Why is poverty such a difficult problem to define and measure

According to the United Nations, poverty is measured defined in either absolute or relative. Absolute poverty is a measure of poverty based on the amount of money that one needs to cater for primary needs. On the other hand, relative poverty relates to the economic status of people living in a certain region. The paper below discusses why poverty is a difficult problem for social scientists to define and measure. It is difficult for a social scientist to define and measure poverty since the item whose distribution is measured may not be the appropriate one to represent poverty. Poverty is normally caused by inequality in the economy (Valentin, 2015, p222). Social science surveys use individual poverty tests and budget standards to determine whether people classify and evaluate themselves as underprivileged.

Other social science surveys have come up with a consensual method, in which an opinion poll is applied to ascertain the things people in the general public see as essential and working from there to evaluate who can have enough money to cater for basic needs and those who cannot have. Based on budget standards and subjective tests, a quarter of Britain’s population may be termed as poor (Gordon, Levitas & Pantazis, 2006, p53). To measure relative poverty one must determine the living standards of an individual relative to the other members of the society (Brady & Burton, 2016 p29). The poverty line is the minimum cost of standard living of a particular society or country, by determining what is relatively required then calculating the amount of money required to obtain them (Cowell, 2011, p10).

In this case, the items that are allowed are mainly shelter, clothes, food, and fuel. Social scientist finds the definition of absolute poverty as biased since times are different today from decades ago or the 20th century. According to social scientists, it is unfair that the absolute poverty alone set many years ago still left many people struggling to save to get basic needs. The British governments regard someone earning below 60 percent of the median income as poor. Social, economic measures of determining poverty cannot rest only on political or imaginary acceptable but also rest to a large extent on consistency. Although defining and measuring poverty has proved to be a difficult thing, I do not agree with this statement to some extent since some groups of people, for instance, older people, asylum seekers, disabled, women, and lone parents are more likely to be in poverty than other people.

The living conditions of such people may help to define and measure poverty. These groups are likely to lack basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothes. In my opinion, a person who cannot afford basic needs such as food, shelter and clothes can be regarded as poor. Failure to have a clear definition and measurement of poverty has left many people suffering as the governments, and society may make some assumptions that are not correct. References BLUSTEIN, D. L. , & FABIO, A. D. Brady, D. and Burton, L. M. eds.  The Oxford handbook of the social science of poverty. B. , Kanbur, S. R. and Sen, A. K. com/choice/publicfullrecord. aspx?p=3416977. ARNDT, C. , & TARP, F.  Measuring poverty and wellbeing in developing countries.