Over the last decade, high economic growth in Bangladesh has resulted in millions of people becoming less poor. However, the country remains one of the poorest in the world, and around a quarter of the population continue to live in extreme poverty. What factors contribute to sustainable poverty reduction in rural Bangladesh?

Research from the International Food Policy Research Institute, in the USA, was conducted jointly with Data Analysis and Technical Assistance Ltd, in Bangladesh, and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, in the UK. It examines the factors that enable some households and communities in rural Bangladesh to move out of poverty, while others remain trapped in it.

The research draws on information collected on about 1,800 core households, which were interviewed between 6 and 12 years ago in 102 villages located in 14 of the country’s 64 districts. Revisiting the same households in 2006 and 2007 allowed the researchers to look at changes in poverty and well-being over time.

The research uses per capita consumption levels to assess poverty. Household consumption covers spending on food as well as on non-food items, including everyday goods (soap and batteries) and services (education and transport).

The research also looks at the poverty impact of certain household characteristics (such as members’ ages and years of schooling) and shocks experienced by the household. This helps to show why some people remain poor for long periods of time, and why others are able to escape poverty.

The shocks cover a wide range of adverse events affecting households including: flooding; political unrest; loss of property; illness; death; dowry payments; wedding expenses; and property division (when a father dies). Events like these can have a negative impact on income, or can result in the loss of assets or a reduction in wellbeing.

Key findings of the research include:

• Education and having non-land assets (such as livestock) are important for avoiding poverty.
• Households that fall into poverty or remain poor are more likely to have older members (over 55 years) and children (below 15 years).
• Households with older members are particularly vulnerable to shocks such as illness, death and property division.
• Illness, and particularly the income foregone when an income earner falls ill, is linked to household impoverishment.
• Dowry expenses are an important cause of household impoverishment.

The findings show that rural Bangladeshi households are extremely vulnerable to unexpected adverse events. Designing effective anti-poverty interventions to protect people from shocks and help them move out of poverty will be important.

The implications for future work include:

• Community-level factors, such as distance to key public services or markets, need to be considered alongside household characteristics.
• This would help to identify the types of infrastructure investments needed to help people move out of poverty.
• Detailed life history interviews (being carried out in a further phase of the same research project) will provide useful insights into how various policies and programmes have affected people’s living standards in rural Bangladesh.

Source(s):
‘Poverty Transitions, Shocks, and Consumption in Rural Bangladesh: Preliminary Results from a Longitudinal Household Survey’, CPRC Working Paper 105/International Food Policy Research Institute, by Agnes Quisumbing, 2007 (PDF) Full document.
‘Discussions among the poor: exploring poverty dynamics with focus groups in Bangladesh’, CPRC Working Paper 84, Chronic Poverty Research Centre: Manchester, by Peter Davis, 2007 (PDF) Full document.

Funded by: World Bank

id21 Research Highlight: 27 April 2008

Further Information:
Agnes R Quisumbing
International Food Policy Research Institute
2033 K Street NW
Washington DC 20006
USA

Tel: +1 202 8625600
Fax: +1 202 4674439
Contact the contributor: a.quisumbing@cgiar.org

International Food Policy Research Institute, USA

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