for Development Studies Surian sa mga Pag-aaral

M uch attention has been given to the measurement and analysis of poverty. Official poverty statistics have been gener-ated by the Philippine Statistical System since 1987 as sourced from income data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) and regularly released every three years. At the global front, the World Bank also comes up with its own estimates of consumption poverty. Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) such as the Social Weather Stations (SWS), meanwhile, monitor poverty on a quarterly basis by asking household heads ’ perception on their state (or nonstate) of poverty. All these statistics provide different dimensions of poverty. Regardless of the measurement system, poverty is measured ex post. That is, poverty analysis focuses on households that are currently poor or were poor in the past. It is, however, just as important to be forward-looking and help households that are at risk of becoming poor and households that are already poor and likely to stay poor. Inter-ventions should be provided to these households that are vulnerable to poverty so that the likelihood of their becoming poor in the future may be minimized and the impact of their possible falling into poverty be mitigated. Measuring vulnerability A number of attempts have been made to measure vulnerability, especially by looking into income or consumption changes in panel data where the same household or individual is surveyed at two or more points PIDS Policy Notes are observations/analyses written by PIDS researchers on cer-tain policy issues. The treatise is holistic in approach and aims to provide useful inputs for decisionmaking