Multidimensional Poverty Dynamics in Indonesia ( 1993 - 2007 )

Most of the remaining unresolved issues in poverty analysis are related directly or indirectly to the multidimensional nature and dynamics of poverty (Thorbecke, 2005). Analysis on multidimensional poverty has occupied much attention of economists and policymakers, particularly since the writing of (Sen, 1976) and the rising of data availability for relevant research purpose. A significant development for research has been the improvement in constructing a coherent framework for measuring poverty in multidimensional environment analogously to the set of techniques developed in one-dimension space. Multidimensional measures provide another insight into particular elements of poverty that is useful and relevant to poverty interventions. The advances in poverty research also embrace the dynamic perspective in assessing living conditions. The distinction of poverty condition between chronic and transient is not only important from the perspective of measurement accuracy, but also for policy implication purposes as well. Chronic versus transient poverty would call for different policy alleviation strategies (Hulme and Shepherd, 2003). This paper provides microeconometric analysis of the socio economic variables using Indonesian panel household surveys. The first topic is the determinants of multidimensional poverty for household, with special attention given to operationalise conceptual thinking of multidimensional poverty. The second topic adopts multiple correspondence analyses (MCA) in order to construct an index which better reflects poverty measurement. By adopting such an approach we are able not only to establish the key determinants of poverty but also to provide a microeconometric perspective on defining factors and setting optimal weights. The third topic looks at how multidimensional poverty index can play a major role in observing whether people are trapped in poverty over long periods to establish the extent of chronic and transient poverty in Indonesia. This paper estimates the incidence of multidimensional poverty to reach higher level compared to monetary poverty. However, the two types of poverty are quite positively correlated and have similar trend. It is also found that chronic poverty has characterised the pattern for the long run.