Constructing a Food Poverty Indicator for Ireland using the Survey on Income and Living Conditions

Food poverty has emerged as an issue of policy debate in Ireland, but the understanding of this issue is stymied by the

absence of a methodology for measuring the problem in a quantitative and comparative way. The study called ‘Constructing a

Food Poverty Indicator for Ireland using the Survey on Income and Living Conditions’aims to construct a deprivation-based

measure of food poverty, using deprivation indicators from the CSO Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC). It proposes

a composite measure of food poverty which is based on a lack of one or more of three food deprivation items. This shows that

10 per cent of the Irish population was in food poverty in 2010. It also identifies households most at risk of food poverty and explores linkswith economic strain, health status and social class. Data from SILC surveys between 2004 and 2010 is used to consider trends over time.

This technical paper is an output of the Department of Social Protection / Economic and Social Research Institute research programme to monitor poverty trends under the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2007-2016 (NAPinclusion). This

programme provides evidence and analysis to inform policy.

The findings were presented at a seminar for policy makers convened by safefood in October 2012. 

Further details about the event and policy briefing are available here.

Report Title: Constructing a Food Poverty Indicator for Ireland using the Survey on Income and Living Conditions Date Published: Oct 2012 Pages: 54 Size: 813 KB Format: Portable Document Format (PDF) To view PDF documents you will need to download Adobe Reader from the Adobe website.