The Individual Deprivation Measure: A Gender-Sensitive Approach to Multidimensional Poverty Measurement

Abstract

The relationship between poverty and gender is complex and deeply embedded in the values and institutions that determine patterns of access to and control over social and material resources. Any measurement of poverty that fails to take this into account is fundamentally flawed. Yet the dominant approach to poverty measurement, which is based on income, is particularly insensitive to gender as it fails to illuminate either the conditions under which income is earned or the extent to which individuals can control the money they earn. In contrast, the recently developed Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) is sensitive to multiple dimensions of poverty and uses the individual, not the household, as the unit of analysis.