Subnational indicators of poverty and deprivation in Europe: methodology and applications

Abstract

This paper identifies methodologies and strategies appropriate for the development of indicators of well-being at the level of subnational regions, thus contributing towards the incorporation of the subnational dimension into public policy making. Considerations in adapting and augmenting country-level indicators for application at the regional level are discussed. Special technical procedures involved in this process are described. These include consolidation of measures defined with reference to different poverty line thresholds in the income distribution, cumulation of data or measures over multiple survey waves and use of small area estimation methods. Empirical illustrations using comparable survey data from European Union countries are provided, to the extent possible with the available microdata.