Dimensions Of Poverty Research Articles

From Rags to Riches: Assessing poverty and vulnerability in urban Nepal

Urbanisation brings with it rapid socio-economic change with volatile livelihoods and unstable ownership of assets. Yet, current measures of wealth are based predominantly on static livelihoods found in rural areas. We sought to assess the extent to which seven common measures of wealth appropriately capture vulnerability to poverty in urban areas. We then sought to develop a measure that captures the characteristics of one urban area in Nepal. We collected and analysed data from 1,180 households collected during a survey conducted between November 2017 and January 2018 and designed to be representative of the Kathmandu valley. A separate survey of a sub set of households was conducted using participatory qualitative methods in slum and non-slum neighbourhoods. A series of currently used indices of deprivation were calculated from questionnaire data. We used bivariate statistical methods to examine the association between each index and identify characteristics of poor and non-poor. Qualitative data was used to identify characteristics of poverty from the perspective of urban poor communities which were used to construct an Urban Poverty Index that combined asset and consumption focused context specific measures of poverty that could be proxied by easily measured indicators as assessed through multivariate modelling. We found a strong but not perfect association between each measure of poverty. There was disagreement when comparing the consumption and deprivation index on the classification of 19% of the sample. Choice of short-term monetary and longer-term capital approaches accounted for much of the difference. Those who reported migrating due to economic necessity were most likely to be categorised as poor. A combined index was developed to capture these dimension of poverty and understand urban vulnerability. A second version of the index was constructed that can be computed using a smaller range of variables to identify those in poverty. Current measures may hide important aspects of urban poverty. Those who migrate out of economic necessity are particularly vulnerable. A composite index of socioeconomic status helps to capture the complex nature of economic vulnerability.

Assessing the Multiple Dimensions of Poverty. Data Mining Approaches to the 2004-14 Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Cuatro Santos, Nicaragua.

We identified clusters of multiple dimensions of poverty according to the capability approach theory by applying data mining approaches to the Cuatro Santos Health and Demographic Surveillance database, Nicaragua. Four municipalities in northern Nicaragua constitute the Cuatro Santos area, with 25,893 inhabitants in 5,966 households (2014). A local process analyzing poverty-related problems, prioritizing suggested actions, was initiated in 1997 and generated a community action plan 2002–2015. Interventions were school breakfasts, environmental protection, water and sanitation, preventive healthcare, home gardening, microcredit, technical training, university education stipends, and use of the Internet. In 2004, a survey of basic health and demographic information was performed in the whole population, followed by surveillance updates in 2007, 2009, and 2014 linking households and individuals. Information included the house material (floor, walls) and services (water, sanitation, electricity) as well as demographic data (birth, deaths, migration). Data on participation in interventions, food security, household assets, and women's self-rated health were collected in 2014. A K-means algorithm was used to cluster the household data (56 variables) in six clusters. The poverty ranking of household clusters using the unsatisfied basic needs index variables changed when including variables describing basic capabilities. The households in the fairly rich cluster with assets such as motorbikes and computers were described as modern. Those in the fairly poor cluster, having different degrees of food insecurity, were labeled vulnerable. Poor and poorest clusters of households were traditional, e.g., in using horses for transport. Results displayed a society transforming from traditional to modern, where the forerunners were not the richest but educated, had more working members in household, had fewer children, and were food secure. Those lagging were the poor, traditional, and food insecure. The approach may be useful for an improved understanding of poverty and to direct local policy and interventions.

Poverty Alleviation Programme and Poverty Reduction in Anambra State. Evidence from Women Business Ownership

The fight against poverty is one of the key components of the development of any country. If the percentage of poor people is high, there will be slow development. The government policies and program such as YOUWIN, Better Life is aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship and supporting women into business. Despite these efforts, poverty incidence still increases among women in micro business. This study examined government alleviation programs and dimension of poverty among women into micro business in Anambra state, Nigeria. It is a descriptive survey research. Probability and non- probability sampling technique were employed in which the samples were drawn using multi-stage sampling and purposive sampling technique. Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, chi-square and Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). The findings of this study showed that most women participating in micro business are not aware of poverty reduction programs and do not have access to such programs. The study also found out that most of the women still experience hardship, no access to infrastructure, no good health care system and low standard of living which indicates that poverty has not reduced. The study recommended among others that the government should target its reduction policies towards the multidimensional indicators (good infrastructure, good health care system etc.) of poverty in order to eradicate poverty.

