Measures of standard of living and of poverty are plagued by the obvious gap between the relative simplicity of the indices and the infinite complexity of what they are trying to capture. Some trade-off between the simplicity desirable in an index, and real-life complexity is inevitable. The...

Our starting point is to re-examine the concept of poverty, in particular its ethical dimensions, in order to understand more clearly exactly what poverty lines are intended to capture. Our concern with poverty lines is twofold. First, they are not credible measures of poverty, because they...

The causes of poverty in rural China have been explained in a variety of ways. These explanations include poor natural endowments, a high dependency ratio and inadequate capital and education. These explanations are examined using a unique set of survey data.

Income is one measure of material well-being. But do the people with the lowest income also work the longest hours? Are they also malnuourished and unable to read? Do social isolation and ill-health compound the hardships of low income? On the evidence presented in this paper the answer for poor...

The idea of social justice is a powerful call to collective action. While there will be some who are indifferent to the pursuit of social justice, there can be few who are against it. Education, in its tum, is a powerful instrument of collective action. It is squarely in the public domain, with...

The purpose of this paper is to explore the case for viewing people as individuals, in a public policy context, and the case for viewing them as members of a family. In doing so, the author starts with the facts about low wage workers, unemployed workers and the welfare system. Section 3...

Many people find their first employment in a low wage job. Others accept low wage jobs after a period out of the workforce or unemployed. An issue of vital social interest is the speed with which low wage workers move on to better jobs. This review of the international literature finds that the...

Many people find their first employment in a low wage job. Others accept low wage jobs after a period out of the workforce or unemployed. An issue of vital social interest is the speed with which low wage workers move on to better jobs. This review of the international literature finds that the...