Participation in Poverty Research: Drawing on the Knowledge of Low-Income Householders to Establish an Appropriate Measure for Monitoring Social Policy Impacts

Charles Waldegrave, Shane Stuart

New Zealand has undergone major social and economic changes during the last decade that have affected low-income households. As increasing levels of poverty have been identified, the research interest in the area has grown. New Zealand has yet to develop an agreed poverty threshold that has the capacity to monitor the growth or reduction in poverty, as is common in most industrialised countries, yet measuring poverty is fundamental to social policy monitoring.

This paper reports on work carried out by the New Zealand Poverty Measurement Project based on a consensual methodology. Through the use of focus groups, the Project draws on the experience of low-income householders to develop a poverty threshold.

The results show a considerable measure of agreement between low-income groups in similar areas in the same year (the major regional variant was housing costs). The findings suggest a measure of agreement about what can be considered as a minimum adequate budget, and the budget estimates provide a transparent itemised logic to the development of minimum adequate household expenditure. In this way, the Project has enabled a combination of absolute and relative measures, quantitative and qualitative research, and the analysis of macro and micro data.