Consumption, Health, Gender, and Poverty

Case, Anne; Deaton, Angus

Consumption, Health, Gender, and Poverty

Autores

Case, Anne

Deaton, Angus

Editor

World Bank, Washington, DC

Descripción

Standard methods of measuring poverty assume that an individual is poor if he or she lives in a family whose income or consumption lies below an appropriate poverty line. Such methods provide only limited insight into male and female poverty separately. Nevertheless, there are reasons why household resources are linked to the gender composition of the household: women's earnings are often lower than men's; families in some countries control their fertility through differential stopping rules; and women live longer than men. It is also possible to link family expenditure patterns to the gender composition of the household, something the authors illustrate using data from India and South Africa. Such a procedure provides useful information on who gets what, but cannot tell us how total resources are allocated between males and females. More can be gleaned from data on consumption by individual household members, and for many goods, collecting such information is good survey practice in any case. Even so, it will be some time before such information can be used routinely to produce estimates of poverty by gender. A more promising approach is likely to come within a broader definition of poverty that includes health (and possibly education) as well as income. The authors discuss recent work on collecting self-reported measures of nonfatal health and argue that such measures are already useful for assessing the relative health status of males and females. The evidence is consistent with non-elderly women generally having poorer health than non-elderly men. The authors emphasize the importance of simultaneously measuring poverty in multiple dimensions. The different components of well-being are correlated, and it is misleading to look at any one in isolation from the others.

Palabras clave

CONSUMPTION PATTERNS, HEALTH ASPECTS OF POVERTY, GENDER GAP, POVERTY INCIDENCE, POVERTY MEASUREMENT, POVERTY LINE, GENDER DISCREPANCIES, HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION, WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENT, DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS, EXPENDITURE PATTERNS, FAMILY INCOME, HOUSEHOLD DATA, POVERTY & GENDER, HEALTH IMPACTS ABORTION, ADULT FEMALES, ADULT MALE, ADULT MALES, ADULTS, AGE GROUPS, AGED, ALCOHOL, CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURE, CONSUMPTION EXPENDITURES, DAY CARE, DEMOGRAPHIC COMPOSITION, DEMOGRAPHIC STRUCTURE, DEPRESSION, DEVELOPMENT ISSUES, DISCRIMINATION, ECONOMIES OF SCALE, ELDERLY PEOPLE, EQUIVALENCE SCALES, EXPENDITURE DATA, EXPENDITURES, FAMILIES, FAMILY SIZE, FEMALES, FOOD CONSUMPTION, FOOD EXPENDITURES, GENDER, GIRLS, HEADCOUNT POVERTY RATES, HOUSEHOLD CHARACTERISTICS, HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION, HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION, HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE, HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURES, HOUSEHOLD INCOME, HOUSEHOLD LEVEL, HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS, HOUSEHOLD RESOURCES, HOUSEHOLD SIZE, HOUSEHOLDS, HOUSING, HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, HYPERTENSION, ILLITERACY, INCOME, INDIVIDUAL LEVEL, ISOLATION, LABOR FORCE, LIFE EXPECTANCY, MALES, MEASURED POVERTY, MEASURING POVERTY, MORTALITY, MOTIVATION, PARENTS, POLICY RESEARCH, POOR COUNTRIES, POOR HOUSEHOLDS, POVERTY COMPARISONS, POVERTY LINE, POVERTY LINES, POVERTY MEASURE, POVERTY MEASUREMENT, POVERTY MEASURES, POVERTY PROFILE, POVERTY RATE, POVERTY REDUCTION, PRIVATE CONSUMPTION, PRIVATE GOODS, PUBLIC GOODS, RURAL SECTOR, SEX, SHADOW PRICES, SIBLINGS, WALKING, HEALTH IMPACTS, ABORTION