Abstract
An adequate cross-country comparison of multidimensional poverty requires sound poverty measures. This paper focuses on two central, but often neglected, challenges: the identification of the best theoretical framework and the selection of poverty dimensions. Regarding the first problem, it is argued that Amartya Sen’s capability approach provides the most rigorous analytical apparatus since it views poverty in terms of people’s lack of freedom to live a life they have reason to value, rather than as deprivation of means (income/commodities). In line with the capability approach, the paper then proposes a new solution to the problem of how to select dimensions of poverty. It consists of the expansion of the Constitutional Approach, recently developed by Burchi, De Muro and Kollar, according to which (some) national constitutions could be used as sources of ethically sound poverty dimensions. This approach, so far implemented only at the national level, could be extended to the international context by looking at a minimum list of overlapping dimensions across several countries. Finally, the paper applies this approach, examining several constitutions from all world regions, and supplementing it with three other well-known approaches to the identification of poverty dimensions: the public consensus approach, participatory studies, and surveys. This exercise leads to a clear list of valuable dimensions for international comparisons of poverty. We conclude that international poverty indicators should ideally always contain at least the dimensions of health, education and decent employment.
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Notes
- 1.
Life; Bodily Health; Bodily Integrity; Senses, Imagination and Thought; Emotions; Practical Reason; Affiliation; Other Species; Play; and last but not least Control Over One’s Environment.
- 2.
Those constitutions approved before the twentieth century, such as the US Constitution – the oldest in the world – consist of very few articles and do not refer to social and economic rights. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to use them to derive a list of poverty dimensions (Sunstein 2001).
- 3.
This list is based on a combination of monetary and social-rights approaches to poverty. Therefore, the final index contains both income and social indicators. Our list differs slightly from the one provided by Coneval (2013), as we specifically adopt the capability approach as a lens through which to analyse the constitution.
- 4.
Moreover, countries had little incentives for fighting off targets and indicators they do not prioritize. Among the few exceptions were issues related to women’s rights and religious rights, contrasted by Nigeria and South Africa, respectively.
- 5.
Target 7D, added in 2007, seeks to achieve “a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers”. Though measured by the unfortunately ill-specified indicator “proportion of urban population living in slums”, it was aimed at the housing conditions of the urban population as indicated by at least one of the following characteristics: (a) lack of access to improved water supply; (b) lack of access to improved sanitation; (c) overcrowding (three or more persons per room); and (d) dwellings made of non-durable material. For a more detailed discussion of this target, see Rippin (2013).
- 6.
The use of the ICSECR as a source of a “authoritatively recognized”, “legally significant”, capability-based list of poverty dimensions has been suggested by Vizard (2007).
- 7.
Respondents are differentiated by income into lower and upper socioeconomic groups with “lower” meaning that respondents were recipients of government benefits.
- 8.
It is important to stress that the My World survey did not include “housing” as one of the dimensions, therefore we cannot say to which extent this dimension is valued. Notably, as highlighted in Table 2, the results of the other surveys show that decent housing is viewed as a central life domain.
- 9.
The only small exception is the participatory approach, which assigns relatively more importance to access to food than to education.
- 10.
Having a decent housing, access to water, food and sanitation can be considered indicators of resources, and therefore not fully in line with the capability approach. However, as stressed by Alkire (2008), these kinds of indicators can sometimes be used as proxies for functionings. For example, in the case of housing, Qizilbash (1998, p. 9) argues that “[h]ouses have the characteristic that they protect us and provide shelter, and this makes our lives go better.”
- 11.
However, in many constitutions political participation mainly consists of voting.
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Burchi, F., Rippin, N., Montenegro, C.E. (2020). The Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty Across Countries: A Proposal for Selecting Dimensions. In: Beck, V., Hahn, H., Lepenies, R. (eds) Dimensions of Poverty. Philosophy and Poverty, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31711-9_16
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