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The Hunger of Old Women in Rural Tanzania: Can Subjective Data Improve Poverty Measurement?

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  • Lars Osberg

Abstract

type="main"> On average, women in Tanzania are slightly less likely than men to say that they are “always/often without enough food to eat”—but this masks a much higher rate of self-reported food deprivation among elderly rural women. Official Tanzanian poverty statistics are, however, based on a methodology which presumes equal sharing per equivalent adult within the household. This paper combines subjective and objective micro-data from Tanzania's 2007 Household Budget Survey and 2007 Views of the People Survey. By imputing individual consumption based on the relative probability of self-reported food deprivation, it provides an example of the possible importance of one type of intra-household inequality—i.e., the hunger of old women—for poverty measurement. Implications include the complexity of gendered intra-household inequality and the importance of “technical” poverty measurement choices for public policy priorities, such as old age pensions.

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  • Lars Osberg, 2015. "The Hunger of Old Women in Rural Tanzania: Can Subjective Data Improve Poverty Measurement?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(4), pages 723-738, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:revinw:v:61:y:2015:i:4:p:723-738
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gianni Betti & Lucia Mangiavacchi & Luca Piccoli, 2020. "Women and poverty: insights from individual consumption in Albania," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 69-91, March.

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