Multiple deprivation, income and poverty in Italy: an analysis based on European Community Household Panel

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine both the diffusion and intensity of poverty in Italy by utilising two kinds of approach. The first is the usual one, which employs a threshold defined in terms of income in order to identify the poor families. The second, referring to the definition of functioning introduced by Sen, identifies the poor families on the basis of living conditions. The use of this specific approach allows us to take into account new aspects of the phenomenon that the income approach overcame. Our analyses refer to the results of the second wave of the European Community Household Panel, which was delivered in 1995. Regarding income poverty, a logistic discriminant analysis has been performed in order to detect the significantly connected variables, as for the living conditions approach. The latter approach is more effective in the detection of the family state of privation than the former.