RU R A L D E V E LO PM E N T I N S T I T U T E K N OW L E D G E B R I E F FA L L 2016

KNOWLEDGE BRIEF

Poverty Reduction Part III:
Identifying Key Indicators for Poverty Reduction

INTRODUCTION
As a complex social issue, poverty has many
dimensions that can be measured. Poverty always
involves a lack of income, so low income measures
are certainly important to defining poverty and
supporting its reduction (see Poverty Reduction
Part I: What is Poverty Reduction? Identifying
Strategies and Initiatives in Rural Communities).
However, what indicators can be used to measure
the depth, breadth and duration of poverty in a
community? What indicators can go beyond lack of
income to reflect social inclusion or well-being? How
can indicators be used to evaluate the success of
poverty reduction efforts? Indicator usage in poverty
reduction work differs in scale and focus. Common
poverty reduction indicators are highlighted in
three categories: monitoring trends, identifying
community challenges, and evaluating programs.

INDICATORS CAN SUPPORT
PLANNING & STRATEGY
Effective planning for poverty reduction must be
supported by indicators that monitor trends,
reflecting the depth, breadth, and duration of
poverty in a community.1 These indicators should
go beyond income to reflect the extent to which
households are able to meet their needs, including

necessities such as food, housing and healthcare,
but also related categories such as employment,
education opportunities, and degree of social
inclusion. Additionally, indicators can be analysed to
provide information about population groups where
poverty may be more acute, including household
types or demographic groups with higher rates of
poverty, such as female lone-parent households,
the Aboriginal population, recent immigrants and
refugees, or people with disabilities (including
mental health issues).2-4
Approaches to selecting trend measures will vary
according to the needs of the specific community.
They may cover a broad range of poverty dimensions
or focus more narrowly on certain dimensions in
more detail. For example, the Revelstoke poverty
reduction strategy focuses on indicators of core
necessities including income security, food
security, and housing security, drawing on data
sources available at the level of rural communities.5
The Region of Waterloo chose to select one
representative indicator for each of ten different
dimensions of poverty: income, standard of living,
food security, healthy child development, health,
employment, education, housing, social inclusion,
and income inequality.6 In contrast, the Saskatoon
Health Region explored multiple indicators of health

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KNOWLEDGE BRIEF

P OV E R T Y R E D U C T I O N PA R T I I I

inequity in substantial detail.7 The City of Surrey
created their comprehensive poverty reduction
strategy around four theme areas: transportation,
housing, income, and support services, defining
several key indicators in each category.8

INDICATORS CAN IDENTIFY KEY
CHALLENGES FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES
Rural and small town places in British Columbia
are likely to face unique challenges specific to
the social and economic conditions of each
community. Indicators can be used to identify
community challenges and support more
targeted responses. Many rural communities have
undergone rapid economic and social transitions
over the last three decades, creating new and
unpredictable demands for households at risk
of poverty.9 Additionally, rural mountain
communities in British Columbia may experience
rapidly increasing housing prices, amenity
migration, and changes to the sense of place and
cohesion within small communities as a result of
resort tourism and development.10
Within this context, employment conditions are one
of the most significant triggers of poverty in rural
communities,11 yet the limited availability of rural
labour market data poses challenges for studying
this issue effectively.12 Communities wanting to fill
this data gap may focus on important indicators
such as workforce profile (e.g., type and quality of
positions available, wage breakdown by sector);
projected workforce expansion or contraction; or
education and training needs. These questions and
more were recently explored in a detailed labour
market survey carried out at the local level for
Revelstoke, resulting in data that is applicable not
only for business and community development, but
for targeted poverty reduction efforts as well.13
The living wage rate is an important indicator that
is drawing increasing attention across Canada since
a standard calculation formula was developed in
2008.14 Although there is a perception that the cost
of living is lower in rural communities and smaller
towns, the living wage rate draws awareness to
the true cost of living in a specific community. For
example, Revelstoke recently determined a living
wage rate for the community of $18.87 per hour – a
rate that, at the time of calculation, was the third
highest among other communities in the province

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with calculated rates.15
Other indicators focused on identifying community
challenges may look at the local housing market,
such as demand for home ownership, trends in
property values, availability and price of rental
housing stock, and social housing usage or
wait lists.16 Additional options might focus on
the community’s transportation infrastructure,
spending leakage to larger cities, or inventory
of locally available support services. Despite
some promising developments in this area, more
work needs to be done to define indicators that
address the unique conditions of poverty in rural
communities, and to support improved data quality
and availability at the local level.17

INDICATORS CAN SUPPORT
SUCCESSFUL INITIATIVES
Indicators can also be used retrospectively in order
to evaluate the outcomes of specific programs
or policy interventions. One challenge with
this type of assessment is that often poverty
reduction strategies will include a number of
simultaneous interventions, posing difficulties for
isolating the effects that an individual program
or policy change may have had.18 Despite this
challenge, researchers studying food insecurity in
Newfoundland and Labrador were able to design
a methodology to connect an unprecedented
decline in household food insecurity with the
government’s implementation of a province-wide
poverty reduction strategy.19 On a smaller scale,
organizations report benefits associated with
incorporating indicator measurement at every
level of the organization from strategic planning
to program curriculum.20 Another organization
describes how “embedded data collection
procedures” within program delivery can enable
ongoing quantitative measurement without strain
on the organization’s resources.21
Common evaluative indicators recommended by
the Vibrant Communities Common Evaluation
Framework include measuring the number of
households impacted or number of individuals
accessing a given program/intervention; the
number of community partners engaged by an
initiative; the number of changes to policy, funding
process, or system; or changes to community
awareness or attitudes about poverty.22

REFERENCES & RESOURCES
1.

