between income and standard-of-living changes.

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