NOVAFRICA Seminar:
“Interpersonal Inequality, Intrahousehold Inequalities and Poverty in Senegal”

On Wednesday, February 1st, at 2.30pm, the NOVAFRICA Center welcomes Sylvie Lambert from Paris School of Economics to present her work.

Authors:
Sylvie Lambert (Paris School of Economics)

Abstract:
This paper uses a novel survey to re-examine inequality levels in Senegal. Using consumption data collected at a relatively disaggregated level within households, it first underlines that consumption inequality in this country is likely to be much higher that what is commonly thought, with a Gini index reaching 0.54. This paper also reveals the extent of within household consumption inequalities. We show that within household inequality accounts for as much as 15% of total inequality in Senegal. One of the consequences of such unequal repartition of resources within households is the potential existence of “invisible poor” in households classified as non-poor. Our assessment is that as many as 12.5% of the poor individuals live in non-poor households. In total, our results suggest that the more complex the household structure, the bigger the household size, the more inequality is likely to be underestimated when computed using standard consumption surveys.

Please find further information about this seminar here.