ENRICA CHIAPPERO MARTINETTI

Povertà  e politiche sociali. Una rassegna critica

N. 158

Summary — In this paper we take into consideration some of the basic issue in the analysis of poverty. Firstly, we analyse several issues concerning the definition of poverty and the main categories of poverty concepts proposed by the literature on this topic. After having discussed the traditional distinction between absolute and relative concepts of poverty and, in particular, the basic need approach and the definition of poverty as inequality, we concentrate our attention on the capability approach proposed by A. Sen. This approach seems to present a higher degree of applicability to the analysis of poverty in more developed countries. In section 3 we review the method at the identification problem of poor and the choice between different indicators which are the traditional basis for the investigation of poverty: consumption of specific goods, total expenditure and total income. We end this work considering the implications of these different approaches on the social policy strategies.