Chapter 2. Concepts of Poverty

Author: Sen, Amartya

Source: Poverty and Famines, January 1983 , pp. 9-24(16)

Publisher: Oxford Scholarship Online Monographs

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Abstract:

Problems in the conceptualization and measurement of poverty are discussed. Two requirements are identified as (1) a method of identifying a group of people as poor (identification), and (2) a method of aggregating the characteristics of the set of poor people into an overall image of poverty (aggregation). As a foundation for these exercises, a study is made of the kinds of approaches that can be used. These include the biological (minimum nutritional requirement) and inequality approaches to poverty, the concept of relative deprivation, value judgement, policy definition, common standards for comparisons between communities, and the relative scaling of deprivation as a means of aggregation.

Keywords: nutritional requirement; common standards; deprivation; conceptualization; inequality; methodology; poverty; identification; aggregation; definition

Document Type: Research article

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