IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v58y2025is1ps45-s57.html

Measuring Poverty in Australia—The Role of Income

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Davidson
  • Yuvisthi Naidoo
  • Bruce Bradbury

Abstract

Despite Australia's long history of independent poverty research, successive governments have failed to adopt official poverty measures. There is broad agreement among poverty researchers and advocates that at least two types of poverty measures should be adopted: income‐based measures and direct or multidimensional measures of living standards. This article focusses on income‐based measures. It outlines key methodological choices faced by researchers including income definitions, the treatment of housing and other assets, and optimal poverty thresholds. To assess the validity of a poverty line set at 50% of median equivalent household disposable income, we compare the profile of people in households with incomes below this level and those experiencing multiple deprivation of essentials. The article concludes with broad guidance on the development of optimal income‐based poverty measures for Australia.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Davidson & Yuvisthi Naidoo & Bruce Bradbury, 2025. "Measuring Poverty in Australia—The Role of Income," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 58(S1), pages 45-57, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:58:y:2025:i:s1:p:s45-s57
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.70019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70019
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.70019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Saunders & Yuvisthi Naidoo & Melissa Wong, 2022. "Comparing the Monetary and Living Standards Approaches to Poverty Using the Australian Experience," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(3), pages 1365-1385, August.
    2. Kitty Stewart & Nick Roberts, 2019. "Child Poverty Measurement in the UK: Assessing Support for the Downgrading of Income-Based Poverty Measures," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 523-542, April.
    3. Bruce Bradbury, 2014. "Pensions for Singles and Couples," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 480-498, September.
    4. Conor Clarke & Wojciech Kopczuk, 2025. "Measuring Income and Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 103-126, Spring.
    5. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dean A. Shepherd & Vinit Parida & Joakim Wincent, 2021. "Entrepreneurship and Poverty Alleviation: The Importance of Health and Children’s Education for Slum Entrepreneurs," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(2), pages 350-385, March.
    2. Janina Isabel Steinert & Lucie Dale Cluver & G. J. Melendez-Torres & Sebastian Vollmer, 2018. "One Size Fits All? The Validity of a Composite Poverty Index Across Urban and Rural Households in South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 51-72, February.
    3. Sugata Bag & Suman Seth, 2016. "Understanding Standard of Living and Correlates in Slums - An Analysis Using Monetary Versus Multidimensional Approaches in Three Indian Cities," Working papers 263, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics.
    4. Gaurav Datt, 2019. "Multidimensional poverty in the Philippines, 2004–2013: How much do choices for weighting, identification and aggregation matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1103-1128, October.
    5. Liu, Edgar & valentine, kylie & Batterham, Deb & Stone, Wendy & Martin, Chris & Parkinson, Sharon & Hynes, Danielle, 2023. "Poverty and Australian housing: findings from an Investigative Panel," SocArXiv q2tfs, Center for Open Science.
    6. Alkire, Sabina & Nogales, Ricardo & Quinn, Natalie Naïri & Suppa, Nicolai, 2021. "Global multidimensional poverty and COVID-19: A decade of progress at risk?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 291(C).
    7. Wei Zou & Xiaopei Cheng & Zengzeng Fan & Wenxi Yin, 2023. "Multidimensional Relative Poverty in China: Identification and Decomposition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-27, March.
    8. repec:plo:pone00:0158554 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Laura A. Rodriguez-Villamizar & Diana Marín & Juan Gabriel Piñeros-Jiménez & Oscar Alberto Rojas-Sánchez & Jesus Serrano-Lomelin & Victor Herrera, 2023. "Intraurban Geographic and Socioeconomic Inequalities of Mortality in Four Cities in Colombia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-19, January.
    10. Jhonatan Clausen & Nicolas Barrantes & Carolina Trivelli & Fabio Salas, 2025. "Evaluating Poverty in all its Forms and Dimensions: Monetary, Multidimensional, and Subjective Poverty in Peru," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 861-893, September.
    11. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp077 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Bukari, Chei & Broermann, Shanaz & Okai, Davidson, 2021. "Energy poverty and health expenditure: Evidence from Ghana," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    13. Abdelkhalek Touhami & Dorothée Boccanfuso, 2023. "Impact analysis on multidimensional poverty index: Do we necessarily need to make targeting more complex? A Moroccan illustration," Policy briefs on Economic Trends and Policies 2326, Policy Center for the New South.
    14. Yiyan Chen & Zhaoyun Tang, 2023. "A Study of Multidimensional and Persistent Poverty among Migrant Workers: Evidence from China’s CFPS 2014–2020," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-15, May.
    15. Sara Busilacchi & James R. A. Butler & Ingrid Van Putten & Yiheyis Maru & Joseph Posu, 2018. "Asymmetrical Development across Transboundary Regions: The Case of the Torres Strait Treaty Region (Australia and Papua New Guinea)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-18, November.
    16. Anqi Zhang & Katsushi S. Imai, 2021. "Do Conditional Cash Transfers Improve Education and Labour Market Outcomes in the Long Run?," Discussion Paper Series DP2021-21, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Jul 2022.
    17. Najam, Zaira, 2020. "The Sensitivity of Poverty Trends to Dimensionality and Distribution Sensitivity in Poverty Measures - District Level Analysis for Pakistan," MPRA Paper 102383, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Zhang, Liyunpeng & Zhuang, Yuhang & Ding, Yibing & Liu, Ziwei, 2023. "Infrastructure and poverty reduction: Assessing the dynamic impact of Chinese infrastructure investment in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. Chhavi Tiwari & Srinivas Goli & Mohammad Zahid Siddiqui & Pradeep S. Salve, 2022. "Poverty, wealth inequality and financial inclusion among castes in Hindu and Muslim communities in Uttar Pradesh, India," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 1227-1255, August.
    20. repec:qeh:ophiwp:ophiwp074 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Wenguang Zhang & Ting Lei & Yu Gong & Jun Zhang & Yirong Wu, 2022. "Using Explainable Artificial Intelligence to Identify Key Characteristics of Deep Poverty for Each Household," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-21, August.
    22. Simplice A. Asongu & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2023. "The effect of inequality on poverty and severity of poverty in SSA: the role of financial development institutions," Working Papers 23/030, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    23. Sam Jones, 2022. "Extending multidimensional poverty identification: from additive weights to minimal bundles," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(2), pages 421-438, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:58:y:2025:i:s1:p:s45-s57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.