Societal Poverty : A Relative and Relevant Measure
Poverty lines are typically higher in richer countries, and lower in poorer ones, reflecting the relative nature of national assessments of who is considered poor. In many high-income countries, poverty lines are explicitly relative, set as a share...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/133671495562984832/Societal-poverty-a-relative-and-relevant-measure http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26845 |
| Summary: | Poverty lines are typically higher in
richer countries, and lower in poorer ones, reflecting the
relative nature of national assessments of who is considered
poor. In many high-income countries, poverty lines are
explicitly relative, set as a share of mean or median
income. Despite systematic variation in how countries define
poverty, global poverty counts are based on fixed-value
lines. To reflect national assessments of poverty in a
global headcount of poverty, this paper proposes a societal
poverty line. The proposed societal poverty line is derived
from 699 harmonized national poverty lines, and has an
intercept of $1 per day and a relative gradient of 50
percent of median national income or consumption. The
societal poverty line is more closely aligned with national
definitions of poverty than other proposed relative lines.
By this relative measure, societal poverty has fallen
steadily since 1990, but at a much slower pace than absolute
extreme poverty. |
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