Working Paper: Is Globalization Eliminating Income Poverty – Or Only the Utility of Measuring It?

Jim Glassman, University of British Columbia

It is frequently asked what effects ␣globalization␣ is having on income poverty, with varied answers given␣seemingly dependent in part on the political and theoretical orientations of those providing the answers. It is far less frequently observed that ␣globalization␣ might be seen as undermining the credibility of attempts to measure income poverty. I argue that taking the seriously the heterogeneity of global economic space being produced by neo-liberal globalization poses insuperable barriers to the employment of a meaningful and non-redundant concept of income poverty. This is not a result to be lamented, since recognition of it encourages more appropriate and relevant ways of examining poverty that pay adequate attention to the heterogeneous and socio- spatially complex contexts in which people’s sense of the adequacy or inadequacy of their standards of living are formed.