A Phenomenological Model of Child Poverty: A Research on the StateSubsidized Children in Istanbul

Although the static dimension of child poverty, which corresponds to deprivations experienced in daily life, is a field of interest in both research and policy, study of the dynamic dimension of child poverty, which corresponds to children’s reactions, is mostly neglected in Turkey. Based on this deficiency, this study focuses on poor child types in relation to the findings obtained as a consequence of the phenomenological investigation of children’s coping strategies with poverty in daily life. The findings rely on field research, which was conducted with children between the ages of 11 and 15 living in the poor regions of Istanbul and state-subsidized ones. The differences among poor children were divided into four different child types: Rescuer child, substituting child, foundation-integrated child, and protectionist child. This typology, which is the outcome of the phenomenological approach, was expressed as the phenomenological model of child poverty. This model has brought both the heterogeneous quality of child poverty and structural and cultural factors neglected in coping strategies into the forefront. Besides, the agency possibilities of poor children in certain contexts are revealed by means of this model.

Measuring Multidimensional Poverty Among Farm Households in Rural Pakistan Towards Sustainable Development Goals

Poverty is multidimensional and presents a great threat to achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) across the world. This study makes contribution to the ongoing debate regarding capability, social exclusion, and participatory approaches as measuring strategies for farm poverty. This study was designed to develop a new methodological framework to measure multidimensional poverty that builds on the previous index for measuring three dimensions of poverty at the micro level, and a method to calculate the extent of poverty by using the Alkire and Foster model. The expanded dimensions of multidimensional poverty identified are wealth status, participation/empowerment, environment, health, education, and standard of living. We apply the methodology to a study in northern Pakistan. The index of multidimensional poverty demonstrates that alongside the other dimensions there is severe poverty in terms of environment, empowerment/ participation, and wealth dimensions. The measure of intensity of the poverty shows that 55% of the population was severely poor while the MPI value demonstrated that 54% of the population was severely poor. The regional and resource-related causes contributing to this poverty include isolation and remoteness of the area, low infrastructure, and poor access to markets and to social and communal services. The study suggests that multi-sectorial interventions and investment in terms of education, infrastructure, environment, financial services and agriculture development are necessary to overcome the situation and improve the likelihood of achieving the targets of the SDGs.

Targeting When Poverty is Multidimensional

The view of poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon has swiftly become mainstream. However, the debate remains open as to how such ‘multidimensional poverty’ should be assessed in practical settings, particularly when identifying the beneficiaries of poverty alleviation programmes. This paper develops a novel empirical approach that explicitly takes into account the goals and needs of thepolicy-maker. In particular, the paper takes up the case of a government official running a budget constrained programme to alleviate a few dimensions of poverty, and translates her concerns into a set of desiderata which the multidimensional measure should meet. The policy-maker targeting ability and aversion to the risk of leakages play crucial roles in setting the desired properties. We illustrate our methodology in the context of a CCT programme in Peru, and show that it improves expected leaking and undercoverage relative to alternative Alkire-Foster based approaches.

