The Persistence and Transition of Rural Poverty in Pakistan: 1998-2004

This study has used two rounds of the two panel data sets to examine the poverty dynamics in rural Pakistan (Sindh and Punjab). The Pakistan Socio- Economic Survey (PSES ) covers two periods, 1998 and 2000, while the Pakistan Rural Household Survey (PRHS) covers the 2001 and 2004 period. More than one-fifth of the households were chronically poor in the PSES rounds , and 11 percent in the PRHS rounds. Further, both chronic and transitory poverty are higher in Sindh and southern Punjab than in centra l and northern Punjab. Illiteracy, household size, dependency ratio, lack of livestock, landlessness, lack of ownership of dwellings, and health expenditure are the factors responsible for aggravating long-term poverty. The higher incidence of transitory poverty in rural Sindh and southern Punjab indicates the impact of large investments made in the public sector to raise the living standards there to the level of the better-off regions.