Recent figures on poverty in Suriname

In a new article in the Academic Journal of Suriname, entitled “How poor is Suriname?” (in Dutch), PhD student Rosita Sobhie and her promotors prof. Patrick Deboosere and prof. G. Dekkers present new figures on poverty in Suriname based on data from the Latin American Public Opinion research project from 2012. These figures are welcome, since the last official statistics on poverty date from 2000. The article looks at both absolute and relative measures of poverty, as well as subjective measures. The application of poverty lines ranging from $2 to $11 (PPP) per day by the researchers results in poverty rates between 11 and 59%. Single parent families, “Marron” households (third largest ethnic group in Suriname), as well as households with a lower education level, have a relatively higher risk as compared to other subgroups.