POVERTY, WELL-BEING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: OFFICIAL AND EXPERIMENTAL MEASURES IN POSTMODERN SOCIETIES

Poverty and well-being are concepts that cannot be separated, and research on poverty is implicitly linked to welfare economics. Poverty, in the complex conditions of modern societies affected by financial and economic crises, requires a clear definition and measures as accurate as possible. The paper presents some issues related to official methods and techniques for estimating poverty. Three steps necessary for poverty measurement are introduced and, also, multidimensional and poverty dynamics analyses are highlighted as important issues for poverty eradication policies. Results on youth poverty dynamics, the duration and recurrence of poverty and the perpetuation of poverty in EU countries are presented. The concepts of poverty risk, as well as some results of the search for key factors influencing the likelihood of being at risk of poverty, is discussed. Traditionally the living standard of households is measured by income, but recently other tools for measuring well-being in the broader framework of postmodern societies have been developed. As examples are some experimental methods and techniques for estimating poverty introduced in the U.S. and the European Union. Also, in the context of discussions related to the design of policies for sustainable development, some aspects of well-being measures in ecological economics are presented.