Counting the poor in Italy and the EU

Abstract

In this paper, we survey some popular methods for measuring poverty in a community. We include a method for detecting ‘relative’ versus ‘absolute’ poverty, as well as ‘extreme’ poverty. Alternative ways to measure poverty are also considered: material deprivation, at risk of poverty or social exclusion and variants of these methods. The analysis shows that each method has its own technical and logical properties that make it appropriate when used with specific informative targets; hence, poverty indicators should not be used as if they all represent the same concept. Our analysis ends with suggestions of the plausible relationships between measurement methods and social purposes which the measures inform about.