Assessing Poverty with Non-Income Deprivation Indicators: Pakistan, 2008-09

The approach to measure poverty in terms of financial deprivation has been widely criticised in the literature of welfare and wellbeing. It is argued that to understand the complex phenomenon of poverty or to evaluate household or individual wellbeing, a multidimensional exercise is imperative. This research quantifies the level of multidimensional poverty in Pakistan using household data of Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement Survey. Multidimensional poverty in terms of the popular FGT (headcount, poverty gap, poverty severity) indices is estimated for the year 2009. Indicators of human poverty, poor housing and deprivation in household physical assets are included in estimating poverty in multi-dimensional context. For assessing the inter-temporal consistency in the methodology, poverty indices are also developed for the year 2005.