Premium
Challenges in Measuring Poverty and Understanding its Dynamics: A South Asian Perspective
Author(s) -
Rama Martin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
review of income and wealth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.024
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1475-4991
pISSN - 0034-6586
DOI - 10.1111/roiw.12438
Subject(s) - poverty , perspective (graphical) , context (archaeology) , measuring poverty , economics , standard of living , development economics , interpretation (philosophy) , south asia , survey data collection , dynamics (music) , economic growth , public economics , geography , sociology , market economy , pedagogy , ethnology , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science , programming language
South Asia’s success at reducing poverty does not imply that the topic has become passé . Poverty rates are by now low, but this is because poverty lines are low as well. And the assessment of living standards and their dynamics are blurred by measurement and interpretation challenges. This paper relies mostly on South Asian examples to highlight four tensions: poorer versus richer households, rural versus urban locations, monetary versus non‐monetary dimensions of wellbeing, and household characteristics versus context. The discussion is conducted against the backdrop of the two analytical approaches with South Asian roots that have shaped the debate for decades. This review leads to three main recommendations: household survey data has to be exploited in a more thorough manner, data that is increasingly available from other sources needs to be incorporated more systematically in the analysis, and the multiple dimensions of wellbeing should be better integrated in a common framework.