Are you unhappy? Then you are poor! Multi-dimensional poverty in Belgium

This paper presents a multidimensional measure of poverty. The proposed method has been applied to the PSBH dataset for Belgium for the years between 1994 and 2000. The proposed method reveals three dimensions of poverty: ‘material deprivation’, ‘social deprivation’ and ‘psychological health’. Between 9 and 11 percent of the representative sample of Belgian individuals are poor. The paper also identifies causes of poverty, including not having a job, not having the Belgian nationality, having a poor health or a disability, being lower educated, experiencing financial poverty, being divorced or widowed, and living in the Walloon or Brussels regions.status: publishe