Poverty Between and within Groups: A Reformulation of the FGT Class of Index

In this paper we suggest a new approach to the identification and measurement of poverty in subgroups of population. Unlike the standard approach, in which ex-ante refers to a sole poverty line for the whole population and ex-post describes how poverty is distributed among different groups, the approach suggested here requires: i) the identification ex-ante of homogenous groups which relate to the purpose of analysis: ii) the definition of a specific (absolute or relative) poverty line for each subgroup; iii) the measurement of overall poverty by means of a reformulated FGT class index which is able to capture both between and within poverty components.