Multidimensional Child Poverty Measurement in Sierra Leone and Lao PDR: Contrasting Individual- and Household-Based Approaches

This article compares the properties of individual- and household-based multidimensional child poverty approaches. Specifically, it contrasts UNICEF’s multiple overlapping deprivation analysis (MODA) with the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. MODA focuses on children and is rooted in the child rights approach, while MPI has been developed for households and follows Sen’s (1985) capabilities approach. We demonstrate their similarities and differences using two recent multiple indicator cluster surveys: Sierra Leone and Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The analysis suggests that MODA tends to produce higher multidimensional child poverty headcount rates than MPI, both because of the differences in the survey items used to construct the indicators of deprivation and because of how the indicators are aggregated and weighted. The study also shows that both MODA and MPI are highly sensitive to the exclusion of any one indicator from the analysis. Thus it is crucial to have valid information on the same indicators when tracking multidimensional poverty over time, e.g. for monitoring progress towards the sustainable development goals. Yet they are both robust to reductions in deprivation on just one indicator, suggesting that policies targeting only one component of the overall index would have a limited impact on the MD deprivation rate.