Publication: Analyzing Urban Poverty: A Summary of Methods and Approaches
Loading...
Published
2004-09
ISSN
Date
2013-06-27
Author(s)
Schuler, Nina
Editor(s)
Abstract
In recent years an extensive body of literature has emerged on the definition, measurement and analysis of poverty. Much of this literature focuses on analyzing poverty at the national level, or spatial disaggregation by general categories of urban or rural areas with adjustments made for regional price differentials. Yet for an individual city attempting to tackle the problems of urban poverty, this level of aggregation is not sufficient for answering specific questions such as where the poor are located in the city, whether there are differences between poor areas, if access to services varies by subgroup, whether specific programs are reaching the poorest, and how to design effective poverty reduction programs and policies. Answering these questions is critical, particularly for large, sprawling cities with highly diverse populations and growing problems of urban poverty. Understanding urban poverty presents a set of issues distinct from general poverty analysis and thus may require additional tools and techniques. This paper summarizes the main issues in conducting urban poverty analysis, with a focus on presenting a sample of case studies from urban areas that were implemented by a number of different agencies using a range of analytical approaches for studying urban poverty. Specific conclusions regarding design and analysis, data, timing, cost, and implementation issues are discussed.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Schuler, Nina; Baker, Judy. 2004. Analyzing Urban Poverty: A Summary of Methods and Approaches. Policy Research Working Paper;No.3399. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14244 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication Gender Gaps in the Performance of Small Firms: Evidence from Urban Peru(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-23)This paper estimates the gender gap in the performance of firms in Peru using representative data on both formal and informal firms. On average, informal female-led firms have lower sales, labor productivity, and profits compared to their male-led counterparts, with differences more pronounced when controlling for observable determinants of firm performance. However, gender gaps are only significant at the bottom of the performance distribution of informal firms, and these gaps disappear at the top of the distribution of informal firms and for formal firms. Possible explanations for the performance gaps at the bottom of the distribution include the higher likelihood of small, female-led firms being home-based, which is linked to lower profits, and their concentration in less profitable sectors. The paper provides suggestive evidence that household responsibilities play a key role in explaining the gender gap in firm performance among informal firms. Therefore, policies that promote access to care services or foster a more equal distribution of household activities may reduce gender productivity gaps and allow for a more efficient allocation of resources.Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication Intergenerational Income Mobility around the World(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-09)This paper introduces a new global database with estimates of intergenerational income mobility for 87 countries, covering 84 percent of the world’s population. This marks a notable expansion of the cross-country evidence base on income mobility, particularly among low- and middle-income countries. The estimates indicate that the negative association between income mobility and inequality (known as the Great Gatsby Curve) continues to hold across this wider range of countries. The database also reveals a positive association between income mobility and national income per capita, suggesting that countries achieve higher levels of intergenerational mobility as they grow richer.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication The Impact of Atlantic Hurricanes on Business Activity(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-22)This paper quantifies the short-run economic impact of 21 Atlantic hurricanes on U.S. local business activity from 2017 to 2024 using anonymized Mastercard transaction data aggregated by ZIP code. On average, hurricanes reduce merchant sales by 12.4 percent during the preparation, impact, and recovery phases—an estimated US$1.38 billion in lost revenue per storm. Substitution in spending across nearby areas or large online platforms is limited, indicating widespread local consumption declines. Economic disruption varies more by industry than storm intensity, with independent stores hit harder than chains. Local businesses with larger online presence face smaller, shorter sales declines, showing greater resilience.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Development of a Transport Module for Multi-topic Household Surveys(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-01)This paper is aimed at providing guidance on transport issues for those involved in designing multi-topic household surveys such as the Living Standards Measurement Studies (LSMS) surveys. The inclusion of a few key questions can provide critical information for better designing transport programs and policies aimed at improving access, affordability and quality services. Questions on transport access, quality, mode, distance, time, and cost can help to understand the constraints that the population may face in accessing jobs, markets, schools, health clinics and other social services. All of this can be broken down by subgroups such as income, geographic area, gender, employment, etc. further strengthening the relevance of the analysis and contribution to policy decisions. The paper covers background on transport and multi-topic household surveys, key transport policy concerns and data needs, approaches to analysis, issues of survey design, and prototype questions that could be included in existing surveys.Publication Hungary(Washington, DC, 2016)The objective of this paper is to develop a way to monitor and track progress on social inclusion of vulnerable groups in Hungary, particularly among marginalized Roma communities. This approach will enable stakeholders to track the status of social inclusion at the sub regional level, and can serve as a feedback mechanism on whether projects cosponsored by the European structural and investment funds (ESIF) are sufficiently targeted to disadvantaged areas. The paper builds on various Hungarian attempts to draft indicator sets to find and subsequently gear European Union (EU) - funded projects toward areas with the poorest social inclusion outcomes. This report takes stock of different exercises undertaken with Hungarian data to map, target, track, and monitor some aspects of social exclusion at different levels of disaggregation. The authors present four such attempts to: (i) map marginalized communities; (ii) target the most disadvantaged micro regions; (iii) track selected social inclusion goals; and (iv) model at risk of poverty (AROP) rates at the micro regional level. The report examines what has been done in international practice in terms of selecting and collecting indicators that measure social inclusion. The report describes the method and process of indicator