Gender and Spatial Disparity of Multidimensional Poverty in Iran

Demonstrating the frequency, intensity and disparity of poverty among the various gender and spatial subgroups of Iranian society is the main intention of this paper. Respecting the demands, to the extent allowed by the available data, of Sen's (1987) capabilities approach to the assessment of human well-being, this paper estimates multidimensional poverty in Iran. This study uses the Alkire-Foster method, which is flexible enough to use in various data and dimensional contexts and is able to capture the intensity as well as the incidence of poverty. In order to estimate disparity of poverty, multilevel regression models have been utilised with the premise that households are nested within provinces. Therefore, the disparity in the incidence of poverty - between and within provinces - was estimated using a multilevel logit regression model, while the variation in the intensity of poverty among the poor was estimated by applying a multilevel linear model. The results reveal a remarkable disparity among different subgroups in Iran in which female-headed households and rural households are heavily disadvantaged compared to their peers in male-head and urban households.