A Different Perspective on Poverty in Lao PDR: Multidimensional Poverty in Lao PDR for the Years 2002/2003 and 2007/2008

Christoph Bader (), Sabin Bieri, Urs Wiesmann and Andreas Heinimann

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2016, vol. 126, issue 2, 483-502

Abstract: This paper presents an indicator for measuring multidimensional poverty in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic applying the Alkire–Foster methodology to the Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey 2002/2003 and 2007/2008. We calculated a multidimensional poverty index (MPI) that includes three dimensions: education, health, and standard of living. Making use of the MPI’s decomposability, we analyse how much each of the different dimensions and its respective indicators contribute to the overall MPI. We find a marked reduction in the multidimensional poverty headcount ratio over the study period, regardless of how the indicators are weighted or how the deprivation and poverty cut-offs are set. This reduction is based on improvements regarding all indicators except cooking fuel and nutrition. We observe no significant reduction in the intensity of poverty, however; there are wide disparities between the country’s regions and between urban and rural areas. The proportion of poor people in rural areas is more than twice as high as that in urban areas. By complementing the traditional income-based poverty measure, we hope to provide useful information that can support knowledge-based decision-making for poverty alleviation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Keywords: Multidimensional poverty; Poverty measurement; Lao PDR; LECS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:126:y:2016:i:2:p:483-502

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-0900-2

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