Socio-economic Determinants of Household Food Insecurity in Pakistan

This study investigates the determinants of food insecurity for both general and farmer households. It is based on Pakistan Social and Living standard Measurement (PSLM) 2007-08 survey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. After having descriptive analysis of the important determinants of food insecurity, we have used logit model to find the probability for being household secure or insecure. The model is initially fitted with 16 (for general) and 19 (for farmer households) variables, selected from factors identified by previous researchers that affect food insecurity. Twelve out of 19 variables for farmer households are found to be significant such as household size, household size square, household income, number of rooms, dependency ratio, electricity connection, irrigation facility, age and age square of household head. To our surprise female education variable is insignificant for general household model. The results obtained are further analyzed to compute partial effects on continuous variables and change in the probabilities on discrete variables for the significant factors in the logistic models. Household size, education of household head, annual income and agricultural income are some of the most important factors influencing the household’s food insecurity status.