Perceptions of poverty. The historical legacy

Abstract

The legacy of past perceptions of poverty and its causes have been embodied in many core approaches to measure it. In turn, the way poverty is identified and quantified, particularly in money metric terms and using poverty datum lines, has influenced how governments have tried to deal with the problem. In particular, the focus of attention on inadequacy of income rather than satisfactory social functioning has led to the adoption of solutions emphasising economic growth without sufficient attention being paid to the distributional aspects of that growth and the multi-facetted dimensions of poverty.