ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING POVERTY IN RURAL AREAS OF PUNJAB, “PRIMARY VERSUS SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS”

Abstract

In Pakistan poverty is rural phenomenon. Though poverty exists in urban areas also but rural poverty presents a bleak picture. Rural poverty varies with area to area, with division to division and with district to district. It is necessary to diagnose the disease before its proper treatment. In the history of Pakistan the persistent increase in rural poverty with very few examples of its decreasing provide enough material and arise numbers of questions in the mind of researcher. Most of the researcher used secondary data to find the different forms of poverty and its causes on province basis or on country basis. Little attention was given to find and analyze economically the factors on division and district basis. The present study is to analyze the factors of rural poverty economically on division and district basis in the Punjab province. This study focuses on the key determinants of the poverty in rural areas of Bahawalpur division. An empirical analysis of poverty determinants carried out is based on primary as well as secondary data. Secondary data source for regression analysis is Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) for the years 2001-02, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2007-08. . The estimation of incidence of poverty in Punjab in the year 2001-02 was 37.9 percent. In year 2004-05 the percentage of population living blow the poverty line was 28.6 percent where as the incidence of poverty in the year 2005-06 was 21.4 percent. The percentage of population blow the poverty line was 19.4 in the year 2007-08. The incidence of poverty decreased gradually from the 2001-02, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2007-08. The better economic policies of the government and the execution of development projects in the rural area particularly in the infrastructure sector alleviate the poverty in rural areas of Punjab. Need based development interventions keeping in view the specific measures for specific region can go a long way in alleviating poverty in rural areas.