Defining and measuring vulnerability: State of the art and new proposals

Abstract

Life in developing countries often is marked by poverty and risk. Prominent studies such as Voices of the Poor: Crying Out for Change (Narayan et al., 2000) acquaint their readers with the daily struggle faced by poor households that try to escape their hardship in the face of recurring illness, natural disasters and other hazards. In the absence of well-functioning credit and insurance markets - a distressing reality in most developing countries -exposure to these adverse events renders households highly vulnerable. This can affect not only households who were poor to start with and who might face utter destitution as a result of adverse shocks, but also non-poor households who can fall back into poverty, and thus also need to be considered in an analysis of vulnerability to poverty.