- The Combat Poverty, Insecurity and Social Exclusion Service conducted a research-action-training project entitled ‘Another approach to the poverty indicators’, in which those active in the field were involved (organisations which combat poverty, scientists, government bodies and the social partners) in an attempt to discern ways to refine the existing indicators so as to reflect actual reality more closely.
See the English summary of this project, which appeared in a World Bank publication:
Van Hootegem Henk, De Muylder Régis, Vereecken Frank e.a., Another approach to poverty indicators in Belgium. In: Godinot Xavier, Wodon Quentin (ed.), Participatory approaches to attacking extreme poverty. Cases studies led by the International Movement ATD Fourth World, World Bank working paper No. 77, The World Bank, april 2006, p. 107-115.
- The Combat Poverty, Insecurity and Social Exclusion Service stimulates research on poverty and social exclusion in an active way. The Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO) is an important partner. If the Service makes a demand for a research question, BELSPO can finance a scientific institution to fulfill a research project on a special issue concerning poverty. The Service is very involved in each of these researches : writing proposals for research projects, organizing meetings for the advisory and technical boards, keeping contact with research teams and different partners,… Here you can find a description of one of the research projects for which English material is available.
- SILC-CUT : Complements and corrections to EU-SILC for hidden groups of poor people
Every year the Belgian (and European) authorities publish figures concerning poverty and insecurity, based on the EU-SILC surveys (EU Surveys of Income and Living Conditions). The EU-SILC also contains all kinds of other data that enable us to study the living conditions of households in a multi-dimensional way. Despite the wealth of information that can be extracted from the EU-SILC, problems do arise with the data related to poverty, which are attributable to the difficulty in reaching the poor in general. For this reason, the Combat Poverty, Insecurity and Social Exclusion Service submitted a research proposal in the context of the AGORA programme of the Federal Research Policy Office (www.belspo.be).
The purpose of this research can be summarised into three main points: (1) a statistical analysis of the selective non-response from groups that are included in the EU-SILC; (2) an identification of groups that for various reasons were not included in the EU-SILC, although it is known that they have a relatively high risk of poverty; (3) a complementary survey into the living conditions of some ‘forgotten groups of poor people’.Summary:
Ingrid Schockaert, Ann Morissens, Sebastiano Cincinnato and Ides Nicaise, Complements and corrections to EU-SILC for hidden groups of poor people.
- Poverty in the City and in the Countryside (POCICO)
In 2010, the research project ‘Poverty in the City and in the Countryside’, was launched, conducted by the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the KU Leuven. This study tried to develop indicators for poverty that take into account the degree of rurality and/or urbanism of the environment. The study was conducted, on the one hand, through data from the EU-SILC survey and, on the other, through socio-economic data for the entire population from the Crossroads Bank for Social Security. On the 25th of April 2013, the Combat Poverty Service organized a seminar with presentation of the research results.
Summary:
Pierre Marissal, Xavier May, Dayana Mesa Lombillo, Rural and urban poverty : Synthesis of the final report.