Poverty Measurement debates

Poverty has not always been the prime concern of the ‘development community’. In the 1950s and 1960s, the main objective was economic growth. Recognising that growth alone had not eliminated poverty, a series of poverty-reducing strategies were adopted in the 1970s, including Basic Needs Strategies. But these concerns were again forgotten in the 1980s when stabilisation and adjustment policies and the advance of the market dominated official discourse and policies. The poor economic performance and sharp rise in poverty in many countries in the 1980s led to renewed interest in poverty.

Following the World Bank’s 1990 World Development Report on poverty, poverty reduction once more became central to the development agenda. In the early 1990s, the World Bank President, Lewis Preston, declared that 'poverty is the benchmark against which we must be judged'. On the one hand, there is acknowledgement of multidimensionality of poverty, on the other hand, in practice, the monetary approach mostly retains its dominance in descriptions and analysis, both nationally and internationally. Clarification of how poverty is defined is extremely important as different definitions of poverty imply the use of different indicators for measurement; they may lead to the identification of different individuals and groups as poor and require different policy solutions for poverty reduction.

One approach, justified on political or moral grounds is to define the poverty line at a level for people to realise a full or decent life, or more ambitiously a good society. That includes rights based approaches to poverty and measures of capability approaches, but not in monetary approach (eg Ravallion 1998).

The threshold between the poor and non-poor should be sensitive to the characteristics of the overall population. At one extreme, the poverty line is defined with reference to the overall distribution (for EU the poverty line is set at 60% of the median of ‘equivalised’ income). At the other extreme a poverty line is set on the basis of some needs of the individual essential for survival which can not be irrespective to societal standards. From a political point of view, a relative standard makes sense as people’s toleration of poverty and governments’ willingness to take action against it is generally relative to average standards in that society. It’s also true that the sense of deprivation or unhappiness caused by poverty is greatly influenced by average societal standards.

Political Capital

‘Political capital’ is increasingly recognised as the missing dimension of the sustainable livelihoods framework, and as one potential remedy to the limited use of political analysis in studies of development and poverty. To a large extent, political capital is proposed as a means of overcoming some of the problems of using ‘social capital’ as a catch-all concept for explaining the importance of non-material factors in poverty. For example, John Booth and Patricia Richard [1998: 782] argue that in order for associational activism to have political significance, it needs to go beyond social capital and "foster attitudes and behaviors that actually influence regimes in some way". Carole Rakodi makes a case for political capital because of "the significance attached to powerlessness in the poor’s own definitions of poverty" [1999: 334], and defines it as "based on access to decision-making" in the political process [ibid. 318]. As yet, studies of political capital have tended to dwell on the links between political capital and poverty reduction, rather than those between low levels of political capital and poverty itself, chronic or otherwise.

Following the distinction between structural and instrumental types of political capital, a number of key researchable variables emerge;

- Structural political capital

Political party system/level of competitiveness
Political ideologies
Freedom/presence of the press
Political openness
Devolution/decentralisation
Political relevance of poverty problems in political decision-making
Participatory elements in political decision-making
Level of state institutionalisation
Discretionary administrative authority
‘Perverse political capital’: institutions of repression, ‘money-politics’, vote-buying, patron-client links
The political settlement: the balance of power that enables the definition of a structure of rights
Political accountability
Political leadership

- Instrumental political capital/political capital as an asset


Political and civil rights (e.g. of association, voting)
Rights over natural resources
Disruptive leverage (rallies, protests, cultural ‘weapons of the weak’)
Access to press
Access to decision-making processes
Use of scientific knowledge and ideological resources in political discourse
Level of associational participation
Contacts/links with public officials
International resources that can be used in local and national political processes (financial resources, international conventions)


Researching political capital: Methods

Macro- and meso-level research is clearly required at the level of ‘structural’ political capital. One study of political capital used large-scale cross-sectional survey data of six Central American countries, focusing on items relating to political participation, political attitudes and values, and democratic norms (which includes the willingness to extend the rights of participation to others, and the willingness to grant political rights to disliked groups [Booth and Richard 1998: 784-5]. The UNDP’s ‘Political freedom index’ could also be of use here, as could its work on making the links between human rights and development [UNDP 2000].
One community level study used newspaper-based and documentary research, along with key informant interviews, in the context of specific case-studies [Birner and Wittner 2000]. Similarly, Baumann [2000: 13] conducted in-depth village level studies, using a mixture of quantitative data (e.g. benefits of participation to households), and qualitative individual and group interviews.
Some of the methods used to explore levels of social capital at community level may also be appropriate [DFID Guidance sheets]. For example, social mapping could be adapted to ‘political mapping’ of people’s access to decision-making institutions, while timelines could be used to track changing levels of political capital, particularly in relation to wider events (e.g. elections, constitutional change).
Participatory methods have also been used to explore peoples rights over resources, women access to rights and so on [Slocum et al 1995, Appendices].


