Top

Social Indicators Research

Published in:

04-06-2016

Multi-Dimensional Deprivation in the U.S.

Authors: Shatakshee Dhongde, Robert Haveman

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 2/2017

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of multidimensional deprivation in the U.S. since the Great Recession, from 2008 to 2013. We estimate a Multidimensional Deprivation Index by compiling individual level data on several well-being dimensions from the American Community Survey. Our results indicate that the proportion of the population that is multidimensional deprived averages about 15 percent, which exceeds the prevalence of official income poverty. Lack of education, severe housing burden and lack of health insurance were some of the dimensions in which Americans were most deprived in. Though deprivation increased during the recession, it trended towards a decline between 2010 and 2013. Unlike the official and the supplemental poverty measure which did not show any decline, the deprivation index better reflects the economic recovery since the recession. Overall, the prevalence of deprivation was higher in the southern and the western states and among the Asian and the Hispanic population. Importantly, there was not much overlap between individuals who were income poor and those who were multidimensional deprived. In fact, almost 30 % of individuals with incomes slightly above the poverty threshold experienced multiple deprivations. Our analysis underscores the need to look beyond income based poverty statistics in order to fully realize the impact of the recession on individuals’ well-being.

previous article The Poverty Penalty and Microcredit

next article Living Near to Attractive Nature? A Well-Being Indicator for Ranking Dutch, Danish, and German Functional Urban Areas

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Available only for authorised users

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Summit held in September 2015 adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals which will build upon the previous Millennium Development Goals. See https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org.

Wagale (2009) used fuzzy sets and factor analysis to measure deprivation using data from the U.S. National Opinion Research Center. We do not review literature on material hardship measures (e.g. Beverly 2001; Carle et al. 2009), since material hardship measures are able to capture deprivation only in basic consumer durables (e.g., refrigerators, telephones); these measures fail to reflect a variety of non-material capabilities such as health outcomes, employment status and level of education.

Other methodologies in the literature including latent variables analysis, factor analysis, fuzzy set and information theory have also been used to formulate multidimensional deprivation measures (see Kakwani and Silber 2008, for a summary).

ACS data in 2008 and 2009 are controlled to population estimates based on Census 2000 counts; data from 2010 onwards are controlled to estimates based on Census 2010 counts. We do not use data from previous rounds (2005, 2006 and 2007) since there were changes made to the ACS questionnaire for several subject areas in 2008. PUMS is a sample of population and housing unit records from the ACS; the 1-year ACS PUMS file represents about 1 % of the total U.S. population.

About 5 percent of the sample in the ACS lives in group quarters (GQs). GQs include such places as college residence halls, residential treatment centers, skilled nursing facilities, group homes, military barracks, correctional facilities, and workers’ dormitories. Survey values for GQs are often imputed.

Not all dimensions in the commission’s report are included. For instance, we are not able to find data in the ACS to measure deprivation as lack of political voice and governance and personal activities.

The disability/difficulty distribution was approximately: 9 %-ambulatory, 6 %-difficulty in independent living, 5 %-hearing or cognitive, and 3 %-vision or difficulty in self-care.

The housing burden categories are: No housing burden (under 30 % of income spent on housing costs), moderate burden (between 30 and 49.9 %), and severe burden (over 50 %), (Schwartz and Wilson 2007).

See the report “Measuring Overcrowding in Housing” published by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2007). The ACS reports data on housing facilities such as plumbing (e.g., hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, a bathtub or shower) and kitchen facilities (e.g., a sink with a faucet, a stove, range, or a refrigerator). We do not include these indicators since less than 1 percent of the sample lived in households without kitchen or plumbing facilities.

Although the recession officially lasted from December 2007 through June 2009, monthly unemployment rates remained above 9 % for more than 2 years after the official start of economic recovery (Danziger et al 2012).

Though historically there is some evidence suggesting that growth of GDP since about 1980 seems to have a smaller antipoverty effect than in the 1960 s and 1970 s, see Haveman and Schwabish (2000).

