This chapter presents a cutting-edge study of multidimensional poverty since it fully exploits highly granular data on expenditure (government programmes) matched with social development indicators. First, we explore how economic well-being and various socioeconomic rights, in Mexico, have benefited from domestic income and remittances of households located in the deciles 1 to 5 of the income distribution. Second, we analyse the degree of substitutability of remittances (or personal income in general) vis-à-vis spending on social programmes.

In this chapter we examine the historical background to poverty research, the definition and concepts of poverty, and how is it experienced by individuals, families, and communities. The focus is mainly on the UK and on qualitative studies. Poverty is a cause of human suffering and the experiences of people living in poverty are mediated by social divisions such as gender, ethnicity, and disability. It can be understood in terms of the need of material resources, but also in terms of its psychosocial effects. It has clear effects on mental and physical health. Many aspects of the lives of people in poverty parallel the position of people with mental health conditions: lack of agency, opportunity, and voice; living compromised lives with stigma and discrimination; and struggling with day-to-day functioning, employment, and housing. Poverty impacts negatively on self-esteem and produces feelings of shame and guilt in response to inadequate material and social situations. It is possible that some of the mechanisms for understanding mental ill-health may also be shared with those related to poverty.

The application of multidimensional poverty measures is proliferating, in part due to the emphasis in Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on ending poverty in all its forms and dimensions. This chapter first traces the emergence of a priority for non-monetary poverty measures in key texts that considered and then set out the SDGs. It then outlines some vital and feasible research questions on a subset of fascinating empirical topics on counting-based multidimensional measures. The topics covered here relate to the SDGs’ focus on measuring the multidimensional poverty of men, women and children. Building on the existing literature, fascinating questions remain in terms of measurement design (the selection of dimensions, indicators, cut-offs and weights), the analysis of multidimensional poverty measures, their application to child poverty and their implementation using gendered data. In each of these areas, it is expected that significant breakthroughs are possible.