Introduction
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Small Farm 1
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Commercial Farm
Non Trad' Farm
Issues
Theories
Pov'ty Indicators
Commodities
Poverty
Econ. of Scale(1)
Income Elasticity
Infant Industries
Commodity Mkts
Econ. of Scale(2)
Lorenz Curve
Malthus
Measuring Pov'ty
Perf. Competition
Cycle of Poverty
Price Ceilings
Prod. Subsidies
Coffee Mkt.
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Home Field Trips Rural Life and Agriculture Tour Alternative Indicators of Poverty

Theories

Alternative Indicators of Poverty

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Economists use a wide range of variables as indicators of the level of poverty. Some of the more common are given below. Those listed fall into two categories. The first is Health and Education Indicators and the second measures of access to and the impact of education.

1. Measures of Good Health
   • Infant mortality
     The number of live born babies who do not survive to their first birthday out of each thousand babies born in total.
   • Life expectancy (at birth)
     The average number of years a new born baby can expect to live if conditions remain the same
   • Calories per day
     The main cause of malnutrition, which means the body has insufficient energy to maintain good health. Many countries have improved over the last 30 years however many in African countries have deteriorated.
   • Protein per day
     Lack of protein causes malnutrition and lack of mental development as protein deficiency when the mother is pregnant has an effect on the intellectual development of the foetus.
   • Number of doctors per 100,000 of the population
     This is an indicator of the level of health care available. The higher the number of doctors per 100,000, the better the level of health care should be.
   • Number of hospital beds per 100,000
     This also is an indicator of the standard of health care. The more beds available per 100,000 of the population, the better the access to health care for the people.
2. Measure of Access to and Impact of Education
   • Literacy rates
     The percentage of the population over the age of 15 whom can read and write a simple sentence about their lives.
   • Primary school enrolment rate
     The number of children of primary school age who are enrolled at school as % of age group.
   • Secondary school enrolment rate
     The higher the enrolment rate, the more children have access to secondary education and therefore the higher the overall educational standards are likely to be.

Individual indicators invariably fail to consider all the characteristics of poverty. Economists have consequently attempted to construct measures or indices that combine several of the individual indicators together. These are called composite indicators.

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