Who Counts? Incorporating a ‘Missing Minority’ to Re-examine the Profile, Drivers and Depth of Poverty across Europe

Introduction

A non-trivial minority of the de facto population are currently ‘missing’ from income surveys used to construct official statistics on poverty across Europe. WHOCOUNTS will correct for noncoverage error in official EU statistics to better understand the changing profile, drivers, and depth of poverty across Europe.

Missing Populations

Whilst those living outside of private households are often part of the inferential population in poverty debates, they are not part of the target population and thus the sampling frame of European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC). This undermines our ability to examine the full incidence, composition, and causes of poverty because many of this ‘missing minority’ exhibit some of the worst social outcomes across Europe.

Theoretical and Normative Judgments

Much more than merely technical or pragmatic, such practices reflect a set of theoretical and normative judgments about who counts when it comes to researching poverty and social policy.

Project Scope

Through novel analysis of hitherto fragmented data, WHOCOUNTS will re-examine poverty across 8 European countries that differ in their noncoverage, demographics, low-income dynamics, and policy interventions.

Methodology

Drawing on adjusted and unadjusted EU-SILC datasets, this project will improve the accuracy of poverty estimates and nuance explanations of (extreme) poverty across divergent welfare regimes by:

1. Complementing multivariate regression techniques
2. Utilizing (fuzzy set) qualitative comparative analyses

Analytical Potential

Capitalising on the analytical potential of set-theoretic approaches, the project will transform our understanding of the overall shape and conjunctural causes of poverty across Europe. It will provide new and necessary information on the social groups often rendered invisible through official statistics.

Conclusion

As such, this project promises a step change in our conceptual, methodological, and substantive analysis of (extreme) poverty, and will offer future lessons on how poverty statistics can be improved to support better-informed policy interventions.