Bristol 'Next Generation' Visiting Researcher Dr Tanveer Ahmed Naveed, University of Gujrat, Pakistan

Multidimensional Child Poverty in Pakistan: Measurement and Methodology

1 June - 13 July 2023

Biography

Dr Naveed currently holds the post of Assistant Professor of Economics at University of Gujrat and has 14 years of teaching experience. He has an MSc and MS degrees from IIU Islamabad and PhD from University of Gujrat (Visiting PGR-University of Bristol, UK). Dr Naveed researches ssues of poverty, inequality and human development. His research interests and contributions are to measure valid and reliable education, assets, health and human development indices, and to develop scientifically rigorous measures for multidimensional poverty and child poverty that are applicable in low- and middle-income countries. 

He has been awarded many institutional scholarships, travel grants and awards, these have included the HEC-IRSIP Scholarship for the School of Policy Studies (UoB), the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)-Bangkok, CASS Business School-London (UK), the University of Vienna, University of Valencia, the Gold Medal and South Asian Triple Helix Association Award 2016 and the Benazir Excellence Award 2015. He has held various research fellowships, including one at UOG, “Non-income Determinants of Human Development in Pakistan” funded by HEC-Pak. He has worked on several research projects concerning various aspects of the earthquake in 2005 (Funded by PATTAN and UNISDR). He has more than 25 peer reviewed research publications on his account and he is reviewer of various international journals, e.g. Social Indicators Research, PJSI etc. He has supervised nearly twenty five students in their MPhil, BS (Hons) and MSc dissertations. He is knowlegable in the following statistical software packages: SPSS, STATA and EViews.

Research Summary

The Poverty is a concept, described statistically as a Latent Variable, i.e. a construct which cannot be measured directly but can be estimated indirectly by using suitable indicators and adopting a latent variable approach. All poverty measurement depends on an explicit or implicit measurement model. Poverty measurement requires a series of assumptions about the set of indicators, numbers and type of dimensions, thresholds, weights and the poverty line. Deprivation measures need to be based upon a clear and explicit theory or normative definition of poverty in order to ensure that each indicator is a valid measure and the reliability of each indicator is determined. There are two main ways to approach the measurement of latent construct “poverty”: formative and reflective. It is important that poverty measures are developed which conform to these fundamental scientific standards and methods e.g. the British Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey of 2000 is an earlier example of such an approach. This collaborative work seeks to consolidate a definition of poverty and child poverty, and to present a measure for poverty that is based on a suitable, valid, reliable and additive index for Pakistan.

There are two main objectives of this collaboration;  in the short run, the aim of this visit is to produce and compare the research estimates on asset index by using PSLM-2019-2020, PDHS-2019 and MICS6 data rounds, and finalise the methods and data sets to produce  multidimensional child poverty estimates for Pakistan. In addition, consensual deprivation questions were collected in 2022 from 1,000 households in Pakistan Administered Kashmir and these new high quality data will form an important part of the analysis. For long run, the purpose is to develop a joint proposal for establishment of International Poverty Centre at University of Gujrat, Pakistan.

Dr Naveed is hosted by Professor David Gordon in the School of Policy Studies. 

Planned activities include the following two seminars, all are welcome.

• Seminar 1: The Construction of Household-based Asset Index: Measurement of Economic Disparities in Pakistan by using MICS Micro-data
  
  Monday 3rd July, 1pm, Verdon Smith International Seminar Room, First Floor, Royal Fort House (access by UCard)
  
  Dr. Naveed will talk on the construction of a valid and reliable asset index at household level. He will be discussing how an asset index may be a better measure than current income or expenditures for gauging a household’s long-term capacity for buying goods and services and its potential resilience to economic shocks. He will also provide details of the results from Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Tetrachoric Principal Component Analysis (PCA) for the dimensional structure of assets. Further, the application of Classical Test Theory (CTT), and Item Response Theory (IRT) in order to construct a reliable household level asset index is also part of the talk. He will also introduce the methods to measure asset disparities e.g., Gini-coefficient index and the Palma ratio. He will share the results of asset disparities among 36 districts of Punjab-Pakistan. 

 

• Seminar 2: The Estimation of Human Development Index at Household Level and estimation of Human Development Disparities in Pakistan

  Tuesday 11th July, 1 pm, Verdon Smith International Seminar Room, First Floor, Royal Fort House (access by UCard) *previously advertised as the 7th July

  Of particular interest to UoB graduate students and colleagues from the School for Policy studies, Economics, SPAIS and MMB 

  Dr Naveed will give a talk on construction of Household-based human development index and estimation of human development disparities. He will be providing step by step procedures for construction of household-based valid and reliable assets, education, health indices and finally human development index. He will be exploring the sizable pockets of genuine poverty in the country (Pakistan), as well as, assessing particular social, economic, cultural challenges associated with low levels of human development households. This activity is planned to invite a multidisciplinary audience and will be open to all schools and faculties.