Multidimensional measures provide an alternative lens through which poverty may be viewed and understood. In recent work we have attempted to offer a practical approach to identifying the poor and measuring aggregate poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). As this is quite a departure from traditional...

This paper presents a new Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for 104 developing countries. It is the first time multidimensional poverty is estimated using micro datasets (household surveys) for such a large number of countries which cover about 78 percent of the world´s population. The MPI...

This paper proposes a method for adjusting the HDI to reflect the distribution of human development achievements across the population, and across dimensions, using an inequality measure from the Atkinson family. We begin with a discussion of the proposed indices in an idealized setting where...

This paper presents a new approach to child poverty measurement that reflects the breadth and components of child poverty. The Alkire and Foster method presented in this paper seeks to answer the question ‘who is poor’ by considering the intensity of each child’s poverty. Once children are...

The purpose of this background paper is i) to synthesize the discussions regarding the concept of human development, so as to inform the 2010 Report’s definition, and ii) drawing on the extensive policy and academic literatures, to propose relationships between the concept of human development...

Multidimensional measures provide an alternative lens through which poverty may be viewed and understood. In recent work we have attempted to offer a practical approach to identifying the poor and measuring aggregate poverty (Alkire and Foster 2011). As this is quite a departure from traditional...

More data on non-income dimensions of poverty are available than at any previous time in history. Alongside this, multidimensional measurement methodologies have advanced considerably in the past fifteen years. These advances together have created new possibilities to measure multidimensional...

This paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of: (i) an identification method ?k that extends the traditional intersection and union approaches, and (ii) a class of poverty measures M? that satisfies a range of desirable properties including...

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to ‘missing dimensions’ of poverty data – dimensions that are of value to poor people, but for which we have scant or no data. Amartya Sen frames development as the process of expanding the freedoms that people value and have reason to value....

This article proposes a short list of internationally-comparable indicators of individual agency and empowerment (and the corresponding survey questions). Data from these indicators would enable researchers to explore research and policy issues such as the interconnections between empowerment...