Concept and Measurement of Poverty

Poverty is a challenging issue for any society and state. It is not just an economic, social, psychological, and political phenomenon but also related to human dignity, equity, and justice. Poverty measurement has various approaches but has historically dominated mainstream economics—the classical and neoclassical schools’ well-known measurement approach of market poverty, which focuses on the monetary incapacity to purchase basic needs. Rowntree was a pioneer of the concept of poverty. The humanistic economics concern of poverty is a phenomenon described by equity and justice, core values of an equitable society. Equitable societies rooted in ethics and humanistic economics, a branch of economics, are discussing poverty phenomena in a normative way. The author assumes that the concept and measurement of poverty have been influenced by humanistic economic thinking; social inclusion, deprivation of capability and entitlements, child poverty, human poverty, and multidimensional poverty are examples. Moreover, there has been an impact on international institutions, which have played a crucial role in shaping poverty and eradicating poverty programs around the globe. The United Nations aims to achieve sustainable development goals, targeting a poverty-free world by 2030. The paper explores poverty’s changing concept and measurement and how ethical values have been added and turned from mainstream economics to humanistic economics.