IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v134y2017i2d10.1007_s11205-016-1434-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Impact of Population Dynamics on Poverty Measures: A Decomposition Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Paul S. F. Yip

    (The University of Hong Kong
    The University of Hong Kong)

  • Jacky H. K. Wong

    (The University of Hong Kong)

  • Billy Y. G. Li

    (Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region)

  • Yi Zhang

    (The University of Hong Kong
    The University of Hong Kong)

  • Chi Leung Kwok

    (The University of Hong Kong)

  • Meng Ni Chen

    (The University of Hong Kong)

Abstract

Reducing income inequality is one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals recently announced by United Nations. A relative poverty concept adopted by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries is that a household is defined as poor if the household income is below 50 % of the household size-specific median household income. By delineating the impact of different factors relating to poverty measures help to develop more focused efforts in alleviating poverty. The paper uses a decomposition analysis to examine the impact of population dynamics on changes in poverty measures in Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, over the period 2009–2014. The poverty rate, size, and gap are separately considered in the analysis. Decomposing the changes in poverty rate and size shows that demographic trends in the whole population (ageing and shrinking household size and population growth) contributed to the rise in the respective measures even though the overall poverty rate had declined during 2009–2014. For the decomposition of the change in the monthly total poverty gap, the majority of the overall increase was contributed by increases in the average gap within subgroups, with only a small contribution made by changes in age and household size within the poor population. The effectiveness of recurrent cash intervention by the Hong Kong government in poverty alleviation is assessed, and its positive impact in reducing poverty rate, size and gap is verified. The limitations in the use of the relative poverty line are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul S. F. Yip & Jacky H. K. Wong & Billy Y. G. Li & Yi Zhang & Chi Leung Kwok & Meng Ni Chen, 2017. "Assessing the Impact of Population Dynamics on Poverty Measures: A Decomposition Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 531-545, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:134:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-016-1434-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-016-1434-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-016-1434-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-016-1434-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    2. Ahmad Assadzadeh & Satya Paul, 2004. "Poverty, Growth, and Redistribution: a Study of Iran," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(4), pages 640-653, November.
    3. Fujii, Tomoki, 2017. "Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application to the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 69-84.
    4. Srijit Mishra, 2015. "Decomposing Poverty Change: Deciphering Change in Total Population and Beyond," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(4), pages 799-811, December.
    5. Prithwis Gupta, 1978. "A general method of decomposing a difference between two rates into several components," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 15(1), pages 99-112, February.
    6. Dean Jolliffe & Espen Beer Prydz, 2016. "Estimating international poverty lines from comparable national thresholds," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 14(2), pages 185-198, June.
    7. David Johnson, 1987. "The Calculation and Use of Poverty Lines in Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 20(4), pages 45-55, December.
    8. Anthony Shorrocks, 2013. "Decomposition procedures for distributional analysis: a unified framework based on the Shapley value," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(1), pages 99-126, March.
    9. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Md Jamil, Abd Rahim & Law, Siong Hook & Khair-Afham, M.S. & Trinugroho, Irwan, 2024. "Financial inclusion and income inequality in developing countries: The role of aging populations," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(PA).
    2. Paul Siu Fai Yip & Yunyu Xiao & Clifford Long Hin Wong & Terry Kit Fong Au, 2020. "Is there gender bias in research grant success in social sciences?: Hong Kong as a case study," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-10, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wei Zou & Xiaopei Cheng & Zengzeng Fan & Chuhao Lin, 2023. "Measuring and Decomposing Relative Poverty in China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-24, January.
    2. Fujii, Tomoki, 2017. "Dynamic Poverty Decomposition Analysis: An Application to the Philippines," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 69-84.
    3. Tomoki Fujii, 2015. "Poverty decomposition by regression: An application to Tanzania," Working Papers e097, Tokyo Center for Economic Research.
    4. Fujii Tomoki, 2015. "Poverty decomposition by regression," WIDER Working Paper Series 102, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Zengzeng Fan & Wei Zou, 2023. "A Three-Component Decomposition of the Change in Relative Poverty: An Application to China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, January.
    6. Piotr Paradowski & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz & Eva Sierminska, 2020. "Inequality, Poverty and Child Benefits: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," LIS Working papers 799, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Oihana Aristondo & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Casilda Lasso de la Vega, 2023. "Decomposing the changes in poverty: Poverty line and distributional effects," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(4), pages 1048-1063, October.
    8. Sırma Şeker & Stephen Jenkins, 2015. "Poverty trends in Turkey," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(3), pages 401-424, September.
    9. Priyabrata Sahoo & Debolina Biswas & Saswata Guha Thakurata, 2023. "Is Growth Pro-poor Among the States of India? A Poverty Decomposition Exercise During the 2000s," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 107-133, January.
    10. Vanessa Hartmann & Konstantin M. Wacker, 2023. "Poverty decompositions with counterfactual income and inequality dynamics," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1746-1768, August.
    11. Srijit Mishra, 2015. "Decomposing Poverty Change: Deciphering Change in Total Population and Beyond," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(4), pages 799-811, December.
    12. Yingfeng Fang & Fen Zhang, 2021. "The Future Path To China’s Poverty Reduction—Dynamic Decomposition Analysis With The Evolution Of China’s Poverty Reduction Policies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 507-538, December.
    13. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 726-745.
    14. Antonio Abatemarco & Massimo Aria & Sergio Beraldo & Michela Collaro, 2023. "Measuring Access and Inequality of Access to Health Care: a Policy-Oriented Decomposition," CSEF Working Papers 666, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    15. Brunori, Paolo & Ferreira, Francisco & Lugo, Maria Ana & Peragine, Vito, 2013. "Opportunity-sensitive poverty measurement," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6728, The World Bank.
    16. Sebastian Levine & Benjamin Roberts, 2013. "Robust Estimates of Changes in Poverty and Inequality in Post-Independence Namibia," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 81(2), pages 167-191, June.
    17. Christophe Muller & Nouréini Sayouti, 2021. "How does information on minimum and maximum food prices affect measured monetary poverty? Evidence from Niger," AMSE Working Papers 2102, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Oct 2021.
    18. Florent Bresson & Jean-Yves Duclos & Flaviana Palmisano, 2019. "Intertemporal pro-poorness," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 52(1), pages 65-96, January.
    19. Sinha, Kompal & Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M. & Sharma, Anurag, 2021. "Do socioeconomic health gradients persist over time and beyond income? A distributional analysis using UK biomarker data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    20. Kalwij, Adriaan & Verschoor, Arjan, 2007. "Not by growth alone: The role of the distribution of income in regional diversity in poverty reduction," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 805-829, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:134:y:2017:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-016-1434-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.