Report: Half of rural population experienced poverty in the past decade

ISLAMABAD:

Over half of the country’s rural population has experienced poverty in the past 10 years, mainly due to “frequent” natural and economic shocks. This was revealed by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) in a report on Wednesday.

The report, based on PIDE’s Pakistan Panel Household Survey (PPHS) that covers the same rural households in its three rounds conducted in 2001, 2004 and 2010, finds that poverty reduction has not been sustainable in Pakistan and shows wide fluctuations.

“[Half] of rural population has experienced poverty during the last decade. Some households went below the poverty line, sometime remained around it,” Rashid Amjad, Vice Chancellor of PIDE, told The Express Tribune.

He added the key factors contributing to poverty in these households were natural and economic shock, large household size and lack of education. “This research report could help policymakers understand the dynamics of poverty in Pakistan,” he said.

The report, PIDE Viewpoint, suggests a high mobility of population into or out of poverty in rural Pakistan. This mobility leads to a higher proportion of population experiencing poverty overtime than what the cross-sectional data might suggest.

However the report said that just 5% of the people suffered chronic poverty or, in other words, remained poor for a long period of time.

Poverty in rural Punjab and Sindh declined from 29.5% in 2001 to 21.8% in 2004, jumping again to 28% in 2010. Chronic poverty in north and central Punjab was just 1%. When the overall picture is considered, poverty in provinces was at 22.4% in 2010, against 27.5% in 2001.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2012.