Impact of Household Size and Family Composition on Poverty in Rural India

This paper utilises micro data on consumption, family composition and land ownership of nearly 70,000 rural Indian households to analyse poverty in rural India. The study, conducted at the disaggregated level of individual States, examines the impact of household size and composition, caste, gender of household head, and size of land ownership on a household’s poverty status. The introduction of consumption economies of household size and of adult/child consumption relativities affect the poverty estimates but not the State poverty rankings. Scheduled castes/tribes are more vulnerable to poverty than others. In contrast, female headed households display, in many States, higher poverty only in the presence of size economies and adult/child relativities. However, the latter result is not always true. On this and in several other respects, the study finds sharp differences between the constituent States of the Indian Union.