  Current multidimensional measures of poverty continue to follow the
traditional income poverty approach of using household rather than the
individual as the unit of analysis. Household level measures are gender blind
since they ignore intra-household differences in resource allocation which have
been shown to differ along gender lines. In this study we use new data from the
Karnataka Household Asset Survey (KHAS) to construct an individual level
multidimensional poverty measure for Karnataka, India. Our results show that an
individual level measure can identify substantial gender differences in poverty
that are masked at the household level. We also find a large potential for
misclassification of poor individuals as non-poor when poverty is not assessed
at the individual level.
