Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors of Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan: A Case Study of Southern Punjab

Abstract

This study aims to explore the socio-economic and demographic determinants of poverty in Southern Punjab by using the cross sectional data consisting of 785 household heads. Binary logistic regression and ordinary least square method are used for estimation. The findings exhibit that the variables like family system, household size, presence of disease and status of employment of household head are positively and significantly related to poverty whereas household head age, rural-to-urban migration, years of schooling, number of earners, women status of work, remittances, the physical assets value and ownership of house significantly and negatively influence the likelihood of poverty and positively influence the per capita income of the households in Southern Punjab. The study also provides the comparison of regional and division level. It is concluded that DG Khan division is the poorest among all the divisions of the southern Punjab. In DG Khan Division, the households have less education, high dependency ratio. In rural areas of southern Punjab, there is more poverty as compare to urban areas. The rural poverty is due to many factors like high dependency rate, lower level of education, adoption of profession, lower per capita income, dissaving. It is suggested that education should be promoted, employment opportunity should be provided so that dependency rate may be reduced, rural areas should be restructured by provision of basic necessities of life.

Energy, Communication, Health, Irrigation and Security Infrastructure and its impact on Household Poverty in Pakistan: A Case Study of District Rajanpur, Punjab

“…The issue of Households Poverty has been discussion several times with so many socioeconomic variables and few selected studies are given in this section. R. Ahmad and Faridi (2020) analyzed the socio-economic and demographic factors of poverty in Southern Punjab. The study took cross-sectional data consisting of 785 household heads.…”

The Issues and Challenges Faced by Lady Health Workers in Maternal Health Care in Rural Communities: An Evidence from South Punjab

“…The certain social and cultural factors are pivotal to address in order to keep maternal mortalities low in country (Winkvist & Akhtar, 2000, Asim et al, 2021Kachoria et al, 2022). Beside that it is a challenging job to work in regions like South Punjab where number of socio-economic and cultural factors make the area underdeveloped (Ahmad & Faridi, 2020). The current research has indicated number of hurdles and challenges in the way of lady health workers which include their low salaries, their fight with social and cultural elements, the harassment, abuse, threat factor and role of health department in different manners in creating awareness on maternal health seeking behaviours.…”

Role of Education in Poverty Mitigation in Pakistan: Evidence from Southern Punjab

“…Their results implied that 18% of the households were bearing (MDP) and multidimensional measures were necessary to overcome the said issue. R. Ahmad and Faridi (2020) used cross sectional data for determining the poverty in South Punjab via household survey. Their study was at divisional level and exhibited that households were likely to be poor due to variables such as higher dependency rate due to large household size, unemployed household head and family system.…”