Poverty is defined as a denial of choices and opportunities, impacting individuals' dignity and ability to participate in society. It can be understood through absolute poverty, which refers to a consistent standard of severe deprivation, and relative poverty, which depends on social context and income inequality. Measurement remains challenging; while the Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index attempts to offer a more comprehensive view, issues with data persist, and all countries have individuals experiencing poverty.

1. Defining and Measuring Poverty
• Absolute Poverty
• Relative Poverty
• Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index

2. Defining Poverty
“Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of
human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in
society. It means not having enough to feed and cloth a family, not having a
school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a
job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity,
powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It
means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile
environments, without access to clean water or sanitation”
(UN Statement, June 1998 – signed by the heads of all UN agencies)

3. Have a think about that definition:
Q1. Which countries in the world have no poverty
whatsoever by this definition?

4. We need to consider
Developed world poverty Developing world poverty

5. Two ways to think about poverty
Absolute Poverty
Absolute poverty refers to a set
standard which is consistent over
time and between countries.
Relative Poverty
Relative poverty views poverty as
socially defined and dependent
on social context, hence relative
poverty is a measure of income
inequality. Usually, relative
poverty is measured as the
percentage of population with
income less than some fixed
proportion of median income.

6. Poverty is…….
A very complicated
phenomenon that is inherently
problematic to measure

7. Defining Absolute Poverty
World Summit on Social Development in
Copenhagen in 1995,
Absolute poverty was defined as
"a condition characterized by severe deprivation
of basic human needs, including food, safe
drinking water, sanitation facilities, health,
shelter, education and information. It depends not
only on income but also on access to services."

8. Measuring Absolute Poverty
Absolute poverty is often measured in very simplistic ways (such as the number of
people living on less than $2 a day) in order to allow easy comparisons between
countries and to see trends over time. However such measurements are of little practical use in
MEDC countries and do not measure absolute poverty as defined by World Summit on Social
Development on the previous slide.
In an attempt to develop a more robust and relevant measure of absolute poverty the UN
created the Multi Dimensional Poverty Index in 2010.
This measurement of poverty is in principal far superior to less sophisticated measures but
seriously handicapped by a lack of data

9. The Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index
(MPI)

10. The Significance of Measurement

11. The Significance of Measurement
Poor places can have less poverty and rich places can have more
poverty
Poverty and marginalization are products of both economic
and societal factors

12. Summary
• Marginalization is the process of being relegated to an unimportant or
powerless position within society or a group.
• This is effectively relegating them to the periphery of society
• People in poverty are marginalized
• Poverty is hard to define and even harder to measure
• Nations are probably less inclined to measure poverty than
development
• Every country in the world has people in poverty.