Poverty modeling in the Islamic Republic of Iran using an ANFIS optimized network with the differential evolution algorithm (ANFIS_DE)

Poverty is a multifaceted phenomenon that its study and analysis from all dimensions requires accurate knowledge. In the past, poverty was measured only by the income approach. That is, only people's incomes were compared to the poverty line. But this approach does not identify other dimensions of poverty. Given the importance of discussing poverty in the economies of developing countries, this article examines and models poverty in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This article presents the internal and external dimensions of poverty in the period 1996–2017.In this paper, to model the poverty in Iran, the ANFIS method optimized with a differential evolution algorithm was used. In this method, a differential evolution algorithm was used to train the ANFIS system instead of the FIS system. To evaluate the strength of the model, mean squared error (MSE), root mean squared error (RMSE), Mean absolute error (MAE), STD_error, Mean_error criteria have been used. The data used in this paper are from the World Development Index (WDI) Database, the World Bank Good Governance Indices, the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Indices, and the United Nations data. This information is related to Iran and in the period (1996–2017). The purpose of this paper is to train the ANFIS network with DE algorithm using time series data and to model the data related to the Iran Multidimensional Poverty Index using the trained network. Multidimensional Poverty Index is a very suitable index for monitoring data. Poverty is in society. With the help of this data, we can assess the trend of poverty and income distribution and welfare in this country. The results of this study showed that training the ANFIS system by differential evolution algorithm, can make a very good improvement in the modeling process and reduce error criteria and improve the accuracy of this method.•This article has been compiled with the aim of modeling poverty in the Islamic Republic of Iran.•The method used in this paper is ANFIS network training using the differential evolution algorithm•The use of evolutionary algorithms to train fuzzy systems and artificial neural networks leads to improved performance.

GENDER DIMENSION OF POVERTY AND ITS RELATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

The latest World Bank report for 2016 on the impact of climate change on poverty states that climate change could lead to a growth of extremely poor population to the extent that 100 million people might be pushed into poverty by 2030. The report emphasizes that climate change can have different impacts, in particular negative ones, on the poor, who are unprepared for climate shock waves, such as sea level rise or large-scale droughts. The poor possess fewer resources and receive less support from their families or through local communities, the financial system, and even through social security measures, which is why they do not have sufficient capacity to adapt to climate change. Specific population groups, such as women and children, are particularly vulnerable.Omly few theoreticians have dealt with the question of how to help poor countries and poor communities in certain countries to face climate change, while focusing specially on the gender dimension of poverty.The World Bank report also states that efforts to protect the poor should include better access to healthcare and social security measures, improved protection against floods, and development of crops that are more resilient to high temperatures, all for the purpose of preventing the worst possible impacts of climate change on the poor. However, it needs to be stressed that any adaptation to climate change has to incorporate the gender dimension of poverty.Therefore, this paper will provide only a small contribution to the analysis of the issues pertaining to the gender dimension of poverty and its relation to climate change adaptation.

Profil Dan Determinan Kerentanan Kemiskinan Rumah Tangga

Concept of vulnerability to poverty appears by a presence of shocks as an important dimension of poverty. The existence of shocks lead to insecurity in household welfare. This measurement of vulnerability to poverty is trying to measure probability of households fall in to poverty in the future. This study aims to measure household vulnerability to poverty and examine its determinants on the basis of a household survey data for Indonesia. Sampel data used is secondary data from IFLS 5 (Indonesia Family Life Survey) year 2014. The measurement of vulnerability to poverty is analyzed using three stage FGLS (Feasible Generalized Least Square), while its determinant is analyzed using logit regression methods. Results of this study show that Lampung province, DKI Jakarta, Sumatera Utara, Sumatera Barat, Kalimantan Selatan, dan Nusa Tenggara Barat have a high average value of vulnerability to poverty. Moreover, Lampung Province is the most vulnerable in 2014. Furthermore, this study find that age of household head, education of household head, household size,location, saving ownership,and land ownership have a significant effect on household value of vulnerability to poverty.

