This chapter explores the poverty phenomenon, distinguishing between the status of objective poverty and the subjective feeling of poverty. It is argued that defining objective poverty in terms of a minimum income or ‘basic needs’ runs the risk that some people who are officially declared to be ‘poor’ feel ‘non-poor’ and vice versa. A multidimensional poverty concept is presented, conforming to the approach to multidimensional inequality.
Keywords: objective poverty, subjective poverty, poverty line, equivalence scales, poverty definitions, multidimensional poverty,