A Global Measurement Approach vs. a Country-Specific Measurement Approach

Child poverty can be measured using approaches that aim to make cross-country comparisons on a regional or global scale or to capture a country’s specific poverty context. The first can be referred to as a global approach and the second as a country-specific approach. These underlying rationales for the design and use of a child poverty approach have great implications for their theoretical and conceptual frameworks.

This paper explores whether the conceptual differences between the global and country-specific approaches also reflect a different empirical picture of child poverty when applied to a specific country. Vietnam is used as a case study for the application of both approaches and analysis of results. The methodology used identifies children at two different levels of poverty, namely severe deprivation and absolute poverty. Findings suggest that the country-specific approach is more inclusive than the global approach, identifying a larger percentage of children as poor and capturing the large majority of those children identified under the global approach. Poverty figures of both approaches further convey a varying picture of child poverty when considering the different dimensions of vulnerability. The demographic composition of the poverty groups by either one or both of the approaches does not display significant differences.