This report presents the nutritional poverty profile for Mauritius based on the 2006-07
Household Budget Survey. Absolute nutritional poverty lines have been estimated. They
correspond to (1) a nutritional benchmark of 2,700 calories a day per young male
adult; (2) extrapolation using Huber robust estimates of quadratic food share
equations. Nutritional equivalence scales have also been estimated.
The obtained nutritional poverty line is worth 1524 Rupees a month per
adult-equivalent for Mauritius Island and 1000 Rupees a month per adult-equivalent for
Rodrigues. With these lines, 4.14 percent of households are under the poverty line.
However, poverty is better measured in terms of individual poverty and poverty
measures. The poverty rates are respectively estimated at 5.53 percent in the whole
Republic, 5.37 percent in Mauritius Island and 10.3 percent in Rodrigues. For the
whole country the Poverty Severity index is estimated at 0.341 percent, while the
estimate of the Watts poverty measure is 1.33 percent.
Nutritional poverty is found higher in rural areas (6.3 percent) than in urban areas
(4.1percent). The results also indicate that households led by unemployed heads,
separated heads or widows, or by female, elderly or little educated heads are
characterised by higher nutritional poverty. Other categories of households especially
affected by nutritional poverty are the large households and the households dwelling in
disadvantaged areas in terms of Relative Development Index.