Although the Affordable Care Act has lowered the proportion of people without health insurance, there are reports that many low-income workers still find the coverage unaffordable; thus the indicator will remain relevant in the future. A report in the New York Times reports that for those workers trying to get by on near-minimum wages, a plan that qualifies as “affordable” can still seem far out of reach. Workers making $15,000 to $20,000 a year buy employer-sponsored individual insurance when it is offered only 37 % of the time. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/business/many-low-income-workers-say-no-to-health-insurance.html.

The limited overlap between income poor and multidimensional deprived is not driven by the exclusion of children and elderly from the sample. Using the entire population, we re-estimated the values and found them to be very similar. Values in the entire population were: 15.6 % as income poor, 15.5 % as multidimensional deprived and 7 percent overlap.

Compared to the non-elderly adult population, these two population groups have a skewed percent of individuals deprived in the chosen indicators. The percent of elderly with no health insurance stood at less than 1 percent as compared to 21 % among the non-elderly, in 2011. On the other hand, more than 20 percent of the elderly had more than one disabling condition compared to less than 5 % among the non-elderly, whereas data on disabilities was missing for 82 % of children. While 18.5 % of elderly lacked a high school degree, only 11 % of the non-elderly lacked this degree. In order to construct a meaningful measure of deprivation among children and the elderly population, it will be helpful to use datasets other than the ACS which are more relevant to these groups.

Given the benchmark for education of high school completion, for children below 18 years of age we assigned the average years of schooling of all adults in the same household. Data on most disability variables was missing for a majority of children; so we assigned the highest disability score among adults in the same household. Unlike schooling or disabilities, data on the remaining 4 indicators is available at the household level; so children and adults belonging to the same household were assigned the same values.

Mitra and Brucker (2014) too found about 15 % individuals to be deprived in two or more indicators. However there are important differences between the two studies; their estimates are based on 1 year (2013) CPS data and on slightly different indicators.

The income-poverty ratio in the ACS is estimated by comparing the person’s total family income in the last 12 months with the poverty threshold appropriate for that person's family size and composition, according to the standards specified by the Office of Management and Budget in Statistical Policy Directive 14. If the total income of that person's family is less than the threshold appropriate for that family, then the person is considered “below the poverty level,” together with every member of his or her family. The appropriate poverty thresholds are determined by multiplying the base-year poverty thresholds (1982) by the average of the monthly inflation factors for the 12 months preceding the data collection.

See Klasen (2000), Roche (2008) for PCA and Asselin (2009), Ezzarari and Verme (2012) for MCA applications.

Alkire, S., & Foster, J. (2011a). Counting and multidimensional poverty measurement. Journal of Public Economics, 95(7–8), 476–487.CrossRef

Alkire, S., & Foster, J. (2011b). Understandings and misunderstandings of multidimensional poverty measurement. Journal of Economic Inequality, 9, 289–314.CrossRef

Alkire, S., Foster, J., Seth, S., Santos, M., Roche, J., & Ballon, P. (2015). Multidimensional poverty measurement and analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef

Asselin, L. (2009). Analysis of multidimensional poverty: Theory and case-studies. Economic studies in inequality, social exclusion and well-being (Vol. 7). New York: Springer.

Atkinson, A. (2003). Multidimensional deprivation: Contrasting social welfare and counting approaches. Journal of Economic Inequality, 1, 51–65.CrossRef

Azpitarte, F. (2011). Measurement and identification of asset-poor households: A cross-national comparison between spain and the United Kingdom. Journal of Economic Inequality, 9(1), 87–110.CrossRef

Beverly, S. (2001). Measures of material hardship: Rationale and recommendations. Journal of Poverty, 5(1), 23–41.CrossRef

Boushey, H., Bracht, C., Gundersen, B., & Bernstein, J. (2001). Hardships in America: The real story of working families. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.

Carle, A., Baumann, K., & Short, K. (2009). Assessing the measurement and structure of material hardship in the United States. Social Indicators Research, 92(1), 35–51.CrossRef

CONEVAL, (2010). Methodology far Multidimensional Poverty Measurement in Mexico, Consejo Nacional de Evaluaci6n de la Politica de Desarrollo Social (CONEVAL).

Danziger, S., Chavez, K., & Cumberworth, E. (2012). Poverty and the great recession. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Ezzrari, A., & Verme, P. (2012). A multiple correspondence analysis approach to the measurement of multidimensional poverty in Morocco, 2001–2007. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 6087.

