Poverty, inequality and social welfare are defined in this book. Previous poverty studies are surveyed and a new index of poverty is developed based on everyday meanings, and stressing the individual and relative nature of poverty. Previous definitions of inequality and welfare are described and the relations between them and poverty are explored. New estimates of poverty are made for Australia. Conclusions are derived from comparisons between measured levels of poverty over time and across family types. Previous Australian studies of inequality and welfare are surveyed and new estimates are made for Australia for recent years.

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I Concepts and Measurement Issues.- 1. Introduction and Outline.- 2. Units of Analysis.- II Poverty.- 3. Approaches to the Measurement of Poverty.- 4. Development of Indexes of Poverty.- 5. A Survey of Australian Studies of Poverty.- 6. New Estimates of Poverty in Australia.- III Inequality and Social Welfare.- 7. Indexes of Inequality.- 8. Measures of Welfare.- 9. New Estimates of Inequality and Social Welfare in Australia.- IV Concluding Comments.- 10. Summary, Problems and Further Work.- Appendices.- Appendices to Chapter 3.- A3.1 Deriving a composite direct index of deprivation.- A3.2 Hagenaars' derivation of a consensus based poverty line.- Appendices to Chapter 4.- A4.1 Derivation of Sen's index.- A4.2 Proof of axiomatic properties of the deprivation weighted index of poverty.- A4.3 An approximation used in poverty index decomposition.- A4.4 Proof of an interpretation of the decomposition of Sen-type indexes.- Appendices to Chapter 6.- A6.1 Data sources and preparation.- A6.2 Estimation of a new set of equivalence scales for Australia.- A6.3 Confidence boundaries for survey results.