The Order of Acquisition of Durable Goods and the Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty

In their study of Poor Britain Mack and Lansley (1985) combined a ‘direct’ approach to poverty measurement, one that focuses on actual living conditions rather than on income or total expenditures, with a ‘consensual’ approach that integrates information on what ‘public opinion’ considers as necessary consumption. Such a direct measurement of poverty in fact followed Peter Townsend’s (1979) original ideas in so far as poverty was defined as a lack of ‘socially perceived necessities’ (Mack and Lansley, 1985). For Mack and Lansley, an item should be classified as a necessity if more than 50 per cent of the population considered it as such. Halleröd (1994) criticized such an approach and defined it as a ‘majority’ rather than as a ‘consensual’ approach. He suggested using a ‘proportional deprivation index’ where all the original items taken into account in the survey are included in a weighting scheme where the weight of an item is derived from the proportion of individuals regarding this item as a necessity.