Measuring dependence between dimensions of poverty in Spain: An approach based on copulas

Welfare and close related issues, like poverty and inequality, are multidimensional as they involve not only income, but also education, health or labour. This paper aims to measure the dependence among dimensions using copula-based coefficients. This approach focuses on the positions of the individuals across dimensions, rather than their specific values. We apply copula-based orderings of dependence to analyze how the concordance among dimensions has evolved in Spain over the last years. We also compute multivariate extensions of the Spearman’s rank coefficient. The variables considered are those included in the AROPE rate: income, material needs and work intensity.