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Social Indicators Research
Published in: Social Indicators Research 1/2016

15-07-2015

Is There a Link Between Poverty and Food Security?

Authors: Renuka Mahadevan, Vincent Hoang

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 1/2016

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Abstract

This paper addresses the gap in economic theory underlying the multidimensional concept of food security and observed data by deriving a composite food security index using the latent class model. The link between poverty and food security is then examined using the new food security index and the robustness of the link is compared with two unidimensional measures often used in the literature. Using Vietnam as a case study, it was found that a weak link exists for the rural but not for the urban composite food security index. The unidimensional measures on the other hand show a strong link in both the rural and urban regions. The results on the link are also different and mixed when two poverty types given by persistent and transient poverty are considered. These findings have important policy implications for a targeted approach to addressing food security.
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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
It is possible that being less food insecure allows an individual more time, resources, and energy in developing capital investments (human, social, or physical) that would help pull themselves out of poverty. But there is a lag effect of the impact of food insecurity on poverty and thus no contemporaneous relationship of a link from food security to poverty exists. Hence there is no endogeneity issue that needs to be considered when empirically examining the link from poverty to food security.
 
2
This is an improvement over previous studies on Vietnam by Molini (2006) and Mishra and Ray (2009) who used the calorie conversion rates of FAO’s food composition table. These are based on the most common food items consumed around the world and may not reflect the type and quality of food in Vietnamese diets.
 
3
We would like to thank the referee for drawing our attention to this point.
 
4
See Nord et al. (2002) and Hamilton et al. (1997).
 
5
Although some may argue that food availability is an issue in rural areas, relevant data on this aspect are not available for consideration.
 
6
There exist other more comprehensive dietary indices such as the Healthy Eating Index (Kennedy et al. 1995) and the Healthy Food Diversity Index of Drescher et al. (2007) but these require detailed information on Vietnam’s food diet which is not presently available. In any case, Ruel (2002) explains that there is no consensus in terms of conceptualising or measuring dietary diversity.
 
7
Similar results were obtained when adult equivalent measures of consumption expenditure and calorie intake were used and hence only per capita measures were reported.
 
8
Results available upon request.
 
9
The loadings output has an interpretation similar to factor loadings in a standard factor analysis given by the standardized linear effects of latent variables on indicators (Vermunt and Magidson 2005). That is, bigger values of loading indicate stronger association of the latent variable with each manifest indicator.
 
10
Thus it is not surprising that in the literature, vulnerability has been measured by many variables such as a combination of risk and inequality (Ligon and Schechter 2003), variance of income, movements in and out of poverty, length and frequency of poverty spells, predicted probability of being poor etc. See http://​go.​worldbank.​org/​R048B34JF0.
 
11
This result in Model 4 is only significant at the 10 % level as the composite food security has other dimensions apart from calorie intake.
 
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Metadata
Title
Is There a Link Between Poverty and Food Security?
Authors
Renuka Mahadevan
Vincent Hoang
Publication date
15-07-2015
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Social Indicators Research / Issue 1/2016
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-1025-3

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