Reviewing material deprivation indicators as measures of poverty

Increasingly, the measurement of poverty is not restricted to looking just at incomes, but also at direct measures of living standards or of 'material deprivation'. These have developed over time from the work of Townsend (1979), Mack and Lansley (1985) and others. They are also part of the Child Poverty Act definition of poverty.

The aim of this piece of doctoral research would be to examine how much of an advance on other measures of poverty that deprivation indicators represent, given recent work by David Gordon and others, and academics (including myself) working on the measurement of child and pensioner poverty.

The precise research design and methods of inquiry will be developed during the project but are likely to include secondary data analysis of past poverty studies, though other methods may also be included in addition to the data analysis. Part of the secondary data analysis will be to consider some of the earlier studies that may shed light on different approaches to measuring poverty. Such data is readily available in the UK and certain other developed countries.