Factors Affecting Multidimensional Poverty; a Panel Multilevel Approach

This study aims to investigate the factors affecting multidimensional poverty, as a complicated socioeconomic problem in Iran. To overcome some problems and limitations which the previous studies encountered them, we used a multilevel model to analyze individual and macro level factors simultaneously. First, we explain the Alkire-Foster model of measuring multidimensional poverty in detail and measured this index in Iran and all its 31 provinces during 2005-2015. Then we use 7 variables in individual level (Household size, education level of head of households, education level of the head’s spouse, sex, age and marital status of the head and independence degree of households members) and 10 variables in the province (GDP, per capita value added of education sector, per capita value added of health sector, per capita value added of social security sector, unemployment rate, inflation rate, per capita government expenditures, per capita government investment, per capita tax and degree of urbanization) to analyze the factors affecting multidimensional poverty. The results show that both individual and macro level factors affect the multidimensional poverty index. By comparing the estimated coefficients, among the individual level factors, education level of head of household, independence degree of household’s members and household size are the most affecting variables and in the macro level factors, the inflation rate is the most important variable.