The Measurement of Poverty Indices Based on Iranian Household Nutrition

Poverty is a worldwide phenomenon which both developed and developing countries are entangled with. Poverty alleviation is now considered as a goal by governments and international institutions. The emphasis is very much on poverty reduction by Iran’s Constitution and other binding Acts such as socio-economic plans and The Perspective Document. In this paper, an attempt has been made to measure different poverty indices with emphasis on nutrition approach. Head count ratio, poverty gap and Sen index are among the poverty indices measured in this study. Our findings indicate a reduction in absolute poverty along with an increase in relative poverty during the period of the study. It has also been shown that the extent of poverty depends on the concept of poverty accepted by authorities. Considering the facts relating to Iran’s economy as well as resource limitation, the best concept of poverty for policy formulation is the absolute one.