| Issue |
E.J.E.S.S.
Volume 15, Number 2, 2001
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|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 69 - 84 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/ejess:2001116 | |
European Journal of Economic and Social Systems 15 N° 2 (2001) 69-84
Living conditions: Classification of households using the Kohonen algorithm
Sophie Ponthieux1 and Marie Cottrell21 INSEE, Division "Conditions de vie des ménages " - Timbre F340, 18 bd A. Pinard, 75675 Paris Cedex 14, France. E-mail: sophie.ponthieux@insee.fr
2 SAMOS-MATISSE, Université de Paris 1, 90 rue de Tolbiac, 75634 Paris Cedex 13, France. E-mail: cottrell@univ-paris1.fr
Abstract
In the analysis of poverty and social exclusion, indicators of living conditions
are some interesting non-monetary complements to the usual measurements in terms
of current or annual income. Living conditions depend in fact on longer-term factors
than income, and provide further information on house-holds' actual resources that allow
to compare more accurately between living standards. But in counterpart, a difficulty
comes from the qualitative nature of the information, and the large number of dimensions
and items that may be taken into account; in other words, living conditions are difficult
to "measure" . A consequence is that very often, the information is either used only partly,
or reduced into a global score of (bad) living conditions, that results from counting
"negative" items, and the qualitative dimension is lost. In this paper, we propose to use
the Kohonen algorithm first to describe how the elements of living conditions are combined,
and secondly to classify households according to their living conditions. The main interest
of a classification is to make appear not only quantitative differences in the "levels" of
living conditions, but also qualitative differences within similar "levels" .
Key words: Kohonen algorithm, SOM, living conditions
© EDP Sciences 2001