What is poverty?

What is poverty?


The question of the definition and measurement of poverty and
inequality is very complex.
Without going into technical details here, which was not
unimportant, it should be noted that both poverty and the
inequality are normally measured in terms of income,
although other dimensions, only weakly related to income, may
be relevant. In this regard it is significant that for some years
use indicators, such as 'human development' proposed by
United Nations, more complex and more
suitable to capture the multidimensionality of the phenomenon of poverty.
You should also remember the distinction between poverty in the sense
absolute and in relative poverty that, if neglected,
  could lead to serious misunderstandings. To detect the absolute poverty
are fixed consumption levels that meet the minimum needs,
indicating the composition of the basket of goods in the various chapters of
expenses (food, clothing, housing, health care) under
which is a situation of poverty that would compromise
subsistence and physical efficiency.
It identifies, then, income equal to the cost of the basket of goods
necessary for this purpose. People who enjoy an income
below this level are considered poor. Poverty is
then stated, as a rule, the number of people in absolute or
proportion of the population have incomes below the level of
'Subsistence' (headcount method). Estimates of the number of poor
are particularly sensitive to the poverty line. Often, in
international comparisons, it is fixed at the level of $ 1 a day such
line (and ignores the fact that the purchasing power of a dollar is
very different in different areas): it is, as is obvious, a
line extremely low.
The other measure of poverty, the relative rests on the assumption
that the necessities of life - and the state of poverty, which does not allow
satisfy them - are inherently related concepts, as well as
multidimensional. If there is general agreement on the nature
relative concept of poverty, there is a discrepancy on the methods of
measurement of relative poverty. In principle, consider
poverty in relative terms implies comparison in a given
at a given time and place between the income of certain individuals (or families)
and that of other individuals (or families). A first way to make
this comparison is to relate the income of each of the
average or median income of the community to which they belong. you can
then establish that, if the ratio is less than a given value
(eg, 50%), a situation arises poverty (relative).
The notion of absolute poverty and in particular the one based
on the availability of $ 1 per day are as rigid distinction
been leveled several criticisms.
An aspect that should be emphasized is the following: using
the concept of absolute poverty is possible that, at least in a horizon
not very short time, the definition of who is poor dumb in
function of external changes, beginning with those related to
overall economic growth. This implies, in other words, that if
  a country or region as a whole knew much growth
supported this would not affect in any way the criterion used
to identify the poor and this would make it much more likely that
the effect of the overall growth is to reduce the number of
poor.
In recognition of the global poverty definition
normally adopted on the basis of studies conducted by various bodies
United Nations and especially the World Bank, consists of
the number of people living on less than $ 1 (or, even, of
$ 2) per day, calculated in terms of power parity
Purchase (PPA).