Current Challenges In the Measurement of Poverty at Global, Regional, and National Levels

The Research Committee on Social Indicators (RC55) of the International Sociological Association invites submissions for a session dedicated to examining the methodological, conceptual, and empirical challenges involved in measuring poverty across different geographic and institutional scales.

Despite decades of progress in poverty research, measurement remains a contested and evolving field. Global frameworks coexist with regional adaptations and national poverty lines, often producing divergent estimates and policy implications. This session seeks to bring together scholars working on these tensions, with particular attention to questions of comparability, validity, and the politics of measurement.

We welcome contributions addressing, among others, the following topics:

• Comparative analyses of monetary and multidimensional poverty indices
• Methodological innovations in data collection, including the use of administrative records, big data, and survey harmonization
• Critiques and refinements of absolute, relative, and subjective poverty thresholds
• Regional adaptations of global poverty frameworks and their implications for cross-national comparability
• The role of social indicators in shaping welfare policy and public debate
• Measurement challenges related to specific populations (children, women, the elderly, migrants, informal workers)
• New approaches to capturing chronic, transient, and intergenerational poverty
• Relationship between poverty and inequality

Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome, as are contributions grounded in specific country or regional case studies. We particularly encourage work that engages critically with the strengths and limitations of existing measurement tools, and that proposes alternative or complementary methodologies.