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Multidimensional time and income poverty: well-being gap and minimum 2DGAP poverty intensity – German evidence

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Abstract

This paper focuses on interdependent multidimensional poverty of time and income with its incidence and intensity. We introduce a Two Dimensional Minimum Poverty Gap (2DGAP) measure, which quantifies the shortest path to escape multidimensional poverty. The 2DGAP disentangles single poverty attribute gaps while assuring their interdependence; an important issue for targeted antipoverty policies. Besides income, we include genuine personal leisure time with social participation reflecting Sen’s capability approach. The interdependence of multidimensional poverty is estimated by a CES-type well-being function with individual German data. The empirical results of Germany’s “working poor” emphasize the importance of time with social participation aspects in the multidimensional poverty discussion.

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Correspondence to Joachim Merz.

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We would like to thank participants of the ECINEQ 2011 conference, the IARIW 2012 conference and the anonymous referees for helpful comments.

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Merz, J., Rathjen, T. Multidimensional time and income poverty: well-being gap and minimum 2DGAP poverty intensity – German evidence. J Econ Inequal 12, 555–580 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10888-013-9271-6

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