Le disuguaglianze regionali nella distribuzione del reddito. Parte prima: Un'analisi della povertà delle famiglie italiane

The aim of this paper is the definition and measurement of the concept of poverty of families in nine regions of Italy. Poverty tends to be a multi-dimensional concept and the use of monetary income as a single measure of well-being can be misleading. The concept of equality of living standards is a more correct definition, but it is far more elusive. Using a national poverty line in targeting for social policies might introduce inequality within regions and families who face different cost of living; we propose regional poverty lines as a first step to correct it. Then, we try a decomposition of poverty indices in two components (poverty within regions and poverty between regions) by comparing a nation-wide threshold with a set of region-specific poverty lines. Finally, to take account of different living costs, we introduce intra-national PPP indices to correct the food consumption of poor families for the regional price levels; this can reduce the difference in regional poverty lines between North and South. We discuss the importance for the (national and/or local) policy maker to consider the concept of vulnerability instead of that of poverty in order to include multi-dimensional factors of well-being and also the role of uncertainty in households’ decision process. Indicators of vulnerability can be better proxies of living standards in each region and have significant advantages over income testing in the identification of eligibility rules to relieve immediate poverty and to prevent it in the longer term.