Bien-être des ménages et pauvreté au Burkina Faso. Dépenses versus actifs : choix pragmatique ou conceptuel ?

Based on the household survey of Burkina Faso of 1994-95, the present study examines if the use of information about assets of households -using nonlinear principal components analysis– is a satisfactory alternative to the monetary approach of the poverty, as well with regard to its evaluation as the apprehension of its determinants. The main conclusion of the study is thatthe identification of the households or individuals welfare with regard to the access to assets,has more pragmatic bases than conceptual. Firstly, descriptive statistics, as well as tests of independence and association, show imperfect coherence of identification of poor households - and non-poor - according to the criteria of expenditures and assets. An intersection of abouthalf of the households and of about two thirds to the individuals appears insufficient toconsider that the two methods are perfectly substitutable, even when they are associated withcoherent methodological choices - scales of equivalence and procedures of optimal scaling. Inspite of the normative aspect of this judgement, the apprehension of poverty in terms of assetsis more adapted in the absence of information on the household consumption. Secondly, theeconometric analysis suggests much more divergences than of similarities as for the comparativeexplanation of poverty according to criterion of identification of the households welfare –without economies of scale. If the approaches of the expenditures and the assets highlightcommon determinants of the poverty of the households burkinabè – positive effect of theinstruction, the training and the male sex of the head of household, and negative impact of thedimension of the families – they lead to very contrasted conclusions with regard to manyparameters taken into account by the logistic multinomial estimates. The ambiguity of the lessonof the comparative analysis relates to the segments of the labour market, in particular those ofthe rural sector, the supply of labour of the households, the ethnic status of those whichmanage the families,the spatial localization of the groups and the external or internaltransfers. In addition, the integration of economies of scale in the analysis complicates thepreceding conclusions, an appreciation which is reinforced by the exercise of sensibility,aiming at simulating the relative probabilities for the households to be localized in thevarious quintiles of the distributions of the standard of living – expenditures and assets.(Full text in French)