IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v149y2020i3d10.1007_s11205-020-02283-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring Poverty Efficiently Using Adaptive Deprivation Scales

Author

Listed:
  • Nick Bailey

    (University of Glasgow)

Abstract

Deprivation scales are becoming increasingly familiar in research and official statistics on poverty. Taking advantage of the basis of these scales in Item Response Theory, this paper proposes a more efficient approach to implementation using adaptive testing. This maximises information collected for a given amount of survey time by screening respondents on the basis of initial answers, and halting questioning where it is very unlikely any further information will be gathered. The paper illustrates various implementations using data from eight years of the UK’s Family Resources Survey (FRS). Results show that an adaptive approach collects more than 99% of the information from the UK’s official deprivation measure in half the survey time. In addition, the paper suggests improvements in the design of the UK’s official deprivation scale as well as lessons for the development of future deprivation scales more generally.

Suggested Citation

  • Nick Bailey, 2020. "Measuring Poverty Efficiently Using Adaptive Deprivation Scales," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 891-910, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:149:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-020-02283-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-020-02283-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-020-02283-1
    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/s11205-020-02283-1?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. Bruce D. Meyer & James X. Sullivan, 2003. "Measuring the Well-Being of the Poor Using Income and Consumption," NBER Working Papers 9760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Andrea Brandolini & Silvia Magri & Timothy M. Smeeding, 2010. "Asset-based measurement of poverty," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 267-284.
    3. Alessio Fusco & Paul Dickes, 2008. "The Rasch Model and Multidimensional Poverty Measurement," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Nanak Kakwani & Jacques Silber (ed.), Quantitative Approaches to Multidimensional Poverty Measurement, chapter 3, pages 49-62, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Rizopoulos, Dimitris, 2006. "ltm: An R Package for Latent Variable Modeling and Item Response Analysis," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 17(i05).
    5. Monica Szeles & Alessio Fusco, 2013. "Item response theory and the measurement of deprivation: evidence from Luxembourg data," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1545-1560, April.
    6. Nanak Kakwani & Jacques Silber (ed.), 2008. "Quantitative Approaches to Multidimensional Poverty Measurement," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-58235-4, December.
    7. Rod Hick, 2013. "Poverty, Preference or Pensioners? Measuring Material Deprivation in the UK," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 34(1), pages 31-54, March.
    8. Mike Brewer & Cormac O'Dea, 2012. "Measuring living standards with income and consumption: evidence from the UK," IFS Working Papers W12/12, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    9. Eric Crettaz & Christian Suter, 2013. "The Impact of Adaptive Preferences on Subjective Indicators: An Analysis of Poverty Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 139-152, October.
    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. Zenghui Huo & Mei Zhang, 2023. "Multidimensional Deprivation and Subgroup Heterogeneity of Rural Households in China: Empirical Evidence from Latent Variable Estimation Methods," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(3), pages 975-997, February.
    2. Ilari Ilmakunnas & Lauri Mäkinen, 2021. "Age Differences in Material Deprivation in Finland: How do Consensus and Prevalence-Based Weighting Approaches Change the Picture?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(2), pages 393-412, April.
    3. Nick Bailey & Anne-Catherine Guio, 2022. "Adaptive Deprivation Scales in a Multi-National Context: The European Child Deprivation Indicators," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(6), pages 2335-2362, 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. Anne-Catherine Guio & David Gordon & Eric Marlier & Hector Najera & Marco Pomati, 2018. "Towards an EU measure of child deprivation," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 11(3), pages 835-860, June.
    2. Michela Gnaldi & Simone Del Sarto, 2018. "Variable Weighting via Multidimensional IRT Models in Composite Indicators Construction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 1139-1156, April.
    3. Nick Bailey & Anne-Catherine Guio, 2022. "Adaptive Deprivation Scales in a Multi-National Context: The European Child Deprivation Indicators," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(6), pages 2335-2362, December.
    4. Fusco, Alessio, 2015. "The relationship between income and housing deprivation: A longitudinal analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 137-143.
    5. Deutsch, Joseph & Silber, Jacques & Wan, Guanghua & Zhao, Mengxue, 2020. "Asset indexes and the measurement of poverty, inequality and welfare in Southeast Asia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    6. Joseph Deutsch & Anne-Catherine Guio & Marco Pomati & Jacques Silber, 2015. "Material Deprivation in Europe: Which Expenditures are Curtailed First?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(3), pages 723-740, February.
    7. Tanveer Ahmed Naveed & David Gordon & Sami Ullah & Mary Zhang, 2021. "The Construction of an Asset Index at Household Level and Measurement of Economic Disparities in Punjab (Pakistan) by using MICS-Micro Data," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 73-95, May.
    8. Chiara Elena Dalla & Menon Martina & Perali Federico, 2019. "An Integrated Database to Measure Living Standards," Journal of Official Statistics, Sciendo, vol. 35(3), pages 531-576, September.
    9. Tess Penne & Irene Cussó Parcerisas & Lauri Mäkinen & Bérénice Storms & Tim Goedemé, 2016. "Can reference budgets be used as a poverty line?," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/05, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    10. Bruno Cheli & Achille Lemmi & Nicoletta Pannuzi & Andrea Regoli, 2019. "From the TFR to the IFR approach for the multidimensional analysis of poverty and living conditions," Discussion Papers 2019/252, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    11. Mike Brewer & Ben Etheridge & Cormac O’Dea, 2017. "Why are Households that Report the Lowest Incomes So Well‐off?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 24-49, October.
    12. repec:esx:essedp:736 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. FAYE Ousmane & BASCHIERI Angela & FALKINGHAM Jane & MUINDI Kanyiva, 2010. "Hunger and Food Insecurity in Nairobi's Slums: An assessment using IRT models'," LISER Working Paper Series 2010-33, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    14. Bedük, Selçuk, 2018. "Identifying people in poverty: a multidimensional deprivation measure for the EU," SocArXiv 7prxq, Center for Open Science.
    15. David (David Patrick) Madden & Michael Savage, 2015. "Which Households Matter Most? Capturing Equity Considerations in Tax Reform via Generalised Social Marginal Welfare Weights," Working Papers 201502, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    16. Andrea Cutillo & Mauro Scanu, 2020. "A Mixed Approach for Data Fusion of HBS and SILC," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 411-437, July.
    17. Raffaele Lagravinese & Paolo Liberati & Giuliano Resce, 2020. "Measuring Health Inequality in US: A Composite Index Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 921-946, February.
    18. Salvatore Babones & Jehane Simona Moussa & Christian Suter, 2016. "A Poisson-Based Framework for Setting Poverty Thresholds Using Indicator Lists," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 711-726, March.
    19. Chenhong Peng & Paul S. F. Yip & Yik Wa Law, 2020. "What Factors Beyond Economic Poverty Lead People in High-income Societies to Feel Poor? Evidence from Hong Kong," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 991-1027, December.
    20. RAILEANU SZELES Monica & FUSCO Alessio, 2009. "Item response theory and the measurement of deprivation: Evidence from PSELL-3," IRISS Working Paper Series 2009-05, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    21. Jurgen Faik & Uwe Fachinger, 2013. "The decomposition of well-being categories: An application to Germany," Working Papers 307, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

    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:149:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11205-020-02283-1. 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.