science

Individual Deprivation Measure

Individual Deprivation Measure is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Individual Deprivation Measure rather than just read about it. In short: The Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) is a new, gender-sensitive and multidimensional measure of poverty developed to assess deprivation at the individual level and overcome the limitations of current approaches which measure poverty at the household level. Characteristics Individual By assessing poverty at the individual level, the Individual Deprivation Measure enables accurate disaggregation of data by sex, ag…

Key takeaways

Individual Deprivation Measure belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Individual Deprivation Measure to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Individual Deprivation Measure from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Individual Deprivation Measure (IDM) is a new, gender-sensitive and multidimensional measure of poverty developed to assess deprivation at the individual level and overcome the limitations of current approaches which measure poverty at the household level.

Characteristics

Individual By assessing poverty at the individual level, the Individual Deprivation Measure enables accurate disaggregation of data by sex, age, disability, and geographic location.

Multidimensional The IDM considers a wide range of factors as relevant to measuring poverty, assessing 15 key economic and social dimensions, including some especially important for revealing gender disparity (voice in the community, time-use, family planning and personal relationships).

Gender Sensitive The IDM can be sex-disaggregated across 15 dimensions of life, including dimensions important to a gender sensitive understanding of poverty such as time-use, voice in the community and violence, generating a poverty-relevant gender equity measure.

Intersectional The IDM collects data on 15 dimensions from each individual, so it can reveal the impact of intersecting deprivations and inform targeting of deprivations impacting particular populations.

Scalar The measure uses a 0 to 4 poverty scale to assess the intensity of an individual's poverty. Knowing how poor an individual is, and in what dimensions, matters for targeting policy and programming, and assessing the effectiveness of action.

Policy Relevant The IDM can help governments and organisations target poverty more effectively as well as help them measure success or failure, revealing what aspects of poverty are changing, by how much and for whom.

Grounded in Participatory Research The IDM is the first poverty measure in the world based on the views of women and men with lived experience of poverty. The dimensions were informed by how women and men think poverty should be defined and what needs to improve in order to move out of poverty.

History The first research phase of the Individual Deprivation Measure started in 2009. It was a four-year, international, interdisciplinary research collaboration, led by the Australian National University, in partnership with the International Women's Development Agency and the Philippine Health and Social Science Association, University of Colorado at Boulder, and Oxfam Great Britain (Southern Africa), with additional support from Oxfam America and Oslo University. It was funded by the Australian Research Council and partner organisations. The research collaboration involved thousands of participants across 18 sites in six countries. Subsequent IDM research undertaken in Fiji was led by the International Women's Development Agency in partnership with the Fiji Bureau of Statistics with contributions from the State, Society and Governance Program at the Australian National University. It was funded by the Australian Government's Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development program. In 2016, the Australian Government provided significant investment in further development of the measure with the goal that by 2020 the IDM is ready for global use as an individual measure of deprivation and a tool for tracking progress against the 2030 Global Goals. This program is a partnership between the Australian National University, the International Women's Development Agency and the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Supporting the Global Goals The Individual Deprivation Measure has the potential to help achieve the objectives of the 2030 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The Global Goals require data and evidence to inform prioritising, action and monitoring if they are to be achieved. Recent adoption of the indicators for the Global Goals for Sustainable Development has underlined the importance of individual-level data to support targeting of policy and programming towards achieving the Global Goals, and ensuring that no one is left behind. The IDM can support the Global Goals by reducing the gender data gap, providing rich, multidimensional data about the lived experience of individual women and men in relation to core economic and social dimensions that people experiencing poverty have identified as important for defining and measuring poverty and deprivation. The IDM can also complement existing and improved gender-sensitive data collection, by showing how national results are translating into change for specific individuals and groups, and the relationship between dimensions and how this varies (for example, by age, disability, sociocultural background or rural/urban location).

Limitations Additional IDM data collection is under way to inform further refinement of the measure with the goal that by 2020 the IDM is ready for global use as an individual measure of deprivation. Visit the IDM website for updates.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Individual Deprivation Measure

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Individual Deprivation Measure claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Individual Deprivation Measure before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Individual Deprivation Measure ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Individual Deprivation Measure

In research: Individual Deprivation Measure appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Individual Deprivation Measure in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Individual Deprivation Measure is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Measurements and definitions of poverty, Poverty in Australia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Individual Deprivation Measure outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Individual Deprivation Measure in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Individual Deprivation Measure means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Individual Deprivation Measure out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Individual Deprivation Measure in simple terms?

Why does Individual Deprivation Measure matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Individual Deprivation Measure?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Individual Deprivation Measure.