Measuring multidimensional poverty using households surveys

Abstract

This article presents a discussion on one main aspect of the process of designing a multidimensional poverty measure: the selection of the dimensions for which deprivation would be evaluated. A wider goal of this ongoing research is to propose a multidimensional poverty measure that could be applied to official data drawn from existing household surveys. Thus, it is important to emphasize the limitations faced as a result of resting only on data coming from statistical sources that have not been specifically designed for measuring multidimensional poverty. To discuss such issue, alternative estimations for Argentina employing two available household surveys have been carried out, using some methodological criteria that gives evidence on how appropriate the used variables are.