An Analysis of Injustice as Dimension of Poverty in the Pakistan’s Perspective

Pakistan's Vision 2025 demonstrates to improve the economic growth and eradicate poverty. It is observed from literature that poverty has different dimensions, it cannot be limited to monetary deprivation but it should have extended to all its possible dimensions. In order to eradicate the poverty, it should be clearly defined in all aspects. In literature poverty is pronounced as multi-dimensional phenomenon, and also measured in different dimensions like health, education, living standard, and social and political aspects. In presence and discussion of these poverty dimensions, there is one important dimension of poverty which is commonly perceived but not yet discussed in literature. This missing aspect of poverty is lack of justice or injustice in society, this concept is so important that it is the root cause of all other problems. The objective of this research is highlight the judicial statistics in Pakistan, and to suggest that injustice also is dimension of poverty. For the comparison and elaborate the need of focusing on judicial problems, the secondary data obtained from the survey of more than 46000 people in 45 countries. It is observed that 80 to 89 percent of peoples involved in judicial process belong to top five countries; Pakistan is at second position among the selected 45 countries. Statistics show that 85% people in Pakistan involved in litigation process, this is alarming position in current scenario, and require much attention from policy makers and Government toward judicial sector. Public trust on Government institution shows the trust of people on their government, but this indicator is also poor in Pakistan, only 14 percent people use government institutes as 3 rd party in their disputes resolution. Justice should be quick in society, Pakistan is lowest in this ranking, and 67% of registered complaints are under litigation process. Here the underpinning question has been answered that either the injustice is the cause of poverty or poverty creates injustice. So it is concluded that to eliminate the poverty, it is prior condition to define the poverty in all its dimensions, access to justice is the fundamental right of people living in society, and is also the root cause of many other problems, so it should be included as the part of poverty when to define the poverty. A problem can only be solved, when it is defined in proper and complete essence. Keywords: Poverty, Multi-Dimensional, Access to Justice DOI : 10.7176/JPID/51-02 Publication date: November 30 th 2019

Measuring Multidimensional Poverty According to National Definitions: Operationalising Target 1.2 of the Sustainable Development Goals

The first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) tasks countries with eradicating poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions. This presents considerable challenges for poverty researchers and national statistical offices charged with collecting data to monitor progress on meeting of this ambitious target. Our paper focuses on how the different dimensions of poverty might be mapped out, and compared, within and across heterogeneous countries and societies, using a method called the Consensual Approach to poverty measurement. It explains how the approach can inform different poverty measurement frameworks (e.g. rights based, capabilities or deprivation of basic needs approaches), how it has already been used successfully across low, middle- and high-income countries and sets out some key lessons and future challenges. The paper uses data from the demographic and health surveys (DHS) and World Bank’s Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire surveys to demonstrate cross- and intra-national consensus about what constitutes minimally acceptable living standards across several countries in West Africa; we suggest that existing survey platforms, like national household income and expenditure surveys, DHS or even UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys could (with minor additions) be used to apply the Consensual Approach to measure multidimensional poverty in children and adults across countries, and thus aid reporting for the SDGs.

Government social spending in the EU countries: efficiency in poverty and income inequality reduction

Research background: Income inequality and poverty attract a lot of attention among politicians, activists as well as scientists, who are trying to find a solution to these socio-economic problems. State intervention is commonly expected in this field, however, there is no agreement about the most efficient methods and instruments, as well as about the scale of public expenditure for the purpose of limiting poverty and inequality.
 Purpose of the article: The aim of the paper is to specify efficiency of government social spending in reducing problems of poverty and income inequality in the EU countries. Moreover, the attention is paid to changes in the efficiency in a period of the 2007 crisis occurrence and its overcoming and to sources of the changes.
 Methods: To fulfill the main goal of the paper, the DEA method is used, which enables to compare the social efficiency of the EU countries. The Malmquist index is also calculated and decomposed to identify changes in the efficiency and their sources in the crisis period. Data used in the analyses were obtained from Eurostat and OECD databases and cover the period from 2007 to 2016 year.
 Findings & Value added: The main findings of the paper shed some light on the differences in social efficiency of government spending in the EU countries. Generally, the countries with a higher level of social spending are also those with lower efficiency in inequality reduction, however, the relationship doesn?t appear for poverty alleviation. Thus, the research suggests some substitution between the scale and the efficiency of social spending, at least for the inequality dimension. Moreover, some differences in a social model can be found between the countries of the South and of the North: the countries of the South focus their social policy mainly on inequality reduction, while the Scandinavian countries as well as some other affluent societies direct their public support mainly on poverty alleviation. The research also shows that in the crisis period decreases in efficiency concerned mainly the poverty dimension. It reflects the fact that the poor were the losers of the crisis in favor of the middle classes. The efficiency losses were induced by negative changes in the current usage of public sources, while institutional reforms positively influenced the efficiency.

