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. 2007 Jun;25(2):134-45.

A multidimensional approach to measure poverty in rural Bangladesh

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A multidimensional approach to measure poverty in rural Bangladesh

Abbas Bhuiya et al. J Health Popul Nutr. 2007 Jun.

Abstract

Poverty is increasingly being understood as a multidimensional phenomenon. Other than income-consumption, which has been extensively studied in the past, health, education, shelter, and social involvement are among the most important dimensions of poverty. The present study attempts to develop a simple tool to measure poverty in its multidimensionality where it views poverty as an inadequate fulfillment of basic needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, health, education, and social involvement. The scale score ranges between 72 and 24 and is constructed in such a way that the score increases with increasing level of poverty. Using various techniques, the study evaluates the poverty-measurement tool and provides evidence for its reliability and validity by administering it in various areas of rural Bangladesh. The reliability coefficients, such as test-retest coefficient (0.85) and Cronbach's alpha (0.80) of the tool, were satisfactorily high. Based on the socioeconomic status defined by the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) exercise, the level of poverty identified by the scale was 33% in Chakaria, 26% in Matlab, and 32% in other rural areas of the country. The validity of these results was tested against some traditional methods of identifying the poor, and the association of the scores with that of the traditional indicators, such as ownership of land and occupation, asset index (r=0.72), and the wealth ranking obtained from the PRA exercise, was consistent. A statistically significant inverse relationship of the poverty scores with the socioeconomic status was observed in all cases. The scale also allowed the absolute level of poverty to be measured, and in the present study, the highest percentage of absolute poor was found in terms of health (44.2% in Chakaria, 36.4% in Matlab, and 39.1% in other rural areas), followed by social exclusion (35.7% in Chakaria, 28.5% in Matlab, and 22.3% in other rural areas), clothing (6.2% in Chakaria, 8.3% in Matlab, and 20% in other rural areas), education (14.7% in Chakaria, 8% in Matlab, and 16.8% in other rural areas), food (7.8% in Chakaria, 2.9% in Matlab and 3% in other rural areas), and shelter (0.8% in Chakaria, 1.4% in Matlab, and 3.7% in other rural areas). This instrument will also prove itself invaluable in assessing the individual effects of poverty-alleviation programmes or policies on all these different dimensions.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Scatter plot of total poverty score and asset-based score obtained by simple summation, Chakaria, 2002
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Scatter plot of poverty index and asset index obtained through principal component analysis, Chakaria, 2002

References

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    1. World Bank. World development report 2000/2001: attacking poverty. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2000. pp. 15–23.
    1. World Bank. Topics in development: poverty (http://www.worldbank.org/topic, accessed on 6 November 2004).
    1. Sen B. Poverty in Bangladesh: a review (http://www.sdnbd.org/sdi/issues/poverty/links.htm, accessed on 12 January 2004).
    1. Sen AK. Poverty: an ordinal approach to measurement. Econometrica. 1976;44:213–9.

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