Measuring Poverty and Gender Disparity: Philosophical and Practical Issues

This event is free to attend and does not require registration

Speakers
Professor Alison Jaggar, College Professor of Distinction in Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies (University of Colorado at Boulder) and Distinguished Research Professor (University of Birmingham)
Dr Scott Wisor, Lecturer (Centre for the Study of Global Ethics, University of Birmingham)

Chair
Dr Roxana Baiasu, Associate Member (Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford) and Teaching Fellow in Philosophy (University of Birmingham)

Theories of global justice have tended to be animated by concern for the global poor, often obscuring differences within that group, including differences in the deprivation experienced by men and women. Many scholars have alleged that there is a feminization of global poverty, but this claim cannot be substantiated by global poverty measures that take the household as the unit of analysis. This talk will discuss an effort to rectify shortcomings in extant global poverty measurement by developing a gender-sensitive, multi-dimensional, individual-level measure of poverty. This measure, known as the Individual Deprivation Measure, was developed through a process of public reason involving participants in six countries across Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. The presentations will address both philosophical and practical issues that arise in the measurement of global poverty.