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     This article examines the poverty rates for urban and rural areas of Kermanshah and the entire country using a Linear Expenditure System (LES) and Iterative Seemingly Unrelated Regression (ISUR) method during 1995-2007. Results indicate that poverty in rural and urban areas over the years in this province has an upturn trend. The findings also suggest that in rural and urban areas of Kermanshah, the group "foods" have biggest share of the poverty line. In rural areas of the country group "foods" have also the biggest share of the poverty line, but the largest share in country's urban areas belongs to group of "Housing and fuel". About elasticity the results show that in both urban and rural areas the group "other" and "appliances and furniture" are luxury.

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Forced labor for children and their employment in the labor market when they should grow and develop skills for their future life will cause them serious harms which can in turn result in negative consequences for their whole life. One of the major reasons for child labor is the poverty of the family. It is believed that if poverty is removed, child labor will be naturally terminated as a result. Many countries see poverty eradication as part of their responsibilities and in this regard they determine poverty line and try to measure the child and his family life as a basis in their analyses. If the line is taken to be high, based on a cause and effect relationship the number of child labor cases will be low and if poverty line is taken to be low, the number of child labor cases will be high. These countries adopt different approaches to determine poverty line and there is no agreement among scholars on its nature and scope. Therefore, in practice, some set high standards while some others set low standards for determining poverty line and this has a direct effect on how much support governments provide for the low-income families. To alleviate poverty through Zakat, Muslim jurists also set a poverty line. As with others, there is no agreement among Muslim jurists regarding poverty line either. Some take it to be high while others take it to be low and this again will have a direct impact on how child labor issue should be resolved in Muslim countries. This study aims at comparatively investigating the issue of poverty line from different jurisprudential perspectives and how different perspectives can influence the way child labor can be looked at. It is also emphasized that determining poverty line as the sufficiency line by Muslim rulers is a much more effective way in preventing child labor in comparison to other ways, since it considers an important factor which is the status of the people. In this paper, first, some preliminary issues such as vulnerability of children and determining poverty line by rulers will be discussed. Then, the article will elaborate on different poverty lines from Islamic Shariah perspective and their relationship with other conventional poverty lines. Finally, the article will argue that sufficiency basis for determining poverty line from Islamic point of view is the most effective one in preventing child labor.

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The measurement of multidimensional poverty in 22 districts of Tehran is the main goal of this research. Studying human deprivation regarding basic needs i.e. health, nutrition, education and political freedom seems essential due to existing shortcomings of income-based poverty measurement approach. Here, we measure multidimensional poverty in terms of four attributes (income, housing, education and public health) using information theory approach developed by Maasoumi and Logo(2006) model. First, we calculate single-dimensional poverty based on each attribute. Then, according to difference in levels of substitutability among attributes we measure the absolute poverty using aggregate poverty line approach. The results show that the poorest districts of Tehran are district 19 in terms of income approach and districts 19 and 17 in terms of education and housing, respectively. The worst situation regarding public health belongs to district 16. The highest and the lowest multidimensional poverty rate were observed in districts 4 and 1 respectively. Furthermore, if substitution coefficient among attributes increases, then the multidimensional poverty rate will decrease. About 63 percent of Tehran population is of relative deprivation.

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The high cost of health care services indicates that the households are mainly responsible for the financial burden of their treatment rather than health insurance companies, and the policy holders often bear the catastrophic expenditure that might drive them below the poverty line. According to the Fourth development plan Act of Islamic Republic of Iran, Out of Pocket Payment (OOP) of households should not exceed 30% of their total health expenditure. This study uses household micro data provided by income-expenditures household survey in order to consider the impact of health care expenditure on the households’ poverty. The findings show that increases in the health care expenditure have led poverty to increase from 1 to 4 percent in different urban and rural areas during the period of study. According to our calculation, if OOP decreases to 30 % of total health care expenditure, then the share of population under poverty line will decrease to 2% of whole population.

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Poverty reduction and households’ welfare growth have become major issues in economic development in the recent years, so that poverty alleviation and individual’s welfare improvement are necessary conditions for economic growth. Evidently, fighting poverty programs need to efficiency in policy-making, proper method of implementation of policies, and identification of dimensions, causes and consequences of poverty. Thus, examining the poverty situation in each society is the first step in planning for fighting poverty and social exclusion. In this study, the poverty line of Iran's urban households is computed by using the theory of relative habit linear expenditure system (RHLES) in a linear expenditure system (LES). Data are extracted from Households Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in urban areas for 8 commodity-groups over the period 1989-2015, which five economic, cultural, and social development plans have been implemented.  In addition, the poverty intensity is examined in urban areas using indices of poverty measurement. The results of study show that although the poverty line (minimum subsistence expenditure) in Iran's urban households goes up over time, but the intensity and extent of poverty go down. Thus, the government policies for the reduction of relative poverty in urban areas have been successful. According to findings, the minimum subsistence expenditure was 80296387 Rial in real terms (2011=100) in 1989, as the first year of the first 5-year development plan. It reached to 9677574 Rial in 2015 (the last year of the fifth 5-year development plan). In other words, it recorded a growth rate of 0.7 percent, on average, during the five development plans. However, the intensity and extent of poverty have experienced decreasing trends during 1989-2015. In 2015, the indicators of head-count ratio, poverty gap and Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) reached their minimum levels by 31.08, 10.9 and 4.3, respectively. The results confirm relative improvement in the subsistence level of urban households.

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