Which one of the following indicators is included in the National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)?
- (a)Years of schooling
- (b)Literacy rate
- (c)Life expectancy
- (d)Per capita income
Correct — A, Years of schooling. The Multidimensional Poverty Index measures deprivation in a household directly, not income, and it does so across three dimensions — health, education and standard of living. Years of schooling is one of the two education indicators, alongside school attendance, and in the global index each carries a weight of one-sixth. India's National MPI, built by NITI Aayog on the same three dimensions and the same Alkire-Foster method, keeps years of schooling and expands the list to twelve indicators by adding maternal health and a bank account. The other three options are all averages computed for a population rather than facts about a household, which is precisely what the MPI was designed to move away from.
- (b)Literacy rate — The closest miss, and worth being precise about. The index does not use a literacy rate; it asks whether any household member has completed a set number of years of schooling, and whether school-age children are attending. A rate for a whole population cannot tell you which households are deprived.
- (c)Life expectancy — This belongs to the Human Development Index, where it stands for the health dimension. The MPI's health indicators are nutrition and child mortality, with maternal health added in the Indian version — all of them observed in the household.
- (d)Per capita income — Also an HDI variable, and the very thing the MPI exists to supplement. The index carries no monetary variable at all; it counts deprivations in nutrition, schooling, cooking fuel, sanitation, water, electricity, housing and assets.
The MPI was developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with the UN Development Programme and first published in the 2010 Human Development Report, replacing the Human Poverty Index of 1997. Its method counts deprivations household by household: each indicator carries a weight, the weights a household is deprived on are added up, and a household scoring one-third or more is counted as multidimensionally poor. The headline number is the product of two things — how many people are poor, and how intensely.
Three options here are population averages and one is a household fact, and that single observation answers the question without any recall of the indicator list. The MPI's whole point is to identify which households are deprived and in what way, so that a government can act; a literacy rate or a life expectancy figure describes a state or a district and tells you nothing about any particular family. It also helps to keep the two indices apart by their variables. The Human Development Index runs on life expectancy, schooling and income per head; the MPI runs on nutrition, mortality, schooling, attendance and a list of household amenities, with no money variable anywhere in it.
- The global MPI has three dimensions and ten indicators: nutrition and child mortality under health; years of schooling and school attendance under education; and cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing and assets under standard of living.
- Health and education indicators carry one-sixth each; the six standard-of-living indicators carry one-eighteenth each.
- India's National MPI, by NITI Aayog, keeps the three dimensions and uses twelve indicators, adding maternal health and a bank account.
- A household is counted as multidimensionally poor if its weighted deprivation score reaches one-third.
- Life expectancy and per capita income belong to the Human Development Index, not the MPI.
Every MPI indicator is something you can observe in one household; the three wrong options are averages for a population.
- Choosing literacy rate because education is a dimension. The indicators are years of schooling and school attendance.
- Importing life expectancy and per capita income from the HDI.
- Looking for a money variable. The MPI has none by design.
As a pick-the-indicator question, as a statement item on the number of dimensions and indicators, or as a comparison of the MPI with the HDI.
Which of the following statements with regard to the Report of Tendulkar Committee (2009) on poverty estimates is/are correct? 1. The Committee had used an all-India urban poverty line basket as a reference to derive both rural and urban poverty levels. 2. The Committee had anchored the poverty line to the official food calorie norms. Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(a) 1 only
The other way India measures poverty, asked a year later. Tendulkar works from a consumption basket and a money cut-off; the MPI counts deprivations in the household and uses no money variable at all. Holding both approaches side by side is what these two questions are really testing.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Multidimensional Poverty Index measures deprivation in how many dimensions?
- (a)Two
- (b)Three
- (c)Five
- (d)Ten
Answer(b) Three — health, education and standard of living, with ten indicators in the global index and twelve in India's National MPI.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following is an indicator of the Human Development Index but not of the Multidimensional Poverty Index?
- (a)School attendance
- (b)Nutrition
- (c)Life expectancy at birth
- (d)Cooking fuel
Answer(c) Life expectancy at birth — the MPI's health indicators are nutrition and child mortality, observed household by household.