Weighting the Dimensions of the Multidimensional Poverty Index: Findings from Sri Lanka

The Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative’s Multidimensional Poverty Index has become a widely adopted measure of wellbeing. However, it is criticised for applying equal weights to its three dimensions: health; education; and living standards. There is no a priori reason to expect that all three dimensions equally contribute to wellbeing. This article reports on a Discrete Choice Experiment that involved a sample of 670 Sri Lankans who selected their preferences for the weights. The findings suggest that health is the most important dimension and should receive a weight of 0.38. In comparison, education has a weight of 0.33 and living standards a weight of 0.29. Cluster analysis reveals that location, age, education level and number of dependents are important in explaining differences in weight preferences. Finally, the paper demonstrates that poverty rankings of districts and provinces differ across the different approaches to weighting the index dimensions.