Subjective Poverty and Affluence in the Philippines

Abstract

Surveys of self-rated poverty, done in the Philippines at the national level 56 times over 1983-2001, quarterly since 1992, demonstrate that poverty is volatile even in the short run. The self-rated poor are about twice as many as the poor officially defined. The official poverty line meets the subjective needs of only half of the self-rated poor. Surveys into food-poverty, hunger, and illness are internally consistent. New surveys on the subjective threshold of affluence find that, like the subjective threshold of poverty, it increases with schooling. For most people, the affluence threshold is only some three times their poverty threshold.