Registration is now open for the Bristol Poverty Institute's 6th Townsend Memorial Conference on 27-29 April 2021 (online). The conference will focus on how the UN Social Development Goals can help eradicate poverty around the world in a sustainable way.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Steering Group on Measuring Poverty and Inequality has been tasked with producing a guide on Measuring Social Exclusion which references a lot of our PSE work.
The latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report finds that those who had been struggling to make ends meet before the pandemic have suffered the most financial damage during the crisis,
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the stark implication os the millions of children across the African continent trapped in poverty. In 'What works for Africa's poorest children', Practical Action bring together cutting edge examples on what can be done.
The final report by UN special rapporteur, Philip Alston, argues that there has been a failure to tackle extreme poverty. Condemning the reliance on the World Bank's line, he calls for its replacement with measures based on an adequate standard of living.
An overview of the various global and regional analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on poverty from the Global Coalition to End Child Poverty finds that millions more will be pushed into extreme poverty worldwide.
The implementation of the consensual method of multi-dimensional poverty measurement is simple and straight forward. It uses a representative sample survey; this can be attached as a module to existing national surveys, if desired. The survey has two main aims. First, to identify a range of socially-perceived necessities - items, activities and services that no-one should have to do without. And second to identify those who have an 'enforced lack' of the item or activity - that is they go without these items because they cannot afford them or do not have access to them. Only those who have an enforced lack of a socially perceived necessity are seen as deprived. The survey therefore has three key questions:
Is an item a necessity? Do you have it? If not, why not? Identifying socially perceived necessitiesThese items and activities cover (as appropriate for the society in which the survey is being conducted):
National proportions of deprived children vary hugely across EU countries, from 5 to 10% in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Slovenia to around 70% in Bulgaria and Romania. Read more about the new European Union child deprivation index - adopted in 2018.
The EU has revised its material deprivation index from the existing 9-item to a new 13-item index following analysis of data from around 50 material deprivation items, derived from the UK Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey indicators and collected in EU-SILC 2009. Read more about the analyses behind this new index.
A new study using a combined income and material deprivation poverty line found that around 10% of the child population in South Korea are in poverty. This is twice the rate of the official Korean child poverty rate which is based only on household income and suggests that conventional income only measures insufficiently identify poor children.