Partially Ordered Sets and the Measurement of Multidimensional Ordinal Deprivation

The paper presents a general framework and an operative procedure for the evaluation of multidimensional deprivation with ordinal attributes. Evaluation is addressed in terms of multidimensional comparisons among achievement profiles, rather than through attribute score aggregations. This makes it unnecessary to scale ordinal attributes into numerical variables, overcoming the limitations of aggregative procedures and counting approaches. The evaluation procedure is fuzzy in nature, accounts for both vagueness and intensity of deprivation and produces a comprehensive set of synthetic indicators for policy-makers.