Social Exclusion

The importance of social networks for provision of informal insurance and support mechanisms have been marked out in the study of multidimensional poverty. In comparison to other poverty debates, social exclusion can be strongly linked to notions of ‘relative poverty’, Amartya Sen’s work on ‘entitlements’ and the ‘vulnerability’ approach. Social exclusion attempts to analyse the political nature of deprivation, in that it examines the links between people’s exclusion from political communities – i.e. a lack of citizenship status – and their levels of poverty. ‘Political’ aspects of exclusion include the denial of political rights such as political participation and the right to organise, and also of personal security, the rule of law, freedom of expression and equality of opportunity (Bhalla and Lapeyere 1997: 420). For Silver (1994: 543), "exclusion arises from the interplay of class, status and political power" in a way that benefits the included. It has been noted for example that SE is ‘.. a dynamic process, best described as descending levels: some disadvantages lead to some exclusion, which in turn leads to more disadvantages and more exclusion and ends up with persistent multiple (deprivation) disadvantages’ which can pave the way into becoming poor.

SE generally is found to have a strong connection with monetary poverty. For example, lack of monetary income is both an outcome of SE (arising from lack of employment) and a cause (e.g. of social isolation and low wealth). And is often a characteristics of groups – the aged, handicapped, racial or ethnic categories - rather than pertaining to individuals. The precise characteristics of SE tend to be society-specific, since they identify exclusion from normal activities. In industrial countries the indicators adopted in empirical work normally include unemployment, access to housing, minimal income, citizenship, democratic rights, and social contacts. A further complication is that exclusion is part of the social system in some societies, as with women in Islamic societies. In developing countries under restrained governance integration requires employment and a guaranteed source of income, where other categories are also included such as informal sector workers and the homeless. A key argument implied by the concept of social exclusion is that exclusion has replaced exploitation as the main process by which people are impoverished, or "actively underdeveloped" (Byrne 1999: 44-59). To study SE three methodological approaches have so far been adopted in the country case-studies, focusing on rights, groups, and institutions respectively (ILO 1996: 17).

Researching social exclusion: Methods

De Haan [1999 11-12] argues that social exclusion can be measured in quantitative terms, and the following approaches have so far been taken:
Bhalla and Lapeyre [1997: 426] suggest using the UNDP’s political freedom index, which incorporates personal security, rule of law, freedom of expression, political participation and equality of opportunity, may serve as a proxy indicator for the political dimension of exclusion. Quantitative measures of participation and citizenship rights (voter registration, educational enrolment, land ownership) are sometimes available.
The UNDP 1998 Human Development Report operationalised social exclusion as a key concept for its study of high-income countries, and examined levels of unemployment [UNDP 1998].
More generally, Silver [1998] suggests a number of approaches to monitoring social exclusion, and also see Room 1995, Lee and Murie 1999.

Coding and analysis

The researcher can choose how to analyse output of the focus group discussions. This might be qualitative, ethnographic, or based on systematic content coding. Even when using a systematic coding method it is a mistake to use focus groups as though they were questionnaire surveys, and to try to use the results to generate quantitative findings. The group members are not randomly selected, they are purposively selected and too small a number to generate statistically valid findings. In addition, the responses given may be influenced by ‘the experimenter effect’ whereby respondents tell the researcher what they think s/he wants to hear and by ‘the conformity effect’ whereby the group norms influences what is and is not said. The best approach to analysing focus group results appears to be thematic.

Most methods of analysis are based on transcriptions of the focus group discussion. The researcher will need to decide whether these notes need to be verbatim or summarised against pre-determined criteria. Researchers may simply wish to extract selected comments, and use selected material to generate short case studies to illustrate findings generated using other methods. This loses a lot of detail, but the detailed coding and analysis of the output from focus group discussions can be very time consuming due to the quantity of detailed information and the diversity of opinions (Sherraden, 2001), and researchers may instead choose to use only some of the information the discussions generate.

Researchers can choose between two systematic approaches:
1) the coded key word approach, or
2) searching the text for particular phrases or words.

This latter approach is often taken by ethnographic research, but the coded key word technique allows for more precision in identifying comments and does not risk "losing" a comment merely because your search for particular words fails to pick up phrases with a similar meaning. Risks of this increase where your ‘population’ includes individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, as their language patterns and choices of words may be highly varied.

The coded key word approach involves reading the focus group notes thoroughly and assigning a code/ key word to each comment in order to identify themes or categories within the text. Coding sets the stage for systematic analysis of focus group comments through the application of a "text management" or "ethnographic retrieval" program. CAQDAS – computer assisted qualitative data analysis software – can be used to support data analysis. GoFer, NUD*IST, Ethnograph, CODE-A-TEXT. The GoFer (as in "go for this and go for that") program has been found it to be very suitable for analysing and summarising focus group records. It permits work on multiple files of several thousand pages simultaneously. GoFer will operate on raw text or on coded text, applying logical operations of "and," "or," or "nearby." It will produce a count of instances in which the desired combinations occur, and it will, if desired, show each one on the screen and allow transfer to another document. GoFer is a "resident" program, i.e., it can operate simultaneously with a word processing program. This makes it ideal for counting types of comments and locating examples for illustration. CODE-A-TEXT can be used with digitised sound files, instead of transcribing and coding the written material. Coding, ‘memoing’ and analysis can be done in the software while listening to the sound file. CODE-A-TEXT can also be used for content analysis with transcribed data.



Sources:

Oxfam, Influencing Poverty Reduction strategy: A Guide

C. R. Laderchi, R. Saith and F. Stewart, Does it matter that we don't agree on the definition of poverty?, QEH Oxford University, 2003

http://www.chronicpoverty.org/CPToolbox/Quantitativeanalysis.htm