A Unified Approach to Measuring Poverty and Inequality
The rows below row 1 report the distribution of population by various household head characteristics for 2003 using the national quintiles. Consider the value 18.6 [2,A] for male household heads. This value implies that 18.6 percent of the total population in male-headed households lives with per capita expenditure less than the first quintile. The population living in male-headed households is 20.2 percent in the second quintile [2,B]. Similarly, 20.3 percent [2,E] of the population from the male-headed households falls in the fifth quintile. The population distribution is almost the same across all five quintiles. The largest proportion of population living in the lowest quintile belongs to households headed by someone who has not acquired education beyond elementary level [15,A]. At the other extreme, the largest proportion of population living in the highest quintile belongs to the households headed by someone in the 20–24 age group [5,E]. Lessons for Policy Makers This table is helpful in understanding population mobility across different levels of consumption expenditure across different regions that a single welfare, inequality, or poverty measure cannot reflect. Headcount Ratio by Employment Category Table 3.19 analyzes Georgia’s headcount ratio by population subgroups according to household members’ employment category. The poverty line is set at GEL 75.4 per month. Table rows list employment sectors (agriculture, industry, government, and so on) as well as unemployed and inactive categories to account for those not working. Columns A, B, and C analyze poverty headcount ratios for 2003, 2006, and the change over time. Columns D, E, and F outline the distribution of poor people across the subgroups, with the number in the cell being the percentage of all poor people in the country that are located in that subgroup. Stated another way, this is the percentage contribution of the subgroup to overall poverty, or the headcount ratio times the population share in that group. Columns G, H, and I depict subgroup population distribution, or the population percentage found in that subgroup. The last row shows that overall headcount ratio increases from 29.9 percent in 2003 [15,A] to 31.0 percent in 2006 [15,B], reflecting a 1.0 percentage point increase in the headcount ratio.
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