Reassessing income and deprivation approaches to the measurement of poverty in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

This paper reassesses the validity of a poverty measure combining relative income and non-monetary deprivation indicators, first developed and applied to Irish data for 1987, in the light of experience since then and current debates. A crucial issue is whether the measure has failed to capture fundamental changes in livings patterns and expectations. A range of analyses confirm that it continues to identify a set of households experiencing distinctive levels of generalised deprivation, economic strain, psychological distress and exposure to persistent income poverty.