Income and Beyond: Multidimensional Poverty in Six Latin American Countries
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Abstract
This paper studies multidimensional poverty for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay for the period 1992–2006. The approach overcomes the limitations of the two traditional methods of poverty analysis in Latin America (income-based and unmet basic needs) by combining income with five other dimensions: school attendance for children, education of the household head, sanitation, water and shelter. The results allow a fuller understanding of the evolution of poverty in the selected countries. Over the study period, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico and Chile experienced significant reductions in multidimensional poverty. In contrast, in urban Uruguay there was a small reduction in multidimensional poverty, while in urban Argentina the estimates did not change significantly. El Salvador, Brazil and Mexico, and rural areas of Chile display significantly higher and more simultaneous deprivations than urban areas of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In all countries, deprivation in access to proper sanitation and education of the household head are the highest contributors to overall multidimensional poverty.
Keywords
Multidimensional poverty measurement Counting approach Latin America Unsatisfied basic needs Rural and urban areasNotes
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford. Santos thanks ANPCyT-PICT 1888 for research support. The authors are thankful for comments provided by Andrés Ham, by participants of OPHI Seminars Series in Trinity Term 2009, and of the third Meeting of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ), Buenos Aires, 21–23 July, 2009. The authors are also grateful for suggestions from two anonymous referees and thank Felix Stein for research assistance.
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