Conceptions of Poverty Comparing classifications of people

Conceptions of PovertyComparing classifications of people Mariano Rojas FLACSO-México & UPAEP New Directions in Welfare Economics, Paris July 6-8, 2011

Concepts and Conceptions • Concept • A vague and general idea • An umbrella concept • Conception • Substance given to the concept • A specific understanding • Historical and regional • May change over time and across cultures

Concepts and Conceptions • Conceptions and its measurement • Easy task for concrete single human attributes • Height, Weight, Hunger, Pain, Frustration, Failure • Difficult task for non-concrete and multiple human attributes • Constructed • This is the case of poverty, as well as progress, democracy and others

The Poor: To Identify or to Classify? • To identify: An incorrect approach • Suggests • A concrete human attribute • A true figure out there • An attribute which is independent of the researcher/classifier • Correct and incorrect measurements • Measurements can be evaluated; How close is it to the true figure?

The Poor: To Identify or to Classify? • To classify people as poor • There is no true figure • There is no concrete rate to contrast criteria to • There is a classifier: classifying people as poor • The classifier: selecting the conception • Constructed areas of social concern

Relevance of the Conception • The relevance of the conception • Who ends up being classified as poor? • Who is subject or beneficiary of pubic policy • What kind of public policy is required • How achievements in public policy are assessed? • A different issue • Does it matters to people?

Conceptions of Poverty • The approach • Presumption, Imputation, Subjective • Theoretically driven (Presumption) • Normatively driven (Imputation) • Subjective well-being driven (People’s well-being report)

Conceptions of Poverty • Income (Theory - Economic) • Income, Assets • Capabilities (Normative - Imputation) • Instruments • Multidimensional (Theory and Imputation) • Housing condition, Hunger • Experienced (Subjective well-being) • Life satisfaction, life evaluation, affective state

Measurements of Poverty • The measurement • Variables chosen • Risk: conceptualization must come first • Avoid conceptualizing on the basis of measurement • Defining thresholds • Arbitrary, many options, robustness

Measurement of Poverty • Mexican survey • Representative • 2000 observations • 2 central states • Income • Household per capita income • Threshold: US$ 2 dollars per day

Measurement of Poverty • Capabilities • Short version of CMP (Anand and colleagues’) instrument • Principal components • Threshold: one StdDev beneath mean • Multidimensional • Mexico’s definition • Housing condition, Hunger, working benefits • Thresholds • As defined by Mexico’s social evaluation institute

Measurement of Poverty • Experienced • Based on subjective well-being • Different understandings: substrate of information • Life satisfaction, life evaluation, affects • Threshold: • Bottom of the scale

Comparing Conceptions of Poverty • No time to argue in favor of a conception • Just to show that the issue is of relevance • Dissonances and consonances • Do we end up classifying the same people as poor? • To Classify ≠ To identify

Consonances and dissonances

Dissonance in Classification

Conclusion • Theconceptionmatters • Great dissonancesin theclassification of people as poor • Conception precedes measurement • Furtherdiscussionontheconception • Poverty as low/lack of well-being • Whatiswell-being? • How do weknowit? • Whoistheauthoritytoassessit and onwhatbasis?

Conclusion • The classifier matters • We are notidentifyingthepoor, we are classifyingpeople as poor • Choosing and arguing about conceptions, methodologies and methods • Study of the classifier • Motivations • Selection of classification criteria: conception • Incentives • Biases: • Disciplinary compartmentalization • Perspectivism, ethnocentricism • Focus of interest, attention • Universalism

Thanks

Conceptions of Poverty Comparing classifications of people