ABSTRACT
Questions about the definition of poverty and the ‘poor’ have always governed attempts to establish scientific methodology for the study of these phenomena. If poverty is a measurable or observable phenomenon, then the specification of a ‘poverty line’, to distinguish the ‘poor’ from the ‘non-poor’, is not an arbitrary matter. The choice of ‘equivalence scale’ deserves particular attention. The arbitrary choice of poverty line has to be adjusted for different types and sizes of households. Since 1945, the international agencies have tended to prefer ‘absolute’ poverty as a conceptual basis when comparing conditions in different countries. More accurately, they have preferred this concept to be applied to the poorer ‘developing’ countries. The term appears to have been adopted for two reasons. Firstly, it seemed to refer only to the basic necessities of life - especially the minimum nutrients for ordinary physical activity. Secondly, the basic necessities of life were supposed not to vary with time or place: but be fixed.