Quality as a hidden dimension of energy poverty in middle-development countries. Literature review and case study from Chile

The paper proposes a literature review and meta-analysis on different dimensions and approaches with respect to energy poverty and examines Chile as a case study for its manifestations in middle development countries. This phenomenon has acquired greater relevance, with a variety of definitions, indicators and methodologies being used to measure it. However, most of them are focused on either quantifying the lack of access to modern energy services in poor countries or assessing the inequality produced by the costs of accessing such services in developed countries. This results in the lack of a proper toolbox to tackle middle development countries, such as Chile: where access-based measures assign thresholds that are too low, so that almost nobody is energy poor; conversely, equality-based measures deploy excessively high ones, so that a very large proportion of the population is energy poor. The paper argues that this deficit is caused by the understanding of quality in terms of “standards” in access- and equality-based measures, which restricts its potential in economically, culturally, and geographically diverse territories. A context-sensitive three-dimensional framework to assess energy poverty is then proposed, and its policy implications are briefly discussed.

Emotions Expressed in Online Discussion Forums are Associated with Information Poverty and Level of Information Need

A Review of:
 Ruthven, I., Buchanan, S., & Jardine, C. (2018). Isolated, overwhelmed, and worried: Young first-time mothers asking for information and support online. Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, 69(9), 1073-1083. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24037
 Abstract
 Objective – To understand the emotions associated with online forum requests for information from young first-time mothers.
 Design – Naturalistic study of existing online forum postings.
 Setting – Two UK-based online discussion forums intended for use by young mothers.
 Subjects – Two hundred thirty-seven young (aged 14 to 21) first-time mothers, who posted 279 messages in the two forums.
 Methods – The 279 messages were categorized in terms of 1) the type of emotion expressed, using an inductively developed coding scheme that included interaction emotions, preoccupation emotions, and response emotions; 2) four dimensions of information poverty: secrecy, deception, risk, and situational relevance; and 3) whether the information request expressed a conscious or a formalized information need. In addition to analyzing the frequency with which particular emotions occurred, co-occurrences of emotions with information poverty dimensions and emotions with level of information need were analyzed.
 Main Results – As expected, most of the forum posts included expressions of emotions. Interaction emotions relate to the mother’s interactions (or lack of them) with other people and were expressed in 75 of the posts; the most frequently expressed interaction emotions were feelings of isolation and being judged. Preoccupation emotions are concerned with states of mental absorption or uncertainty and were expressed in 141 of the posts; the most frequently expressed preoccupation emotions were worry, a feeling of being overwhelmed, and self-doubt. Response emotions include reactions to someone else or a situation and were expressed in 45 of the posts; the most frequently expressed response emotion was anger, frustration, or venting (which were handled as one unit by the authors).
 Dimensions of information poverty were found in 57 of the 279 posts in the sample. Situational relevance (i.e., the desire for support or information from someone that is in a very similar situation) accounted for over half of the instances of information poverty. The risks associated with young motherhood were expressed in over a quarter of the instances of information poverty.
 Emotions were more likely to be expressed when the post included evidence of information poverty. When posts of conscious and formalized needs were compared, emotions were more likely to be expressed in posts of conscious needs (i.e., those which had not yet been formalized).
 Conclusion – Almost all of the 279 posts in the sample included strong emotional content, mostly negative emotions such as worry, isolation, and frustration. These emotions were associated with expressions of information poverty; in particular, feelings of isolation were closely associated with information poverty. In addition, posters at an early stage of problem recognition, expressing a conscious but not yet formalized information need, were more likely to experience these negative emotions. These findings have strong implications for moderators of online forums hoping to provide support to young first-time mothers.

