Seuil relatif, mesure floue de la pauvreté. Nouvelles propositions

Abstract

In order to avoid the usual binary definition of poverty a fuzzy set approach has been used. This builds on fuzzy set theory whereby the definition of the threshold of who is poor or non-poor is fuzzy. The present paper proposes a method using a membership function and a relative poverty line to identify to what extent households can be considered as poor or nonpoor.
To aggregate individual poverties, fuzzy unidimensional and multidimensional indices are proposed. An application using individual well-being data from Tunisian households is presented. We seek to show how the choice of public authorities or international institutions can be reflected in these poverty indices.