Seth Klein et al., “A Poverty Reduction Plan for
BC” (Vancouver, BC: Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives, BC Office, 2008).

2.

Klein et al., 2008.

3.

First Call BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition,
“2015 Child Poverty BC Report Card” (Vancouver,
BC: First Call BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition,
2015), http://www.cwp-csp.ca/resources/sites/
default/files/resources/2015-BC-Child-PovertyReport-Card-FirstCall-Web-2015-11.pdf.

11. Ryser, Schwamborn, and Halseth, 2012.
12. Greg Halseth and Laura Ryser, “A Primer For
Understanding Issues Around Rural Poverty” (Prince
George, BC: Community Development Institute,
University of Northern British Columbia, September
2010), http://www.unbc.ca/sites/default/files/assets/
community_development_institute/publications/a_
primer_for_understanding_issues_around_rural_
poverty.pdf.
13.

GRP Educational Services and JL Insights,
“Revelstoke Labour Market Survey” (Revelstoke
Labour Market Network Committee, 2015), https://
www.revelstokechamber.com/assets/RevelstokeLabour-Market-Survey-Report-of-FindingsStrategies-and-Recommendations-2015.pdf.

4.

David Macdonald and Daniel Wilson, “Shameful
Neglect: Indigenous Child Poverty in Canada”
(Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives, 2016), http://public.eblib.com/choice/
PublicFullRecord.aspx?p=4532666.

5.

Jill Zacharias and Mike Brown, “Revelstoke
Community Poverty Reduction Strategy:
Final Report” (Revelstoke Community Social
Development Committee, June 2012), http://www.
revelstokesocialdevelopment.org/wp-content/
uploads/2013/04/Rev-Poverty-Strategy.pdf.

6.

Region of Waterloo Social Services, “Poverty
Indicators in Waterloo Region: Status Report 2014”
(Waterloo, ON: Social Planning, Policy and Program
Administration, Region of Waterloo Social Services,
2014), http://communityservices.regionofwaterloo.
ca/en/communityPlanningPartnerships/resources/
PovertyIndicatorsinWaterlooRegion.pdf.

15. Jill Zacharias and Michelle Lenzi, “A Living Wage
for Revelstoke and Area,” January 2015, http://
livingwagecanada.ca/files/2514/4630/5052/RVLSTK_
Living_Wage.pdf.

7.

Mark Lemstra and Cory Neudorf, “Health Disparity
in Saskatoon: Analysis to Intervention” (Saskatoon,
SK: Saskatoon Health Region, 2008), https://www.
saskatoonhealthregion.ca/locations_services/
Services/Health-Observatory/Documents/ReportsPublications/HealthDisparityRept-complete.pdf.

18. Rachel Loopstra, Naomi Dachner, and Valerie
Tarasuk, “An Exploration of the Unprecedented
Decline in the Prevalence of Household Food
Insecurity in Newfoundland and Labrador, 2007–
2012,” Canadian Public Policy 41, no. 3 (2015):
191–206.

8.

Vibrant Surrey Poverty Reduction Society, “This
Is How We End Poverty in Surrey: Surrey Poverty
Reduction Plan” (Surrey, BC: Vibrant Surrey Poverty
Reduction Society, 2012), http://vibrantcanada.ca/
files/surrey_pr_plan.pdf.

19. Loopstra, Dachner, and Tarasuk, 2012.

9.

Laura Ryser, Julia Schwamborn, and Greg Halseth,
“Exploring Rural Poverty: Pilot Project Summary
Report” (Community Development Institute,
University of Northern British Columbia, March 13,
2012), http://www.unbc.ca/sites/default/files/assets/
community_development_institute/research/
exploring_rural_poverty_report_march_9_2012.pdf.

14. Tim Richards et al., “Working for a Living Wage:
Making Paid Work Meet Basic Family Needs in
Vancouver and Victoria” (Vancouver, BC: Canadian
Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC Office, 2008),
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/
files/uploads/publications/BC%20Office/2015/04/
ccpa_bc_living_wage_2008.pdf.

16. Zacharias and Brown, 2012.
17. Halseth and Ryser, 2010.

KNOWLEDGE BRIEF

I D E N T I F Y I N G K E Y I N D I C ATO R S F O R P OV E R T Y R E D U C T I O N

20. Paul Chamberlain, “Place-Based Poverty Reduction
Initiative: How Community Economic Development
Is Reducing Poverty in Canada and How It Could
Be Doing More” (Victoria, BC: The Canadian CED
Network, 2008).
21. Chamberlain, 2008.
22. Vibrant Communities Canada, “Cities Reducing
Poverty - Change Indicators” (Tamarack Institute,
2013), http://vibrantcanada.ca/files/cities_reducing_
poverty_change_indicators_draft_1.pdf.

10. Sanjay K. Nepal and Tazim B. Jamal, “Resort-Induced
Changes in Small Mountain Communities in
British Columbia, Canada,” Mountain Research and
Development 31, no. 2 (May 1, 2011): 89–101.

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P OV E R T Y R E D U C T I O N PA R T I I I : I D E N T I F Y I N G K E Y I N D I C ATO R S F O R P OV E R T Y R E D U C T I O N

The Columbia Basin Rural Development Institute, at Selkirk College, is a regional research centre with a
mandate to support informed decision-making by Columbia Basin-Boundary communities through the
provision of information, applied research and related outreach and extension support.

www.cbrdi.ca

1.888.953.1133