Subjective Poverty in Mexico: the Role of Income Evaluation Norms

This investigation studies the relationship between poverty concepts based on presumption and imputation of well-being and a poverty concept based on a person's own evaluation of his/her condition (subjective poverty). It is shown that there are important dissonances in the classification of people as poor or non-poor between the imputation/presumption concepts and the subjective poverty concept. Dissonances are explained on the basis of multiple discrepancy theory. It is shown that a person's evaluation of his/her life condition depends on his/her historical and social situation; as well as on the existence of important intra-household scale economies. Empirical work is based on a survey applied to 1 540 persons in five states of central and south Mexico.