On the construction of a feasible range of multidimensional poverty under benchmark weight uncertainty

There are infinitely many alternative benchmark weights that decision makers could choose to measure multidimensional poverty. To overcome the resulting uncertainty, we derive a feasible range of multidimensional poverty that considers all admissible weights within the chosen lower and upper bounds of weights. We use Kenyan and Canadian data to illustrate the use of our methodology, which is an adaptation of existing methods for portfolio analysis based on stochastic dominance. These two-empirical analyses suggest that different weights allocated to poverty dimensions can produce very different multidimensional poverty outcomes for a given population even in cases with small weight perturbations.

The Impact of Rural Saving and Credit Cooperative on Multidimensional Poverty Status: Evidence from Rular Households in Awabel District, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Multidimensional poverty is the problem of every country in the world; hence, it needs the attention of policy makers and various development actors like cooperatives. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of saving and credit cooperative financial service on multidimensional poverty status of rural household in Awabel district. The specific objectives of the study is to examine the impact of saving and credit cooperative financial service on multidimensional poverty status of rural households, to identify determinants of multidimensional poverty status of rural households, to identify the dimension of household poverty affected by saving and credit cooperatives financial services. The study adopts a cross sectional, and quantitative research design. The target population was 4,675 actively registered RuSACCO members’ households. The sample size was a total of 380 i.e190 members as a treated group and 190 nonmembers as counterfactual obtained through multi-stage sampling techniques .The data is primary data collected through household survey.For data analysis firstly, binary logit models is used to identify the determinants of multidimensional poverty status of rural households; and the finding revealed multidimensional poverty status of rural household has negative relationship between RuSACCO membership status (-4.2%), size of cultivated landholdings (-5%), access for agricultural extension service (-4.01%), and access for road (-1.7%) and are all statistically significant at 1% level. Moreover, there was a negative relationship between experience of household head on agricultural activity (-0.15%) and statistically significant at 5% level, the risen in educational status of household head from illiterate to literate, primary to secondary and from secondary to higher education goes dawn multidimensional poverty status by-1.8%, -3% and -4.3% and all are statistically significance at 1% level It is also found that, there were positive relationship between, multidimensional poverty status of rural households and dependency ratio (0.11%) at 5% level of significance) in Awabel district. Secondly ,propensity score match model is applied to examine the impact of RuSACCO financial service on multidimensional poverty status of rural households, and the finding revealed that, financial service of RuSACCO had reduce the multidimensional poverty index of rural household by 0.082898018 on average for members .The findings also showed that the RuSACCOs financial service has reduced health dimension of poverty by 0.036242775, the educational dimension of poverty by 0.018915905standard of living dimension of poverty by 0.0152, on average for RuSACCO members compare to that of non members. It is recommended the government should give special attention for organization and promotion of cooperative. Cooperative extension workers should advice members of RuSACCO to spend their financial service on health, education and standard of livings respectively. Increase productivity per size of cultivated landholding, work hard to bring literate farmers, work against reducing young age dependency, rising road accessibility, increase the accessibility of agricultural extension workers, and experience sharing among farmers to reduce the multidimensional status of rural household’s members in Awabe district. Keywords : RuSACCOs financial service, Multidimensional poverty, Awabel district in Amahara region, propensity score matching model. DOI : 10.7176/DCS/9-9-02 Publication date :September 30 th 2019

A REVIEW OF STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE METHODS FOR POVERTY ANALYSIS

AbstractStochastic dominance techniques have been mainly employed in poverty analyses to overcome what it is called the multiplicity of poverty indices problem. Moreover, in the multidimensional context, stochastic dominance techniques capture the possible relationships between the dimensions of poverty as they rely upon their joint distribution, unlike most multidimensional poverty indices, which are only based on marginal distributions. In this paper, we first review the general definition of unidimensional stochastic dominance and its relationship with poverty orderings. Then we focus on the conditions of multivariate stochastic dominance and their relationship with multidimensional poverty orderings, highlighting the additional difficulties that the multivariate setting involves. In both cases, we focus our discussion on first‐ and second‐order dominance, though some guidelines on higher order dominance are also mentioned. We also present an overview of some relevant empirical applications of these methods that can be found in the literature in both univariate and multivariate contexts.

