Rio Group on Poverty Statistics

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Rio Group on Poverty Statistics

• 1 Background Information
• 2 Present Objectives and Work Program
• 3 Approaches to Poverty Measurement
• 4 Transversal topics

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1. Background Information

• Statistical Commission
• Countries
• Organizations

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2 Present Objectives and Work Program

• The Compendium
• Work Underway
• Schedule

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General Framework for Approaches

• 1. Introduction. Conceptual guidelines.
• 2. Standards and Resources
• 3. Availability of periodic calculations.
• 4. Technical characteristics Similarity and
  differences among estimates
• 5. Challenges, options, and shortcomings

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3. Approaches to Poverty Measurement

• absolute poverty lines
• 2. relative poverty lines
• 3. access to basic services and basic
  capital possession
• relative poverty
• subjective poverty
• combined measurement of deprivation and low
  income

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Standards for absolute poverty lines

• a.                  Food or nourishment.
• b.                 Clothing.
• c.                 Shelter.
• d.                 Transportation.
• e.                  Education.
• f.                   Health.
• g.                 Energy or heating.
• Rest of expenditure after any or a group
  of previous items.

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Geografical Breakdown

• ECLAC at least metropolitan, urban and rural
  areas
• Canadian MBM calculates 47 thresholds, based on
  province in size of area.
• Official poverty lines in the U.S. are computed
  nationally and do not vary by location or
  urban/rural status

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Updating

• The updating of poverty lines is done in all 4
  cases
• Global IPC or Items

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Resources of households

• In all the 4 cases, the poverty line is compared
  with household income, a proxy of the resources
  of the household, to decide if the members of the
  household/family are to be considered to be poor.
• Monetary and non monetary income. Limits.

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Official Measurements

• The USA estimate and those of 14 Latin American
  countries are official estimates. The Canadian
  estimates are not official

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Information Sources

• Specific technical information for standards.
  Example nutritional coefficients
• Income and expenditure surveys.
• Household employment surveys
• Administrative information on income.
• National accounts
• CPI information

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Some Additional Topics

• - nutritional requirements based or not based on
  a population that is population
  that is physically underdeveloped
• - national reference group was contrasted with a
  reference group for each sub national context
• - differences of poverty levels among regions may
  be significant
• - equivalence scales
• - Health standards

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4 Transversal topics

• International Comparisons
• Poverty Dynamics
• Strategies for the improvement of information.

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International ComparisonsDifficulties in
comparing poverty measurementsderive from

• - the inexistence of standards for poverty
  measurement approved by the Commission,
• , the conceptual intricacies involved in
  comparing welfare levels,
• the presence of political considerations,
• the relative shortage of experiences in this
  area

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Basic requirement for performing empirical
comparisons concept of welfare captured by the
sources of information is similar The Canberra
Group has listed in its Report the items that
should or could be considered in the measurement
of income. It has also surveyed the availability
of data for at least some of the most important
income items in the national household surveys
and other sources of information. If
international comparability of income-based
poverty measurements is to be attained, there
needs to be a minimum agreement on the limits and
content of the notion of income.
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Table 2 Operational definitions of deprivation
for children
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At least two important decisions should be
adopted.   The first is to start with a regional
or sub regional comparison, as has been the case
of the European Union and ECLAC, or to start
since the beginning with a worldwide
approach.   The second is to favor an
international statistical instrument for
information gathering, such as a special survey,
or to favor transformations of available
instruments.
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Poverty dynamics

• Types of questions
• For how long is an individual poor
• What are the origins of poverty. Is it inherited?
• What are the effects of policies
• Statistical instrument Longitudinal surveys

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Strategies for the improvement of information

• New Demand Options
• 1 Use existing instruments( many times not being
  used)
• 2 Modify existing instruments
• 3 Create new instruments

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Some strategies

• Eurostat
• Eclac
• Australian

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