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Does Widespread Lack Undermine the Socially Perceived Necessities Approach to Defining Poverty? Evidence from South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2012

GEMMA WRIGHT  and
MICHAEL NOBLE
GEMMA WRIGHT*
Affiliation:
Oxford Institute of Social Policy, University of Oxford, Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2ER
MICHAEL NOBLE
Affiliation:
Oxford Institute of Social Policy, University of Oxford, Barnett House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2ER email: michael.noble@spi.ox.ac.uk
*
email: gemma.wright@spi.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

The socially perceived necessities or ‘consensual’ approach to defining and measuring poverty is based on an assumption that it is possible to obtain a collective view from society on the necessities for an acceptable standard of living. The enforced lack of the necessities due – typically – to lack of resources can be regarded as poverty. The validity of the approach has been questioned on a number of grounds including the argument that people's socio-economic circumstances may influence what they define as a necessity. Widespread lack of material possessions and access to services could result in these items being regarded as ‘less necessary’, which in turn could artificially deflate the definition of poverty using this approach. Informed by the adaptive preferences literature and drawing on a nationally representative South African Socially Attitudes Survey this paper explores whether there is evidence in South Africa of an association between people's patterns of possession and their definition of items as essential. Notwithstanding the fact that possession of an item is strongly associated with people's preferences, the evidence on balance suggests that widespread lack does not undermine the validity of the approach.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 147 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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