The European Union’s approach to multidimensional poverty measurement

Despite very large differences in living conditions between Member States, the European Union manages to measure the different dimensions of poverty in a comparative way. This chapter presents the philosophy of the EU social indicators construction and highlights the advantages and challenges of the EU approach. The EU portfolios of commonly agreed indicators constitute an illustrative and successful example of how dashboards, which are explicitly agreed by the Member States, are used to monitor progress toward agreed common social objectives in different fields, as part of an integrated policy framework. The chapter also highlights the challenges of a successful multi-national multidimensional poverty measurement.