# **Section 4: Quantitative analysis of the official poverty lines**

In this section, we analyze the two non-standard features of Egypt’s official poverty lines and contrast their poverty comparisons with those that would be obtained using two alternative poverty lines, one purely absolute and one purely relative.

# **4.1 Implicit equivalence scales**

# **Male versus female**

The food poverty line is anchored to individual energy requirements, which vary by gender. This design is perfectly sensible. However, the fact that the non-food line is computed as a share of the food line may potentially bias the poverty evaluation against women. To see this, assume for a moment that the imputed share of food was common to both genders. In that case, the smaller energy requirement of women implies a smaller food line and _therefore also a smaller non-food line_ . Conceptually, this smaller non-food line for women is not justified by their smaller energy requirements. The implication of this smaller non-food line is that the poverty lines faced by women are “artificially” lower than the poverty lines faced by men, which may lead to an underestimation of poverty rates among women.

Now, it is a priori unclear whether the share of food imputed by the regression will be the same for men and women. Potentially, both men and women could be attributed the same non-food lines if men are imputed a larger share of food than women. This is in fact what could be expected for single males and females who earn the same income, with the males spending more on food because of their higher energy requirements.

To quantify this potential bias, we contrast the poverty lines across households that only differ by their gender composition. For instance, we compare a household composed of two adult males and one adult female with a household composed of one adult male and two adult females. As shown in Table 8, the energy requirements of the second (“female”) household are 93 percent of those of the first (“male”) household, resulting in a smaller food line. However, the “female” household’s smaller food line is not compensated by a smaller imputed share of food. Indeed, the share of food imputed to the “female” household is (slightly) larger than that imputed to the “male” household. As a result, the (total) poverty line for the “female” household is 93 percent of the (total) poverty line for the “male” household. The comparison of households consisting of a single adult (either male or female) and a single child yields the same conclusion. Hence, this analysis points to a risk of underestimating the poverty rate among females (when compared to the poverty rate of males). The order of magnitude of this bias is revealed by our analysis using alternative poverty measurement methodologies (see below).

_Table 8: Comparison of male versus female poverty lines_

|Household type|Household<br>size|Region|Number<br>calories|Imputed<br>share of<br>food|Ratio #<br>calories<br>(% ref<br>HH)|Ratio<br>NON-food<br>shares (%<br>ref HH)|Ratio<br>poverty<br>line (%<br>ref HH)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|2 males + 1 female|3|Upper Rural|9,550|0.46|1|1|1|
|1 male + 2 females|3|Upper Rural|8,900|0.47|0.93|0.99|0.93|
|1 male + 1 child|2|Upper Rural|5,400|0.53|1|1|1|
|1 female + 1 child|2|Upper Rural|4,750|0.54|0.88|0.98|0.88|

**Source** : Authors’ calculations based on HIECS 2015.

**Note** : The calorie requirements considered are 3,400 calories for a male, 2,750 for a female, and 2,000 for a child. The imputed share of food is computed from the coefficients regressed in 2015 in Upper Rural Egypt.

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