selection for Hungary. The concluding section summarizes the dilemmas associated with dynamically measuring social change in the Hungarian context, and presents development project parameters that should be continuously followed in order to enable tracking and (limited) monitoring.Publication Can the Poor Influence Policy? Participatory Poverty Assessments in the Developing World, Second Edition(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002)This book focuses on the World Bank's experience with Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs). Some practitioners have argued that a number of World Bank PPAs should not be included because they were extractive, did not influence policy, and were not participatory. However, both good and bad practice PPAs is included in this analysis to facilitate learning from past experiences. Participatory poverty assessments are showing the World Bank and other outside observers of poverty that are not the only poverty experts. Poor people have a long overlooked capacity to contribute to the analysis of poverty-and without their insights to know only part of the reality of poverty, its causes, and the survival strategies of the poor. The objective of a comprehensive poverty analysis, therefore, should be to conduct participatory research and household surveys interactively, so that they enhance each other. If a PPA is conducted after the household survey, the results will explain, challenge, reinforce, or shed new light on household survey data. The results of the household survey can also, of course, explain, challenge, or reinforce the PPA. If the PPA is conducted before the household survey, the PPA results could assist in generating hypotheses, shaping the design of the household survey, and developing survey questions appropriate for the respondents. Ideally, this should be an ongoing process whereby both PPAs and household surveys are conducted periodically and feed into each other. The results of past PPAs indicate that when they are used in conjunction with household surveys, the final assessment is a much fuller analysis of the varying dimensions of poverty, and the policy recommendations are more relevant and informed.Publication Malawi : Poverty and Vulnerability Assessment, Investing in Our Future(Washington, DC, 2007-12)This study builds a profile of the status of poverty and vulnerability in Malawi. Malawi is a small land-locked country, with one of the highest population densities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the lowest per capita income levels in the world. Almost 90 percent of the population lives in rural areas, and is mostly engaged in smallholder, rain-fed agriculture. Most people are therefore highly vulnerable to annual rainfall volatility. The majority of households cultivate very small landholdings, largely for subsistence. As a result, poverty is pervasive and not merely the situation of the lowest economic groups. Therefore, while this report focuses on the least-well-off sections of the population, the analysis provides valuable information to accelerate wealth creation and economic growth for the whole of Malawi. This synthesis report presents the main findings and policy recommendations stemming from the analysis. Due to the length and detail of this study, the 'full report' presenting the detailed analysis and results underpinning these policy recommendations is available as a separate publication. This report highlights some of the key characteristics and causes of poverty in Malawi, and focuses on the main sources of risk affecting households, namely food insecurity and health shocks. Based on these findings, the report goes on to develop a set of policy recommendations for widely shared growth and poverty reduction, and for enabling the most vulnerable to make a living. Finally, the report also provides recommendations for strengthening the monitoring and evaluation systems of poverty reduction strategies, so that policy makers and Malawian society can better track the effectiveness of the policies pursued, and inform future policy choices.Publication Reducing Poverty through Growth and Social Policy Reform in Russia(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)Following the 1998 financial crisis, four out of every ten people slipped into poverty, not able to meet basic needs. Luckily, post-crisis economic rebound was impressive and broad-based, albeit uneven across sectors and regions. This title explores the nature of poverty, both nationally and regionally, to identify the groups with a high poverty risk. It then examines growth-poverty linkages through the labor market, as well as the contribution of growth and inequality to the recent poverty reduction. It also considers the expected impact of WTO accession on overall growth and poverty. Finally, it focuses on the scope for improving social policy in ways that will have a direct impact on the poor.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Breaking the Conflict Trap : Civil War and Development Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003)Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an important issue for development. War retards development, but conversely, development retards war. This double causation gives rise to virtuous and vicious circles. Where development succeeds, countries become progressively safer from violent conflict, making subsequent development easier. Where development fails, countries are at high risk of becoming caught in a conflict trap in which war wrecks the economy and increases the risk of further war. The global incidence of civil war is high because the international community has done little to avert it. Inertia is rooted in two beliefs: that we can safely 'let them fight it out among themselves' and that 'nothing can be done' because civil war is driven by ancestral ethnic and religious hatreds. The purpose of this report is to challenge these beliefs.Publication Government Matters III : Governance Indicators for 1996-2002(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)The authors present estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The authors assign these individual measures of governance to categories capturing key dimensions of governance and use an unobserved components model to construct six aggregate governance indicators in each of the four periods. They present the point estimates of the dimensions of governance as well as the margins of errors for each country for the four periods. The governance indicators reported here are an update and expansion of previous research work on indicators initiated in 1998 (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobat 1999a,b and 2002). The authors also address various methodological issues, including the interpretation and use of the data given the estimated margins of errors.Publication Design Thinking for Social Innovation(2010-07)Designers have traditionally focused on enchancing the look and functionality of products.Publication Governance Matters VIII : Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2008(2009-06-01)This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 33 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. They find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.Publication Governance Matters IV : Governance Indicators for 1996-2004(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.