Foster, J., Greer, J., & Thorbecke, E. (1984). A class of decomposable poverty indices. Econometrica, 52(3), 761–766.CrossRef

Garner, T., & Short, K. (2010). Identifying the poor: Poverty measurement for the U.S. from 1996 to 2005. Review of Income and Wealth, 56(2), 237–258.CrossRef

Haveman, R., & Bershadker, A. (2001). The Inability to be self-reliant’ as an indicator of poverty: Trends for the U. S., 1975–1997. Review of Income and Wealth, 47(3), 335–360.CrossRef

Haveman, R., & Schwabish, J. (2000). Has macroeconomic performance regained its anti-poverty bite? Contemporary Economic Policy, 18(4), 415–427.CrossRef

Haveman, R., & Wolff, E. (2004). The concept and measurement of asset poverty: Levels, trends and composition for the U.S., 1983–2001. Journal of Economic Inequality, 2(2), 145–169.CrossRef

Kakwani, N., & Silber, J. (Eds.). (2008). Quantitative approaches to multidimensional poverty measurement. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Klasen, S. (2000). Measuring poverty and deprivation in South Africa. Review of Income and Wealth, 46(1), 33–58.CrossRef

Meyer, B., & Sullivan, J. (2012). Identifying the disadvantaged: Official poverty, consumption poverty and the new supplemental poverty measure. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(3), 111–136.CrossRef

Mitra, S., & Brucker, D. (2014). Poverty and Disadvantage through a multidimensional lens in the United States. Fordham University Discussion Paper No. 5.

Nolan, B., & Whelan, C. (1996). Resources, deprivation and poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Roche, J. (2008). Monitoring inequality among social groups: A methodology combining fuzzy set theory and principal component analysis. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 9(3), 427–452.CrossRef

Schwartz, M., & Wilson, E. (2007). Who can afford to live in a home? A look at data from the 2006 American Community Survey. U.S. Census Bureau, Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division Working Paper, Washington, D.C.

Sen, A. (1985). Commodities and capabilities. Amsterdam: North E Holland.

Sen, A. (1987). The standard of living: Lectures I and II. In G. Hawthorn (Ed.), The Standard of living: The tanner lectures (pp. 1–38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef

Sen, A. (1992). Inequality Re-Examined. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Sen, A. (2006). Conceptualizing and measuring poverty. In D. Grusky & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Poverty and inequality. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

She, P., & Livermore, G. (2007). Material hardship, poverty, and disability among working-age adults. Social Science Quarterly, 88, 970–981.CrossRef

Smeeding, T. (2006). Poor people in rich nations: The United States in comparative perspective. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20, 69–90.CrossRef

Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J. (2009). Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Paris.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2007). Measuring Overcrowding in Housing. Office of Policy Development and Research Publication.

Wagale, U. (2009). Capability deprivation and income poverty in the United States, 1994 and 2004: Measurement outcomes and demographic profiles. Social Indicators Research, 94, 509–533.CrossRef

Weziak-Bialowolska, D., & Dijkstra, L. (2014). Monitoring Multidimensional Poverty in the Regions of the European Union. Science and Policy Report by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

Whelan, C., Nolan, B., & Maitre, B. (2014). Multidimensional poverty measurement in Europe: An application of the adjusted headcount approach. Journal of European Social Policy, 24, 183–197.CrossRef

Title: Multi-Dimensional Deprivation in the U.S.
Authors: Shatakshee Dhongde
Robert Haveman
Publication date: 04-06-2016
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Social Indicators Research / Issue 2/2017
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1379-1

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 2/2017

Fertility and Financial Development in South Asia

The Intergenerational Effect and Second Childbirth: Survey Findings from the Shaanxi Province of China

Living Near to Attractive Nature? A Well-Being Indicator for Ranking Dutch, Danish, and German Functional Urban Areas

Does Consumer Confidence Forecast Household Saving and Borrowing Behavior? Evidence for Poland

The Influence of the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Normative Content in Measuring the Level of Service

Twenty-Five Years of Materialism: Do the US and Europe Diverge?

Premium Partner