Documento de Trabajo CIIE, No. 2008-05

Experienced Poverty and Income Poverty in Mexico: A Subjective Well-Being Approach

Mariano Rojas

This paper uses a life-satisfaction conception of well-being to define experienced poverty. Based on a domains-of-life approach, it shows that experienced poverty is a broader concept than income poverty and that they lead to substantial dissonance in the classification of persons as poor. It is argued that experienced poverty better captures the complexity of being human. It is shown that raising the income received by persons does not automatically translate into greater well-being. It states that public policy should be concerned not only about getting people out of income poverty, but also about placing them in a life-satisfying situation.