IAOS-OECD 2018 conference, 19-21 September 2018, Paris. More information at: http://www.oecd.org/iaos2018/

1. Paris, September 19 – 21, 2018
Global Multidimensional
Poverty Index in Jordan
Maha Dawas
Department of Statistic
Head of Poverty Statistic Division
Jordan

2. Introduction
The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative
(OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development
Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) launched in July 2010 a new poverty measure that
gives a “multidimensional” picture of people living in poverty
which its creators say could help target development resources
more effectively.

3. What is the global MPI?
The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an
international measure of acute poverty covering over 100
developing countries. It complements traditional income-
based poverty measures by capturing the severe
deprivations that each person faces at the same time with
respect to education, health and living standards.

4. What does the global MPI measure
 The MPI uses 10 indicators to measure three critical dimensions of
poverty at the household level: education, health and living standard in 104
developing countries.
The MPI also reflects the intensity of poverty – the sum of weighted
deprivations that each household faces at the same time. A person who is
deprived in 70% of the indicators is clearly worse off than someone who is
deprived in 40% of the indicators.

5. Dimensions, Indicators and Weight of MPI

6. Dimension Indicator Deprived if….. Weight
Education
Years of Schools
No household member aged 10 years or older has completed five
years of schooling. 1/6
Child School
Attendance
Any school - age child is not attending school up to the age at
which he/she would complete class 8. 1/6
Health
Child Mortality
Any child has died in the family in the five-year period preceding
the survey. 1/6
Nutrition
Any adult under 70 years of age or any child for whom there is
nutritional information is undernourished in terms of weight for
age.
1/6
Living
Standard
Electricity The household has no electricity. 1/18
Improved Sanitation
The household’s sanitation facility is not improved is improved but
shared with other households. 1/18
Improved Drinking
Water
The household does not have access to improved drinking water
(according to MDG guidelines) or safe drinking water is at least a
30-minute walk from home, round trip. 1/18
Flooring
The household has a dirt, sand, dung, or ‘other’ (unspecified)
type of floor. 1/18
Cooking Fuel The household cooks with dung, wood, or charcoal. 1/18
Assets Ownership
The household does not own more than one of these assets: radio,
TV, telephone, bicycle, motorbike, or refrigerator, and does not
own a car or truck.
1/18

7. How to Apply the Alkire Foster Method
11 Steps to a Multidimensional Poverty Measure:
Step 1: Choose Unit of Analysis. The unit of analysis
is most commonly an individual or household but
could also be a community, school, clinic, firm,
district, or other unit.
Step 2: Choose Dimensions.
Step3: Choose Indicators. Indicators are chosen for
each dimension on the principles of accuracy (using as
many indicators as necessary so that analysis can
properly guide policy).

8. Step 4: Set Poverty Lines. A poverty cutoff is set for each
dimension. This step establishes the first cutoff in the
methodology. Every person can then be identified as
deprived or non deprived with respect to each dimension.
Step 5: Count the Number of Deprivations for Each
Person.
Step 6: Set the Second Cutoff. Assuming equal weights for
simplicity, set a second identification cutoff, k, which gives
the number of dimensions in which a person must be
deprived in order to be considered multidimensionally
poor.
Count./

9. Step 7: Apply Cutoff k to Obtain the Set of Poor
Persons and Censor All Non poor Data. The focus is
now on the profile of the poor and the dimensions in
which they are deprived. All information on the non
poor is replaced with zeros (0).
Step 8: Calculate the Headcount, H. Divide the
number of poor people by the total number of people.
Step 9: Calculate the Average Poverty Gap, A. A is
the average number of deprivations a poor person
suffers.
Count./

10. Step 10: Calculate the Adjusted Headcount, M0.
Multidimensional poverty is measured by the adjusted
headcount, M0, which is calculated as H times A. Headcount
poverty is multiplied by the „average‟ number of dimensions in
which all poor people are deprived to reflect the breadth of
deprivations.
Step 11: Decompose by Group and Break Down by Dimension.
The adjusted headcount M0 can be decomposed by population
subgroup (such as region, rural/ urban, or ethnicity). After
constructing M0 for each subgroup of the sample, we can break
M0 apart to study the contribution of each dimension to overall
poverty.
Count./

11. Source of Data
The data used for MPI modeling are
from the DHS Survey for Jordan,
collected in 2009 and 2012.

12. 8/27/201812
Key Finding

13. 8/27/201813
Multidimensional
Poverty Index
(MPI=H*A)
Percentage of Poor People (H)
)K = 33.3%(
Average Intensity Across the
Poor(A)
0.006 1.7% 35.0%
Table show that Jordan‟s multidimensional poverty rate for 2012 is
1.7 per cent of the population. The average intensity of deprivation,
which reflects the share of deprivations each poor person
experiences on average, is 35 per cent. Since MPI is the product of
the percentage of poor people (H) and the average intensity of
poverty (A), it yields an index of 0.006, which shows that poor
people in Jordan experience 6/10th of the deprivations that would be
experienced if all people were deprived in all indicators.

14. 8/27/201814
Region MPI = (H*A)
H (Incidence )
K = 33.3%
A (Intensity)
Central 0.005 1.6% 34.9%
North 0.006 1.8% 35.5%
South 0.008 2.2% 34.2%

15. Urban/Rural MPI = (H*A)
H (Incidence )
K = 33.3% A (Intensity)
Urban 0.006 1.7% 34.7%
Rural 0.007 1.8% 36.2%

16. Time period
Region
MPIT HT (Incidence ) AT (Intensity)
2007
National
0.013 3.6 35.5
2009 0.011 3.1 34.6
2007
Urban
0.012 3.4 35.0
2009 0.010 2.8 34.5
2007
Rural
0.017 4.5 37.1
2009 0.015 4.3 34.9

17. Comparative Poverty Measures
1.7%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
MPI (H) 2012 National poverty line 2010
14.4%
Poverty Measure
ProportionofPopulation