Targeting Policies for Multidimensional Poverty and Social Fragility Relief Among Migrants in Italy, Using F-FOD Analysis

Abstract

In this paper, we apply the novel Fuzzy First-Order Dominance (F-FOD) methodology to rank migrant subpopulations in Lombardy (Italy), in terms of multidimensional poverty and social fragility, for the year 2014, with the purpose to possibly provide useful support to policy-makers, in targeting relief interventions from poverty and discomfort. The F-FOD methodology allows for the direct comparison of different distributions of poverty and fragility, assessed by means of suitable ordinal multi-indicator systems, so extending to this more complex setting, the usual univariate first-order dominance criterion. It also provides complimentary “incomparability” scores, to assess to what extent the final rankings are reliable or instead forcing. It turns out that the levels of poverty and fragility of migrant subpopulations are quite different and, in particular, that the time since migrations has a key impact, on the identification of most critical cases, which typically involve recently migrated people. Evidence also emerges that the temporal poverty/fragility trajectories of migrants, distinguished by country of origin, follow different paths, suggesting how policy interventions must be properly, and differently, tuned to be effective.

Measurement and difference analysis of multidimensional poverty of floating population

“…In Lombardy (Italy), Rimoldi et al (2021) used the innovative Fuzzy First-Order Dominance (F-FOD) methodology to rank migrant subpopulations in terms of multidimensional poverty and social fragility in 2014. The F-FOD methodology enables for direct comparison of alternative poverty and fragility distributions, as measured by appropriate ordinal multi-indicator systems, thereby extending the standard univariate first-order dominance criterion to this more complicated environment.…”

“…In Lombardy (Italy), Rimoldi et al. (2021) used the innovative Fuzzy First-Order Dominance (F-FOD) methodology to rank migrant subpopulations in terms of multidimensional poverty and social fragility in 2014.…”

Some Critical Reflections on the Measurement of Social Sustainability and Well-Being in Complex Societies

“…Indeed, the relevance of partial orders in social measurement is rooted in their capacity of capturing both the vertical dimension (comparability) and horizontal dimension (incomparability) of social phenomena. The first is linked to the concept of "intensity", the second to their multi-faceted nature, to be considered as a key feature to be preserved in their description, rather than as a form of noise to be discarded (for examples of applications in this spirit, see [20,[24][25][26]). q q q q q q q q 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q 1 2 3 q q q q q q q q 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q q 1 2 3 4 The use of partial orders in social measurement is an example of the Representational Theory of Measurement, introduced at the beginning of the paper.…”

“…To this goal, neither the fragmented view provided by elementary indicators, nor the artificial aggregation of them into composites prove useful and expressive. Pursuing social sustainability and well-being requires "average" indicators to be complemented with indicators capable to resolve differences, render nuances and recognize patterns, so as to adapt policies efficiently (think, for example, to the different forms of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion, which necessarily require different contrasting actions, to be properly addressed [20]). In between elementary indicators and aggregations, social indicators should provide structural syntheses, overcoming the "synthesis-as-aggregation" paradigm, in favor of the "synthesis-as-stylization" point of view.…”