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Multidimensional Poverty in Nicaragua: Are Female-Headed Households Better Off?

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Abstract

The recognition of poverty as a multidimensional concept has led to the development of more adequate tools for its identification. By allowing for subgroup and regional decompositions, those instruments are useful to allocate public action where most needed. This paper applies the Alkire and Foster (2011a) Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to study single-mother and biparental families in Nicaragua, modifying its original structure to match more closely with the country’s current structural problems. Using Nicaragua’s last Demographic and Health Survey (DHS 2011/2012), our multidimensional poverty figures contrast with the government’s national poverty line estimates, suggesting that income poverty overestimates the number of poor people. Thus, our MPI can help as a complement for traditional consumption poverty and Basic Needs analysis; even extending the exploration by using other official household surveys. On the other hand, multidimensional poverty analysis found poverty dominance of male-headed families over single-mother and female-headed biparental families, which serves to contradict the notion of women being more vulnerable than men. Within the MPI, the most important contributor was the Living Standards dimension, composed by indicators directly related to housing conditions, and the second most deprived dimension was Education. A strong policy implication that arises from our findings is the reduction of the urban–rural poverty gap. Specifically, our findings exalt the need for governmental policies directed to reduce Nicaragua’s housing and educational deficits as a priority, particularly in rural areas.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

Fig. 3

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

Fig. 4

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

Fig. 5

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

Fig. 6

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

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Notes

  1. Arends-kuenning and Moylan (2012) estimated this figure in 76 % with data from previous ENDESA (2006/2007).

  2. According to the 2014 Global Gender Gap Report (Hausmann et al. 2014), Nicaragua reached sixth place as one of the best countries in the world in terms of gender equity, only behind Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

  3. We adopted the “OECD-modified scale” to adjust monthly household income, in order to allow comparisons between households with different sizes and structures (Burniaux et al. 1998; Förster 1994; OECD 2011; RIO GROUP 2006; Stiglitz et al. 2009).

  4. See Alkire and Santos (2014) for an application of the Global MPI to over 100 developing countries.

  5. On this matter, Dewilde (2008) observes that between-country differences for multidimensional poverty in Europe can be explained by country-specific arrangements on welfare policies.

  6. The 5DE sub-index has a weight of 90 %, with the other 10 % consisting of a Gender Parity Index (GPI).

  7. For a review of the index’s axiomatic properties see Bourguignon and Chakravarty (2003) and Alkire and Foster (2011b).

  8. According to the Bouillon et al. (2012), 78 % of households in Nicaragua have sub-standard housing (the highest rate for Latin America and the Caribbean). The estimated housing deficit rounds 957,000 units, with 348,000 corresponding to the need for new houses and 609,000 for improvement of existing units. Furthermore, there is evidence for a positive relationship between ‘happiness’ and house ownership in Latin America (Ruprah 2010). Considered an important issue in the region, Santos et al. (2015) included housing tenure as a relevant component in their MPI for Latin American countries.

  9. According to government calculations, those subsidies benefit approximately 2.5 million people on a daily basis (Consejo de Comunicación y Ciudadanía 2011). Additionally, data from EMNV 2009 reveals that transport expenditures represent only 3.0 and 2.6 % of total annual per capita expenditures for the poor and extremely poor respectively (INIDE 2011).

  10. In our index, that percentage translates to a deprivation cutoff of four or more indicators.

  11. The final sample size is 86.5 and 87.0 % of the original survey sample for single mother and biparental households respectively.

  12. Table 7 in the Appendix expands these and other socio-demographic informations.

  13. First-level administrative and political subdivisions in Nicaragua (departamentos).

  14. On this matter, it is useful to know the percentage of self-reported household heads that had a job, as a proxy for economic contribution (Handa 1994). For Nicaragua, work-related information from EMNV 2009 shows that 75.2 % of single mothers had a job, with a higher percentage of “working heads” for male heads (91.0 %) and lower for female heads (64.6 %) in biparental families.

  15. Following that recommendation, Alkire et al. (2013) compared dual-adult and female-only headed households in their pilot studies.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) for the scholarship granted for his M.Sc. program.

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  1. Departamento de Economia Doméstica, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Campus Universitário, Viçosa, MG, 36570-000, Brazil

    Álvaro José Altamirano Montoya & Karla Maria Damiano Teixeira

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 5, 6, 7 and 8 and Figs. 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Table 5 Equivalised Median Household Income (EHI). Median contrast by quintiles of income United States dollars per month. Nicaragua—2009.
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Table 6 MPI components across households (original Global MPI as presented by Alkire and Santos (2010)).
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Table 7 Socio-demographic information.
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Table 8 Contrasting each household’s MPI components with the national estimates.
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Fig. 7
figure 7

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

National MPI Map.

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Fig. 8
figure 8

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

MPI Map for Single-mother Households.

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Fig. 9
figure 9

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

MPI Map for male-headed Biparental Households.

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Fig. 10
figure 10

Source: based on data from ENDESA 2011/2012

MPI Map for Female-headed Biparental Households.

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Altamirano Montoya, Á.J., Teixeira, K.M.D. Multidimensional Poverty in Nicaragua: Are Female-Headed Households Better Off?. Soc Indic Res 132, 1037–1063 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1345-y

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