Measuring poverty within the household

Abstract

Poverty is an individual-level concept but typically measured using household-level data. Standard household per capita consumption measures do not account for inequality within the household or economies of scale in consumption, which may be important. Collecting individual-level consumption data on a large scale is challenging and costly. The collective household model provides a promising framework to measure poverty at the individual level that only requires data on one private assignable good. Results suggest that standard poverty measures may dramatically understate the poverty status of certain individuals (e.g. women and children), and that many poor individuals reside in non-poor households. ELEVATOR PITCHA key element of anti-poverty policy is the accurate identification of poor individuals. However, measuring poverty at the individual level is difficult since consumption data are typically collected at the household level. Per capita measures based on household-level data ignore both inequality within the household and economies of scale in consumption. The collective household model offers an alternative and promising framework to estimate poverty at the individual level while accounting for both inequality within the household and economies of scale in consumption.

Poverty among same-sex couple families in the United States: Is there a premium for married couples?

“…In dealing with the effect of sexual orientation on poverty, this paper has focused on same-sex couples, whereas the analysis for bisexual or transgender individuals goes beyond its scope. Future research should delve deeper into the extent of poverty among unpartnered individuals and address how inequality within the household affects sexual minorities (Brown et al 2022). It would also be interesting to explore whether our findings remain when using alternative data sets because the poverty indices that consider poverty intensity are highly sensitive to the quality of income data, especially for very low incomes.…”