The main aim of giving up things of the materialistic world is to withdraw oneself from sensual pleasures (as they are considered illusionary and only temporary in some religions—such as the concept of dunya in Islam). This self-invited poverty (or giving up pleasures) is different from the one caused by economic imbalance. Some Christian communities, such as the Simple Way, the Bruderhof, and the Amish value voluntary poverty; some even take a vow of poverty, similar to that of the traditional Catholic orders, in order to live a more complete life of discipleship.Benedict XVI distinguished "poverty chosen" (the poverty of spirit proposed by Jesus), and "poverty to be fought" (unjust and imposed poverty). He considered that the moderation implied in the former favors solidarity, and is a necessary condition so as to fight effectively to eradicate the abuse of the latter.As it was indicated above the reduction of poverty results from religion, but also can result from solidarity. Charts and tables
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External links

Addressing Global Poverty from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
Data visualizations of the long-run development of poverty and list of data sources on poverty on Our World in Data. Islamic Development Bank
Luxembourg Income Study Contains a wealth of data on income inequality and poverty, and hundreds of its sponsored research papers using this data. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Contains reports on economic development as well as relations between rich and poor nations.
Since richer nations would have lower levels of absolute poverty, relative poverty is considered the "most useful measure for ascertaining poverty rates in wealthy developed nations" and is the "most prominent and most-quoted of the EU social inclusion indicators".Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of the population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income. This is a calculation of the percentage of people whose family household income falls below the Poverty Line. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income. The United States federal government typically regulates this line to three times the cost of an adequate meal.There are several other different income inequality metrics, for example, the Gini coefficient or the Theil Index. Other aspects
Rather than income, poverty is also measured through individual basic needs at a time. Life expectancy has greatly increased in the developing world since World War II and is starting to close the gap to the developed world. Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world. The proportion of the worlds population living in countries where the daily per-capita supply of food energy is less than 9,200 kilojoules (2,200 kilocalories) decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s. Similar trends can be observed for literacy, access to clean water and electricity and basic consumer items.