AN ANALYSIS OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL POVERTY IN RURAL PAKISTAN OVER TIME

Abstract

Multidimesional poverty (MP) has gained dominance over monetary poverty in literature in recent times. The current study estimates MP and its transitions in rural Pakistan across Hierarchical levels and over time. It has utilized the panel data for the  years 2012, 2013 and 2014,  taken from Pakistan Rural Household Survey (PRHS). The poverty has been measured using the Alkire and Foster method(AF). The results show that MP in rural regions has decreased by 2 perecent along with fluctuations during this period.  The deprivation in education, cooking fuel, sanitation, dwelling and child vaccination  mainly contribute to MP in all the three waves. At the provincial level, the  rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa(KPK) and  Punjab  has experienced a 1 to 3 percent decline in MP  while poverty in rural Sindh has increased by 2%. The rural areas of northern punjab and KPK are least deprived ones while the rural region from interior Sindh and Southern Punjab has lagged behind the other regions. These findings imply the reshaping of poverty reduction policies in order to be more comprehensive and targeted ones.