Analysing the structure of poverty by Fuzzy partial order

We propose to employ Fuzzy Multi-Criteria Analysis FMCA, which originated in the decision theory context, to describe the structure of poverty. In the last years, poverty has been more and more recognized as a multidimensional, fuzzy and complex phenomenon, which cannot be duly represented by mono-dimensional monetary indicators. Our purpose is not to meausure poverty but to provide its structural representation in terms of the pattern of implications existing among different poverty descriptors in the context of a specific scenario, that is a selected geographical region. FMCA is adapted to address the case of the most southern Italian region, Sicily. The case study of Sicilian households is based on the European Statistics about Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) referring to the year 2004. The analysis shows deep-rooted poverty conditions with many relational implications across poverty descriptors, some of them describing high levels of deprivation and social exclusio