By Francis Allan L. Angelo

About one in eight Filipino households faces overlapping deprivation in education, housing, health, employment, and other basic needs, according to the Philippines’ first official Multidimensional Poverty Index, or MPI.

The Philippine Statistics Authority’s new measure found that about 12% of households were multidimensionally poor in 2024, meaning they simultaneously experienced several disadvantages that income-based poverty statistics alone may not capture.

The more precise national estimate was 12.4% of households, with a household-level MPI score of 0.042.

For policymakers, the findings show why reducing poverty requires more than raising incomes, as families may remain disadvantaged when they lack adequate housing, education, clean water, sanitation, food security, health services, internet access, or stable employment.

The index could allow government agencies and local governments to identify which specific services are missing in poor communities and better direct limited public funds toward interventions that address several disadvantages at the same time.

“The MPI shows that poverty is not just about what people earn. It is also about whether Filipinos have access to essential services that allow them to live productive and dignified lives,” Department of Economy, Planning, and Development Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said.

At the individual level, about 13% of Filipinos were classified as multidimensionally poor, with an MPI score of 0.045.

PSA’s detailed results placed the share at 12.8% of the population.

The findings were based on the 2024 Community-Based Monitoring System, or CBMS, which collects household-level information that can be used for planning, program targeting, and monitoring.

The national MPI uses 17 indicators grouped under four dimensions: education; health and nutrition; housing, water, and sanitation; and employment.

The methodology, which adopts the internationally used Alkire-Foster approach, was approved on May 15, 2025, through PSA Board Resolution No. 08, Series of 2025.

A household is classified as multidimensionally poor when its weighted deprivation score exceeds the poverty cutoff of 0.25, indicating deprivation across more than one dimension.

The MPI combines the proportion of households or individuals considered multidimensionally poor with the intensity of the disadvantages they experience.

Among multidimensionally poor households, the average intensity of deprivation was 33.9% of the weighted indicators, equivalent to an average deprivation score of 0.339.

This means the average multidimensionally poor household experienced deprivation in at least two of the four dimensions measured by the index.

Among individuals, the average intensity was higher at 34.7%, equivalent to a deprivation score of 0.347.

Education emerged as the largest contributor to multidimensional poverty at the individual level, accounting for 40.7% of the overall MPI.

Housing, water, and sanitation accounted for another 31.3%.

Health and nutrition contributed 18.5%, while employment accounted for 9.5%.

Educational attainment and housing materials were the most prevalent individual indicators among people classified as multidimensionally poor, each posting a 10.7% censored headcount ratio.

The measure means 10.7% of the total population was both deprived in each of those indicators and belonged to households classified as multidimensionally poor.

Deprivation in ownership of assets affected 7.8% of the population who were also multidimensionally poor.

Food security followed at 7.2%, internet access at 6.8%, sanitation or toilet facilities at 6.1%, and water sources at 5.6%.

Looking beyond only those classified as multidimensionally poor reveals that several basic-service gaps are considerably more widespread across the population.

Housing-material deprivation affected 38.7% of the total population regardless of whether households crossed the MPI poverty threshold.

Internet-access deprivation affected 26.4%.

Inadequate sanitation or toilet facilities affected 24.1%, while deprivation in ownership of assets reached 21.8%.

Educational-attainment deprivation stood at 20.2%, indicating that a substantial share of households did not have at least one adult aged 19 years old and above who had completed high school.

DEPDev said education was the most common challenge captured by the new poverty measure, with many adults aged 19 years old and above unable to complete high school.

Housing, water, and sanitation were also among the most significant challenges, with affected households including those living in makeshift dwellings and without adequate basic services.

The new measure complements rather than replaces the Philippines’ established income-based poverty statistics derived from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, or FIES.

The most recent full-year FIES-based estimates showed that 10.9% of Filipino families were income-poor in 2023, equivalent to about 2.99 million families whose incomes were insufficient to meet minimum basic food and nonfood needs.

At the individual level, income poverty affected 15.5% of Filipinos in 2023, equivalent to about 17.54 million people.

Those figures measure whether incomes fall below an official poverty threshold, while the MPI asks a different question: whether households experience overlapping shortfalls in basic capabilities and services.

A family therefore could be above the official income poverty line but still face serious deprivation in areas such as housing, education, sanitation, health, or employment.

Conversely, the income and multidimensional poverty measures should not be directly treated as interchangeable because they use different concepts, methodologies, data sources, and reference periods.

“The value of the MPI is that it helps us see where needs are greatest and where government interventions can make the biggest difference,” Balisacan said.

“By assessing the specific deprivations, we can improve the targeting of programs, strengthen coordination across sectors, and make public investments more effective.”

The ability to identify individual forms of deprivation is especially relevant for local governments because CBMS data can help pinpoint communities where several disadvantages overlap instead of relying solely on national or regional averages.

It could also expose situations where progress in one area masks persistent shortcomings elsewhere, such as a household earning enough to clear the income poverty line while still lacking safe sanitation, adequate housing, or educational attainment.

The results also underline the need for coordination among agencies responsible for education, health, housing, water, sanitation, employment, food security, and digital connectivity because no single program can address all dimensions simultaneously.

Balisacan said the findings reinforce government efforts to fight poverty through adult literacy programs.

The government is also pursuing affordable public housing initiatives and public-private partnership projects.

DEPDev cited the expansion of Walang Gutom Kitchens among interventions intended to address deprivation.

Measures aimed at strengthening food production and distribution systems are likewise part of the government response.

“Guided by the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 and AmBisyon Natin 2040, we are strengthening investments in human capital, expanding access to affordable housing, advancing universal healthcare, and ensuring food security to uplift the quality of life for all Filipinos,” said the country’s chief economist.

The Philippine Development Plan 2023–2028 targets an income-poverty incidence of 8.8%–9.0% by 2028, down from the 18.1% baseline recorded in 2021.

The government’s development plan also calls for wider access to safe water and basic sanitation, with targets for 97.48% of families to have safe water coverage and 98.17% to have basic sanitation by 2028.

The first national MPI nevertheless comes with data limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results.

Las Piñas, Pasay, Iloilo, and General Santos cities were excluded from the national estimate because their 2024 CBMS data were still undergoing validation when the results were released.

Some areas also did not achieve complete enumeration during the 2024 CBMS.

Participation in the CBMS is voluntary under Republic Act No. 11315, or the Community-Based Monitoring System Act, which protects the privacy of respondents.

Despite those limitations, the new index gives policymakers an additional benchmark for assessing whether economic growth and government programs are translating into improvements in the day-to-day conditions of Filipino families.

Its longer-term value will depend on whether the government uses the more detailed evidence to close gaps in education, housing, health, sanitation, employment, food security, and connectivity — particularly in communities where several disadvantages persist at once.