ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to go beyond the poverty studies which concentrate exclusively on the socio-demographic characteristics linked to the conditions of poverty. These studies only allow us answer the question as to who the poor are, but not the question about why they are in such a situation. Knowing how many people are poor and who they are certainly allows us to evaluate the efficiency of poverty reduction policies and to implement more efficiently these policies, but at the same time tends to orient these policies in a certain way towards transfer policies and not towards policies favouring an increase in productivity.
