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THE PRESIDENCY: REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
Private Bag X1000, Pretoria, 0001
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO. 656
DATE PUBLISHED: 7 March 2011
DATE DUE: 18 March 2011
656. Mr J Selfe (DA) to ask the President of the Republic:
What index does the Government use to measure poverty levels? NW702E
REPLY:
Government understands that poverty is a multidimensional issue and thus,
no single definition can be used to describe poverty and no single index is
used.Â
Currently, two approaches are used for poverty measurement.Â
The first is an absolute or "money-metric" approach in which poverty lines
are developed based on the consumption expenditure of households. A
household is classified either poor or not poor by whether its consumption
expenditure is below or equal and above a poverty line. Stats SA uses both
nationally derived poverty lines to derive poverty indicators such as
poverty headcount, poverty gap and severity of poverty, as well as
international poverty lines ($1 a day per capita) for the purposes of
monitoring the MDGs. These data are gathered every 2.5 years.
The second approach measures the welfare of households by looking at socio-
economic characteristics such as access to services and facilities, housing
type and others.
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Given the multidimensional nature of poverty, Stats SA is currently
investigating other additional methods of measuring poverty in the country,
such as subjective poverty measures on welfare and well-being.