 Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of PovertyDavid Brady () No 264, LIS Working papers from LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg Abstract: Despite serious methodological problems, quantitative studies of poverty by U.S. sociologists predominantly rely on the official U.S. measure. After reviewing the shortcomings of the official measure, this paper examines several econometric and theoretical advances in poverty measurement. In turn, I argue than an ideal measure of poverty should: a) measure comparative historical variation effectively; b) be relative rather than absolute; c) conceptualize poverty as social exclusion; d) integrate the depth of poverty and the inequality among the poor; and, e) assess the impact of taxes, transfers and non-cash benefits. Next, this paper evaluates sociological studies published in the 1990s for their consideration of these criteria. Due to sociologys neglect of these criteria, this paper develops three alternative poverty indices: the Interval Measure, the Ordinal Measure, and the Sum of Ordinals Measure. Finally, with the Luxembourg Income Study, I examine the empirical patterns with these three measures, across advanced capitalist democracies from 1967 to 1997. Estimates of these poverty indices are made available for future research. Pages: 64 pages Published in Social Forces 81, no. 3 (2003): 715-752 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lis:liswps:264 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in LIS Working papers from LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg Contact information at EDIRC. |
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