The Ecological Limits of Poverty Alleviation in an African Forest-Agriculture Landscape

Cocoa yields in Ghana remain low. This has variously been attributed to low rates of fertilizer application, pollinator limitation, and particularly dry growing conditions. In this paper we use an African forest-agriculture landscape dominated by cocoa (Theobroma cacao) to develop an ecological production function, allowing us to identify key ecological and management limits acting on cocoa yields simultaneously. These included more consistent application of fertilizers inter-annually, distributing rotting biomass throughout the farm and reducing the incidence of capsid attacks. By relaxing these limits, we estimate plausible increases in yields and, by extension, farm incomes. Our analysis reveals that resulting increases in cocoa yields requiring both ecological and intensive management interventions could be significant (113 ± 60%); however, benefits are disproportionately realized by the wealthiest households. We found that wealthier households benefited proportionally more from ecological intensification methods (e.g., leaving more rotting biomass in their farms) and the poorest households benefited proportionally more from capital-intensive intensification methods (e.g., pesticide and fertilizer applications). We treated poverty as multi-dimensional, and show that only certain dimensions of poverty (school attendance, assets, and food security) are significantly related to cocoa incomes, while several other dimensions (access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, and infant mortality) are not. We explore how increased household cocoa incomes could impact different dimensions of poverty. Our findings suggest, that if all households adopted the optimal level of each of these management options, and in so doing had similar poverty profiles to those households already managing optimally, we would see the community-averaged probability: a child of a household misses school decrease from 47 to 31%, a household would be able to acquire assets increase from 40 to 59% and a household would have access to an adequate amount of food increase from 62 to 79%.

Effect of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid Expansions on Food Security, 2010-2016.

Objectives. To examine whether the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) decreased the prevalence of severe food insecurity.Methods. With data on adult respondents to the Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey in US states for the years 2010 to 2013 and 2015 to 2016, I used a difference-in-difference design to compare trends in very low food security (VLFS) among low-income childless adults in states that did and did not expand Medicaid in 2014 under the ACA.Results. Among low-income, nonelderly childless adults, VLFS rose from 17.4% before ACA to 17.5% after ACA in nonexpansion states, and fell from 17.6% to 15.9% in expansion states. In difference-in-difference analysis, Medicaid expansion was associated with a significant adjusted 2.2-percentage-point decline in rates of VLFS, equivalent to a 12.5% relative reduction.Conclusions. The improvement in food security after the ACA's health insurance expansion suggests that health insurance provision has spillover effects that reduce other dimensions of poverty.Public Health Implications. Providing free or low-cost health insurance coverage may free up household funds, reducing food insecurity and improving this important social determinant of health.

Material and Spiritual Poverty: A Postmodern Psychological Perspective on a Perennial Problem.

From a social-scientific perspective, this paper addresses an overlooked dimension of material poverty, namely spiritual poverty or the lack of spiritual sensitivity, and calls it a psychological disorder. Religions link deep spirituality with a kind of "poverty," namely simplicity of lifestyle and generosity toward the needy; but none advocates the poverty of outright destitution. A fully psychological "spiritualogy"-built on Bernard Lonergan's analysis of human consciousness or spirit and consonant with the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow and current psychotherapeutic understanding-explains the link between spirituality and poverty as a matter of personal integration and suggests interventions to address the corrosive epidemic soul sickness of the postmodern world, so different from traditional societies in which religion and culture intertwined and functioned effectively.