Rethinking poverty: Definition and measurement

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

93 Scopus citations

Abstract

Researchers have made tremendous efforts in defining and measuring poverty using three broadly construed approaches - economic well-being, capability, and social exclusion. While these approaches have been remarkably useful in understanding poverty across societies and over time, each approach has evolved to be so complex that its proponents do not even consider it worthwhile to manoeuvre its integration with other approaches. Because poverty is related to the issue of overall human well-being, neither of the economic well-being, capability, and social exclusion concepts has meaningfully covered all of the aspects of poverty. It has now become extremely important to integrate these approaches and undertake poverty studies with appropriate indicators to produce more meaningful findings. I argue, in this article, that this resulting, integrative approach would enrich our understanding with regard to what is important in assessing whether someone is poor and in identifying what really makes one poor.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)155-165
Number of pages11
JournalInternational Social Science Journal
Volume54
Issue number171
DOIs
StatePublished - 2002
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Social Sciences

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