What Have We Called as “Poverty”? A Multidimensional and Longitudinal Perspective

Abstract

Although the multidimensional approach to poverty is a common-sense idea, there have been numerous debates on what kind of dimensions can be included in the concept. As one way of addressing the issue, I introduce a dimension of ‘time’, which could help us to select more relevant dimensions by displaying the changes in their influence on the multidimensional poverty over a period of time. After the thirteen waves of British Household Panel Survey data, 1996–2008, are analyzed for a multidimensional poverty based on the Capability approach, I find out that most of the dimensions that have mentioned in previous research demonstrate a consistent influence on poverty over the period, which implies that existing literature on multidimensional poverty has been on the right path. Also, it turns out that the dimensions of ‘health’ and ‘social capital’ are getting more weights in measuring the multidimensional poverty, while ‘economic resources’ dimension is still the most influential factor for the construct. The findings seem to suggest that the multidimensional approach as it stands is quite relevant, though an agreeable list of dimensions of poverty still requires far more intellectual endeavor.