The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an index of acute multidimensional poverty that covers over 100 developing countries. It assesses the nature and intensity of poverty, by directly measuring the overlapping deprivations poor people experience at once, then building up from this information.

The Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an index of acute multidimensional poverty that covers over 100 developing countries. It assesses the nature and intensity of poverty at the individual level, by directly measuring the overlapping deprivations poor people experience simultaneously.

The Multidimensional Poverty Index or MPI is an international poverty measure developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) for the United Nations Development Programme’s flagship Human Development Report in 2010.

India has witnessed high economic growth since the 1980s, and a reduction in the share of income poor, though the measured extent of this reduction varies, has been confirmed by different methods. Poverty, however, has multiple dimensions, hence this paper explores the improvement in other social deprivations.

Exercises to identify households living below the poverty line have taken place three times, and a fourth one is under way. Though the latest method aims to improve upon previous methods, its empirical implications and precise justification are not yet clear. This paper empirically examines the Socio-Economic Caste Census methodology and compares it empirically with alternative proposals to show the choice of a particular methodology matters.