poverty is traditionally measured based on income or expenditure aggregated at household level and the number of poor is calculated as the number of people living in poor households inequality within the household in satisfying individual basic needs is not taken into account mainly because it is difficult to know how household income is spent or consumed on an individual basis within the household or how expenditures are distributed to each household member if in the same household women consume or spend less than what they need to function properly physically and socially while men consume what they need or more those women and men in the household are still considered to have the same poverty status either poor or nonpoor depending on the average consumption estimated at the household level