Dynamics of poverty and its determinants in rural India: Evidence from longitudinal farm households

Abstract

his study examined the determinants of unidimensional and multidimensional poverty among the farm households of rural India, using the data of India Human Development Surveys conducted in 2004–2005 and 2011–2012. We found a significant reduction in poverty among these households over this period. However, this reduction was not uniform across different sub-groups of the farm households. Our findings confirm that the important factors of poverty dynamics in India are educational attainment, number of household members, and caste. We observed that caste and household size considerably impacted the unidimensional poverty significantly, but not the multidimensional poverty, which was affected more by the education level of the heads of household. The study concludes that unidimensional poverty significantly matters for multidimensional poverty and vice versa in terms of determining poverty dynamics. Hence, target-based interventions in education, nutrition, and better access to water and sanitation, particularly to lower social groups (schedule classes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes) help in reducing multidimensional poverty in rural India.