PDF(Pubmed)
Abstract：
The affordability of nutritious food for \"all people, at all times\" is a critically important dimension of food security. Yet surprisingly, timely high-frequency indicators of food affordability are rarely collected in any systematic fashion despite price volatility emerging as major source of food insecurity in the 21st Century. The 2008 global food crisis prompted international agencies to invest heavily in monitoring domestic food prices in low and middle income countries (LMICs). However, food price monitoring is not sufficient for measuring changes in diet affordability; for that, one must also measure changes either in income or in an income proxy. We propose using the wages of unskilled workers as a cheap and sufficiently accurate income proxy, especially for the urban and rural non-farm poor. We first outline alternative measures of \"food wage\" indices, defined as wages deflated either by consumer food price indices or novel healthy diet cost indices. We then discuss the conceptual strengths and limitations of food wages. Finally, we examine patterns and trends in different types of real food wage series during well-known food price crises in Ethiopia (2008, 2011 and 2022), Sri Lanka (2022) and Myanmar (2022). In all these instances, food wages declined by 20-30%, often in the space of a few months. In Myanmar, the decline in real wages during 2022 closely matches declines in household disposable income. We strongly advocate tracking the wages of the poor as a timely, accurate and cost-effective means of monitoring food affordability for important segments of the world\'s poor.
摘要：
“所有人都能负担得起营养食品，在任何时候，“都是粮食安全的一个至关重要的方面。然而令人惊讶的是,尽管价格波动已成为21世纪粮食不安全的主要根源，但很少以任何系统的方式及时收集粮食负担能力的高频指标。2008年全球粮食危机促使国际机构投入巨资监测中低收入国家的国内粮食价格。然而,食品价格监测不足以衡量饮食负担能力的变化；为此，人们还必须衡量收入或收入代理的变化。我们建议使用非技术工人的工资作为廉价且足够准确的收入代理，特别是城乡非农贫困人口。我们首先概述“食品工资”指数的替代指标，定义为工资由消费者食品价格指数或新的健康饮食成本指数缩水。然后，我们讨论了食品工资的概念优势和局限性。最后,我们研究了埃塞俄比亚著名的粮食价格危机(2008年、2011年和2022年)期间不同类型的实际粮食工资序列的模式和趋势，斯里兰卡（2022年）和缅甸（2022年）。在所有这些情况下，食品工资下降了20-30%，通常在几个月的时间里。在缅甸,2022年实际工资的下降与家庭可支配收入的下降密切相关。我们极力主张及时跟踪穷人的工资,准确和具有成本效益的手段来监测世界穷人的重要部分的食品负担能力。
