Testing the Expert Based Weights Used in the UK’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) Against Three Preference-Based Methods

Verity Watson; Chris  Dibben; Matt Cox; Iain Atherton; Matt Sutton; Mandy Ryan

doi:10.1007/s11205-018-02054-z

Testing the Expert Based Weights Used in the UK’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) Against Three Preference-Based Methods

Verity Watson^* (Corresponding Author), Chris Dibben (Corresponding Author), Matt Cox, Iain Atherton, Matt Sutton, Mandy Ryan

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dimensions (income, employment, health, education, housing and services, environment, and crime) to measure an area’s multidimensional deprivation. The IMD aggregates the dimensions that are differentially weighted using expert judgement. In this paper, we test how close these weights are to society’s preferences about the relative importance of each dimension to overall deprivation. There is not agreement in the literature on how to do this. This paper, therefore, develops and compares three empirical methods for estimating preference-based weights. We find the weights are similar across the methods, and between our empirical methods and the current IMD, but our findings suggest a change to two of the weights.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1055-1074
Number of pages	20
Journal	Social Indicators Research
Volume	144
Issue number	3
Early online date	1 Feb 2019
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-02054-z
Publication status	Published - Aug 2019

Bibliographical note

The paper has benefitted from helpful comments and suggestions from Koen Decancq, Rainer Schulz, and participants at the Weighting in Multidimensional Measures workshop at OPHI, Oxford, the Overseas Development Workshop at ODI, London, seminar participants at Universiteit Antwerpen, and conference participants at New Directions in Welfare III, Paris. Any errors or omissions, of course, remain the responsibility of the authors. The project was funded by the Department of the Communities and Local Government. The Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorates funds HERU. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors only and not those of the funding bodies.

Keywords

multidimensional index weights
deprivation
preferences

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Accepted Manuscript
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Social Indicators Research. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-02054-z
Accepted author manuscript, 699 KBLicence: Unspecified

Cite this

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title = "Testing the Expert Based Weights Used in the UK{\textquoteright}s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) Against Three Preference-Based Methods",

abstract = "The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dimensions (income, employment, health, education, housing and services, environment, and crime) to measure an area{\textquoteright}s multidimensional deprivation. The IMD aggregates the dimensions that are differentially weighted using expert judgement. In this paper, we test how close these weights are to society{\textquoteright}s preferences about the relative importance of each dimension to overall deprivation. There is not agreement in the literature on how to do this. This paper, therefore, develops and compares three empirical methods for estimating preference-based weights. We find the weights are similar across the methods, and between our empirical methods and the current IMD, but our findings suggest a change to two of the weights.",

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AB - The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), used widely in England, is an important tool for social need and inequality identification. It summarises deprivation across seven dimensions (income, employment, health, education, housing and services, environment, and crime) to measure an area’s multidimensional deprivation. The IMD aggregates the dimensions that are differentially weighted using expert judgement. In this paper, we test how close these weights are to society’s preferences about the relative importance of each dimension to overall deprivation. There is not agreement in the literature on how to do this. This paper, therefore, develops and compares three empirical methods for estimating preference-based weights. We find the weights are similar across the methods, and between our empirical methods and the current IMD, but our findings suggest a change to two of the weights.

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Testing the Expert Based Weights Used in the UK’s Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) Against Three Preference-Based Methods

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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