Using data spanning 15 years, we study subjective and consumption poverty in urban Ethiopia. Despite rapid economic growth and declining consumption poverty, subjective poverty remains largely unchanged. We find that households with a history of poverty continue to perceive themselves as poor even if their material consumption improves. The relative economic position of households is a strong determinant of subjective poverty. Having some type of employment makes households less likely to perceive themselves as poor, even if they remain in objective poverty. We argue that any analysis to measure the impact of growth on welfare should also encompass subjective measures.

This paper explores the link between the gender of a household head and food security in rural Kenya. The results show that the food security gap between male-headed households (MHHs) and female-headed households (FHHs) is explained by their differences in observable and unobservable characteristics. FHHs’ food security status would have been higher than it is now if the returns (coefficients) on their observed characteristics had been the same as the returns on the MHHs’ characteristics. Even if that had been thecase, however, results indicate that FHHs would still have been less food-secure than the MHHs due to unobservable characteristics.