An Axiomatic Approach to the Measurement of Comparative Female Disadvantage

in Social Indicators Research (2022), 164

Female comparative disadvantage refers to the mismatch of the female with respect to achievements in different dimensions of human well-being in comparison with the corresponding achievements of the male ... [more ▼]

Female comparative disadvantage refers to the mismatch of the female with respect to achievements in different dimensions of human well-being in comparison with the corresponding achievements of the male. This paper axiomatically derives a general family of female comparative disadvantage indicators which has very important policy implications. The axioms employed are shown to be ‘independent’. An empirical illustration of the general index is provided using the UNDP data on mean years of schooling, life expectancy at birth and gross national income per capita in 2018. Results show that female comparative disadvantage is not necessarily related to standard measures of human development, such as the HDI, and is present even in countries reaching very high human development. The factor where policy intervention is needed the most is income. [less ▲]

On a Family of Achievement and Shortfall Inequality Indices

in Health Economics (2016), 25

This paper identifies a family of absolute consistent inequality indices using a weakly decomposable postulate suggested by Ebert (2010). Since one member employs an Atkinson (1970) type aggregation we ... [more ▼]

This paper identifies a family of absolute consistent inequality indices using a weakly decomposable postulate suggested by Ebert (2010). Since one member employs an Atkinson (1970) type aggregation we refer to it as the Atkinson index of consistent inequality. A second member of this family parallels the Kolm (1976) index of inequality. Two innovative features of these indices are that no specific structure is imposed on the form of the index at the outset and no transformation of any existing index is considered to ensure consistency. Each of them regards an achievement distribution as equally unequal as the corresponding shortfall distribution. We apply these indices to study inequality in grip strength among 50+ year-old Europeans. [less ▲]

Intertemporal Material Deprivation

in Betti, Gianni; Lemmi, Achille (Eds.) Poverty and Social Exclusion (2014)

Individual well-being is multidimensional and various aspects of the quality of life need to be jointly considered in its measurement. The literature on the subject has proposed many indices of ... [more ▼]

Individual well-being is multidimensional and various aspects of the quality of life need to be jointly considered in its measurement. The literature on the subject has proposed many indices of multidimensional poverty and deprivation and explored the properties that are at the basis of these measures. The purpose of this chapter is to add intertemporal considerations to the analysis of material deprivation. We employ the EU-SILC panel data set, which includes information on different aspects of well-being over time. EU countries are compared based on measures that take this additional intertemporal information into consideration. If we follow the path of material deprivation experienced by each individual over time we obtain a picture which differs from the annual results. Since the measurement of material deprivation is used by the EU member states and the European Commission to monitor national and EU progress in the fight against poverty and social exclusion, our results suggest that time cannot be neglected. Countries should not only be compared based on their year by year results but additional information is gained by following individuals over time and producing an aggregate measure once time is taken into account. [less ▲]

A Family of Unit Consistent Multidimensional Poverty Indices

in Bresson, Florent; Berenger, Valerie (Eds.) Poverty and Social Exclusion Around the Mediterranean Sea (2013)

This paper characterizes a family of subgroup decomposable unit consistent multidimensional poverty indices. Unit consistency requires that poverty rankings should remain unaltered when dimensions are ... [more ▼]

This paper characterizes a family of subgroup decomposable unit consistent multidimensional poverty indices. Unit consistency requires that poverty rankings should remain unaltered when dimensions are expressed in different measurement units. The characterized family is a simple generalization of a family of unit consistent income poverty index suggested by Zheng (2007a). [less ▲]

Poverty and Time

in Journal of Economic Inequality (2012), 10

We examine the measurement of individual poverty in an intertemporal context. Our aim is to capture the importance of persistence in a state of poverty and we characterize a corresponding individual ... [more ▼]

We examine the measurement of individual poverty in an intertemporal context. Our aim is to capture the importance of persistence in a state of poverty and we characterize a corresponding individual intertemporal poverty measure. Our first axiom requires that intertemporal poverty is identical to static poverty in the degenerate single-period case. The remaining two properties express decomposability requirements within poverty spells and across spells in order to reflect the persistence issue. In addition, we axiomatize an aggregation procedure to obtain an intertemporal poverty measure for societies and we illustrate our new index with an application to EU countries. [less ▲]

Generalized Gini Occupational Segregation Indices

in Research on Economic Inequality (2009), 17

This article axiomatically derives a class of numerical indices of integration (equality) in the distribution of different types of workers across occupations. The associated segregation (inequality ... [more ▼]

This article axiomatically derives a class of numerical indices of integration (equality) in the distribution of different types of workers across occupations. The associated segregation (inequality) indices parallel one form of multidimensional generalized Gini inequality indices. A comparison is made with the other Gini-related segregation indices. A numerical illustration of the family of indices is also provided using US occupational data. [less ▲]