• Talk 1: Unsatisfied basic needs and consensual method: The experience in Buenos Aires (Ana Laura Fernandez)
• Talk 2: Child poverty and the consensual method (Dr Gill Main)
• Talk 3: Socially perceived needs across time and space (Joanna Mack)

View a YouTube video of Joanna Mack's talk

Talk 1: Unsatisfied basic needs and consensual method: The experience in Buenos Aires

Ana Laura Fernandez (National University of General Sarmiento)

This talk will provide a discussion on the shortcomings of the use of information drawn from existing household surveys on UBS for measuring multidimensional poverty and the experience of the City of Buenos Aires in Argentina in using the consensual method for the construction of a multidimensional poverty measure.  

Course materials

Unsatisfied basic needs and consensual method The experience in Buenos Aires (An (PDF, 1,275kB)

NBI y Pobreza consensual Argentina (Ana Laura Fernandez) (PDF, 1,276kB)

Key readings and speaker biography

See page 23 of Advanced Poverty Research Methods Online Course - Programme (PDF, 673kB)

 

Talk 2: Child poverty and the consensual method

Professor Gill Main (University of Leeds, UK)

This session examines how children have been included – and excluded – in efforts to understand, measure, and address child poverty. Most measures of child poverty – especially income-based measures – treat children as passive adjuncts to parents and as net drains on the household economy. Even studies which include child-specific items tend to decide on these items based on adult perceptions of children’s needs and rely on parents or other adults as proxy respondents for children.

Childhood Studies, as an academic discipline, challenges the assumptions behind these approaches. We know that, rather than being passive, children are actively involved in interpreting their situation and responding to it and this includes children’s understandings of what poverty is and what the experience of poverty is like. After outlining the theoretical basis for including children more fully in all aspects of poverty research, studies from Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the UK which have developed theoretical knowledge, statistical measures and anti-poverty agendas in partnership with children and young people will be discussed. A case will be made not only that we can include children in theorising, measuring and addressing child poverty, but that, if we are serious about eradicating poverty in all its dimensions, we must do so.

Course materials

Child Poverty (Gill Main) (PDF, 1,107kB)

Pobreza Infantil (Gill Main) (PDF, 1,483kB)‌

‌Key readings and speaker biography

See pages 24-25 of Advanced Poverty Research Methods Online Course - Programme (PDF, 673kB)

 

T‌alk 3: Socially Perceived Needs Across Time and Space

Joanna Mack (Open University, UK)

This session explores public attitudes to the necessities of life, looking at which items remain constant and which items change according to time and place. It starts with the Breadline Britain surveys of 1983 and 1990, the Poverty and Social Exclusion in Britain survey of 1999, the PSE survey in Northern Ireland in 2002/3 and PSE UK 2012 survey, which all used the same methodology to investigate the public’s perception of necessity and therefore allow changes in people’s perceptions to be tracked over a thirty-year period. Looking at the items seen to be necessities, that is, those that a majority of people felt that no-one should have to do without, it discusses the extent to which there is a core of items seen to be essential for an acceptable standard of living in the UK that remain constant over time and what those items have in common. It then examines which items changed from being seen as necessities to items that maybe desirable but were not necessities and which moved in the other direction, examining how this reflects changes in the nature of society over this period. The session then moves on to look at surveys across the world that have used this methodology to explore attitudes to necessities in those countries. Drawing on surveys in a range of high-, mid- and low-income countries, it looks at how attitudes to what is essential to live in that country vary across countries, and why. It finally asks whether a core set of items seen to be necessities can be identified that are common across all countries.

Course materials

Socially perceived needs across time and space (Joanna Mack) (PDF, 475kB)

Necesidades percibidas socialmente a través...(Joanna Mack (PDF, 489kB)

Key readings and speaker biography

See pages 26-27 of Advanced Poverty Research Methods Online Course - Programme (PDF, 673kB)