Monitoring Poverty Trends: Results from the 1998 Living in Ireland Survey

Monitoring the evolution of poverty and assessing progress towards achieving the stated targets is of central importance to the National Anti Poverty Strategy (NAPS). Last year, the ESRI carried out a study for the NAPS Inter-Departmental Policy Committee (Callan et al. 1999) based on results from the 1997 round of the Living in Ireland household survey. The present report for the Inter-Departmental Policy Committee now provides an updated picture using results from the 1998 round of that survey. The primary aim is to use this 1998 data to assess how the overall extent of poverty and the profile of those in poverty has changed vis a vis the picture presented for 1997 in Callan et al. (1999). This analysis of 1998 forms part of a broader study which will also take advantage of the panel nature of the data to look at transitions into and out of poverty from one year to the next over the period from 1994 to 1998. The report is structured as follows. Chapter 2 describes the database on which the subsequent analysis relies. Chapter 3 focuses on overall trends in numbers falling below income poverty lines, derived in a variety of ways. Chapter 4 looks at the profile of risk and incidence when those income poverty thresholds are employed. Chapter 5 turns to non-monetary deprivation indicators, which in combination with income help to identify those experiencing generalised deprivation due to lack of resources. Trends in the numbers both falling below relative income lines and experiencing basic deprivation, and the types of households affected, are examined. Finally, Chapter 6 brings together the main findings and discusses their implications for targeting in the anti poverty strategy.