Differentiating Between Dimensionality and Duration in Multidimensional Measures of Poverty: Methodology with an Application to China

Abstract

We develop a multidimensional poverty measure that is sensitive to the within‐individual distribution of deprivations across dimensions and time. Our measure combines features from a static multidimensional measure (Alkire and Foster, ) and a time‐dependent unidimensional measure (Foster, ). The proposed measure separately identifies—and can therefore be decomposed according to—the proportion of the poverty score attributable to: (i) the concentration of deprivations within periods; (ii) the concentration of deprivations within dimensions. In doing so it allows for a poverty ranking that is robust to assumptions about the trade‐off between the two components. Previous measures have not allowed for the features proposed here due to the inability to calculate the exact contribution of each dimension to overall poverty. We overcome this by adapting to our measure the Shapley decomposition proposed in Shorrocks () (based on Shapley, ). The measure is applied to data from China, 2000‐2011.

The Analysis of Well‐Being Using the Income‐Adjusted Multidimensional Synthesis of Indicators: The Case of China

“…The economic literature on Chinese multidimensional development (Labar and Bresson, 2011; Ray and Mishra, 2012; Alkire and Shen, 2017; Bin, 2016; Feng et al ., 2016; Nicholas et al ., 2017; You et al ., 2018) has often adopted a dichotomous (and therefore discontinuous) notion of poverty where individuals are either regarded as “poor” or “non‐poor,” rather than opting for a measure where the notion of poverty is defined as a continuous (latent) variable. According to this literature, inequalities have expanded, and multidimensional poverty persists despite economic growth (Sicular et al ., 2007; Ray and Mishra, 2012; Li et al ., 2013; Ward, 2014; Alkire and Shen, 2017).…”

“…A recent study by Nicholas et al . (2017), for example, seeks to decompose poverty according to the proportion of deprivation attributable to specific time‐periods and particular dimensions of poverty. This study identifies large urban–rural disparities, coastal/inner gaps, high blood pressure levels, lack of education and drinking water issues as key drivers of multidimensional and recurring poverty.…”

“…The CHNS database has been used in several studies and contains information relevant for different fields, including some analyses of multidimensional poverty and well‐being (Labar and Bresson, 2011; Qi and Wu, 2015; Nicholas et al ., 2017). The 2015 dataset allows us to obtain information on several individual and household well‐being domains and other characteristics such as gender, age, residence area (rural/urban, East/Centre/West region), and the possession of internal urban passports (hukou).…”

“…Firstly, China has played a central role in worldwide poverty reduction. The second, related reason, is the surge in inequalities, which includes growing income disparities as well as other inequalities emerging at the individual and household levels (Ward, 2014; Nicholas et al ., 2017; Biggeri and Bortolotti 2020). Thirdly, Chinese policymakers are increasingly interested in multidimensionality (Feng et al, 2016; Xue et al ., 2018).…”

Do socioeconomic health gradients persist over time and beyond income? A distributional analysis using UK biomarker data

“…The few papers incorporating dynamic disadvantage (Gradín et al, 2018, Dutta et al, 2013, D'Ambrosio, 2016 either only accounts for breadth (i.e., number of domains) (Foster, 2009) or accounts for duration (i.e., number of years) (D'Ambrosio et al, 2012) of deprivation, albeit mostly in unidimensional context (Dutta et al, 2013). Studies that account for both breadth and duration of deprivation (Alkire et al, 2017) do not account for persistence (i.e., the approach proposed by Nicholas et al (2019)), and the ones that do account for persistence of deprivation do not distinguish between breadth and duration aspects of deprivation (i.e., the approach proposed by Nicholas and Ray (2012)). Thus, there has not been any study that accounts for persistence while simultaneously dierentiating between breadth and duration of deprivation in multiple domains.…”