Living standards within households : learning from non-monetary indicators

This dissertation focuses on the distribution of resources within Irish households and the implications of that distribution for the living standards of different household members. Inmost research on living standards, income inequality and poverty, the assumption is made that individuals living in the same household have the same standard of living. If however, different individuals within households actually experience different levels of well-being, this could have major implications for our understanding of poverty. In particular, conventional practice could lead to the extent and nature of gender differences in the experience of poverty being understated, to poverty for some children being obscured, and to the capacity of policy to improve living standards being seriously impaired. Non-monetary indicators of living standards and deprivation are increasingly being used in measuring household poverty. This study demonstrates their use in exploring differences in living standards within households. The aim of the present study was to develop a set of indicators suitable for the investigation of differences in living standards within the household - both differences between adults in a given household, and between adults and children - and to apply these indicators empirically to Ireland. This involved first designing a module of survey questions and refining them through focus group discussions with women experiencing poverty and social exclusion. The resulting set of questions was then included in the 1999 round of the Living in Ireland Survey. Research has then been carried out on the responses to this innovative set of specially-designed questions, focused on bringing out the scale and nature of differences within the household and teasing out the influences on the intra-household distribution of resources. In particular it looked at the role a woman's independent income might play and also at the impact of the presence of another adult at the interview. The results are revealing both in the specific Irish context and more broadly, from a methodological and substantive point of view.