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from the how-much-less-do-I-have-than-others dept.
Since social scientists and economists began measuring poverty, the definition has never strayed far from a discussion of income.
New research from Georgia Tech economist Shatakshee Dhongde shows there are multiple components of poverty that more accurately describes a household's economic condition. Dhongde looks at "deprivation" more than simply low income, and her work finds that almost 15 percent of Americans are deprived in multiple dimensions.
"This study approaches poverty in a new way," said Dhongde, who recently published "Multi-Dimensional Deprivation in the U.S." in the journal Social Indicators Research.
"We tried to identify what is missing in the literature on poverty, and measure deprivation in six dimensions: health, education, standard of living, security, social connections, and housing quality. When you look at deprivation in these dimensions, you have a better picture of what is really going on with households, especially in developed countries like the United States."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @11:55PM
the Author's homepage is here
http://www.econ.gatech.edu/people/person/6e01077e-a5b3-52ea-b30c-b666d5138855 [gatech.edu]
If you try to read her work, your get to springerlink which wants 39.95.
Kind of strange that you can't be in poverty to read an article on poverty.
Guess she didn't think that part through.
I think the subject is interesting.
There is probably a different, never fulfilled want list for every human on the planet.
Depending on the time, the list has changed.
For a cave man, having a cave, fire, and something to eat was pretty good assuming nothing was trying to attack you.
Sadly, things are not much different in some parts of the world today. (Except that the threat is now other humans.)
If you watch the US media, the list of what is 'necessary' is never ending consumerism.
I think the term 'poverty' may have two related definitions.
One is not having the ability to obtain what in needed to sustain health and perhaps work to improve one's situation.
A more cynical definition is what it takes to make those who are in a position to help feel they have done enough. (Feel good.)
There is a moral imperative to attend to the first.
The point of the second, is that it should be a choice of the providers. Not an entitlement.
I would probably draw the line before providing cell phones and cable service.
I certainly would draw the line well before my working paying for the leisure time of others.
I'm skeptical about drawing the line to help those who are not willing to work to help themselves.
The sad situation is that I don't get to draw the line with my own funds.
It would be interesting to read the article.
Is there and open link to it?
(Score: 1) by SandRider on Monday November 21 2016, @06:24AM
I agree that it is strange (ironic?) to have to pay so much to read an article about poverty. I suspect that the author had thought about the irony but didn't have much choice in the matter. It is not an uncommon conundrum in the world of science. Science depends on freely sharing knowledge, but in order to continue learning and sharing scientists need money to live on, and for that they generally need jobs, in order to keep their jobs they often need to publish in "high impact" journals, the majority of which charge gobs of money to access their papers, and require authors to relinquish their copyrights (so they can't publish them on their own websites).
Luckily there are people building tools to open up science to everybody, if you want to read the paper just copy the DOI or URL into this website,
http://sci-hub.cc/ [sci-hub.cc]