Scale of the index of child exposure to material deprivation in Portugal: validation and interpretation

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the validation and interpretation of scale of the child exposure to household material deprivation, developed based on the Portuguese sample of the 2017 EU-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-Silc). The index was developed from household questionnaire items by applying an item-response theory model. For its validation, a descriptive analysis of the scale by EU-Silc social variables was carried out. The interpretation was given by the description of the categories of items according to the profiles of households grouped into clusters. The results show that 14.3% of households with children can be classified as in a situation of extreme deprivation and 25.6% in an intermediate level of deprivation. Considering that EU-Silc is applied in all European Union, the methodology can be extended to other countries, allowing the annual monitoring of child poverty.

Keywords:
material deprivation; child poverty; item response model theory; social index