Recognizing and addressing poverty under all its dimensions, beyond traditional income or consumption-based thresholds, is essential to design more inclusive and effective policies. Subjective poverty, which reflects individuals' perceptions of their financial well-being based on personal views and experiences, is increasingly being incorporated into poverty assessment tools alongside objective measures. This holistic approach helps capture the complexities of poverty and ensures that the voices of the poorest are heard, complementing objective measures in important ways.
Thanks to new guidelines for methodologies used in subjective poverty measurement published by UNECE, international and domestic policymakers will have additional means to support targeted measures to improve well-being and social stability, especially for disadvantaged populations. The document also recommends subjective poverty indicators that could be used for international comparisons.
Drawing on prior subjective poverty data collection strategies, namely the EU-SILC, and experience from Armenia, Austria, Mexico, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom, the Task Force summarizes qualitative and quantitative approaches to subjective poverty measurement and analysis. Qualitative approach offers an analysis of poverty beyond the realm of specific income thresholds. These questions include asking participants about their perceptions regarding their current financial situation and whether they consider their household poor or feeling at risk of poverty. The second group of qualitative categorical questioning focuses on specific perceptions of their own income in respect to ability to make ends meet, satisfaction, or adequacy of consumption (e.g. Deleeck question). Finally, the quantitative approach builds on money metric questions, asking respondents to provide a specific amount they consider necessary to pay usual necessary expenses (minimum income question).
Providing organizations with a methodological toolkit that is adaptable to independent resource constraints and research objectives, the guidelines outline procedures on defining sample populations, conducting surveys, hosting focus groups, and collecting information from administrative and registry data. Such procedures aid in eliminating sample biases and ensuring data validity and reliability errors related to responsiveness and representativeness, question wording, and plausible receipt of social transfers in-kind, differences in geographic prices, within household sharing, and cultural differentiation.
The guidelines were prepared by the UNECE Task Force on Subjective Poverty Measures under the Conference of European Statisticians. This follows in the footsteps of prior guidance developed by UNECE task teams, including the Guide on Poverty Measurement and the Poverty Measurement: Guide to Data Disaggregation.
