Measuring absolute poverty: shame is all you need
Measuring absolute poverty: shame is all you need
As a heuristic polemic, it is proposed that, while poverty is objective, multidimensional and inherently relative, it should be quantified using a single, absolute and subjective measure: namely, poverty-related shame. The concepts of poverty and absolute poverty is first interrogated before, following Amartya Sen, arguing that shame is an absolutely essential component of poverty and, moreover, that poverty-related shame offers a measure of poverty that is universal in the sense that it is evidenced in all countries irrespective of their level of economic development. Manifestations of poverty-related shame are then considered before exploring its potential value as a universal measure of poverty. Its universality is considered with respect to conceptual, functional, metric and political equivalence.
Keywords: poverty, shame, measurement, equivalence
Policy Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
