This paper describes the official methodology to estimate poverty based on household per capita consumption in Bangladesh using the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2016/17. The analysis discusses changes in the survey that may affect the comparability of poverty estimates across time and a series of robustness checks to the estimation. It also includes a short description on how the official income aggregate is estimated.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/VQMR9706Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsPoverty Line, Measurement, Survey, MethodologyJEL Classification CodeI30, I32Recommended CitationAhmed, F., Genoni, M. E., Roy, D., & Latif, A. (2019). Official methodology used for poverty estimation based on the Bangladesh household income and expenditure survey 2016/17: A technical note. https://doi.org/10.57138/VQMR9706

Between 2010 and 2016, 90 per cent of the poverty reduction of Bangladesh occurred in rural areas. The gains in poverty reduction were largely driven by non-agricultural sectors (i.e., both industry and services). This paper describes the recent evolution of employment and wages in rural Bangladesh. The analysis highlights the increasing trend into non-farm employment in the rural sector and some of the factors linked to the choice of non-farm jobs. The paper relies on the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys for 2010 and 2016 with additional evidence drawn from the Labour Force Surveys. Overall, there has been a more pronounced non-farm orientation of jobs in rural areas since 2010. This process has been observed for both males and females, and for those with higher education levels. Better connectivity and microfinance are also positively linked with off-farm employment. The increase in non-farm employment was much faster in Eastern than Western divisions of the country, which can partly explain the re-emergence of the East-West divide in terms of welfare after 2010.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/BPUN9487Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsRural Transformation, Non-farm, Salaried Work, Female LabourJEL Classification CodeJ41, J43, J62, I30, I39Recommended CitationSen, B. (2019). Rural transformation, occupational choice and poverty reduction in Bangladesh during 2010-2016. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 263-287. https://doi.org/10.57138/BPUN9487

Bangladesh has continued to improve access to education and educational attainment. Gains have been equitable, reducing disparities by gender, wealth, and geography. Yet progress is still needed at higher education levels, and there are still persistent gaps between the poor and rich and across districts. Gains are partly the result of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) efforts to improve education outcomes, but also reflect increased private spending by households. GoB education spending is still low compared to other countries in the region and presents large variation across the territory, which is not correlated with education outcomes and internal efficiency indicators. Only when public spending translates into lower student-to-teacher ratios do outcomes seem to improve, but those ratios remain inadequate compared to other countries and unevenly distributed across districts. Focusing on higher quality spending rather than increasing overall budgets will be a priority for further progress. Stipend programmes help with the progressivity of the system at the primary level. However, at the secondary level, there is still significant room to improve the progressivity of these benefits. Finally, addressing norms and expectations around the benefits of schooling can be an important avenue to increase school attendance. About four in ten secondary school-age children out of school report lack of interest or being too old to go back as their main reasons for not attending school; three in ten females cite family chores and marriage as reasons for not attending.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/KGAM7647Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsHuman Capital, Equity, Stipend Programmes, Public SpendingJEL Classification CodeI24, I26, I38, J24Recommended CitationGenoni, M. E., Bhatta, S. D., & Sharma, U. (2019). Equity in education outcomes and spending in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 217-262. https://doi.org/10.57138/KGAM7647

During the last five years, urban poverty reduction in Bangladesh has stagnated and, perhaps without coincidence, this has also been a period in which urban female labour force participation (FLFP) rates have also fallen. Understanding factors that constrain FLFP in urban areas is increasingly important to understanding how to ensure urban income growth and poverty reduction, as Bangladesh continues to urbanise. This paper explores factors that constrain women in slums and low-income neighbourhoods in Dhaka from engaging in the labour market and supplying their labour to wage or self-employment. It uses unique individual level data on labour market participation, time-use, norms and skills, both cognitive and non-cognitive.  The data reconfirm well-known patterns about female labour force participation: that it is higher among low-income neighbourhoods and women with low education, and it is higher among younger unmarried women. The paper also highlights the correlation between soft-skills and type of work.  In addition, the paper quantifies the important correlation between the need for childcare, safety in public spaces and at work.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/DABU2106Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsFemale Labour, Urban, Slum, Skills, NormsJEL Classification CodeI21, J16, J22, J24Recommended CitationKotikula, A., Hill, R., & Raza, W. A. (2019). What works for working women? Unpacking the constraints on female labour force participation in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 173-216. https://doi.org/10.57138/DABU2106

With rapid urbanisation and concomitant rise in urban poverty, a better understanding of urban poverty and urban income dynamics has become an urgent priority. One in five poor households now live in urban Bangladesh and many more urban households are aspiring to be middle class yet vulnerable to falling back into poverty. Progress in reducing poverty has slowed in urban areas, particularly in larger cities. As a result, there are now more people living in extreme poverty in urban Bangladesh (3.7 million) than in 2010 (3 million). At current rates of urbanisation and poverty reduction, more than half of poor households will live in urban areas by 2030. This paper examines what can be learned about trends and drivers in urban poverty from recent nationally representative surveys. It also analyses additional data sources on the capital city, Dhaka, to shed light on spatial inequality within the city. The paper highlights the need for increased data collection and evidence on urban poverty to inform public policy to address this emerging challenge.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/PNKL5994Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsPoverty, Urban, Spatial, Slum, DhakaJEL Classification CodeO18, I30, I39, R11, R12Recommended CitationRahman, H. Z., & Hill, R. (2019). Poverty in urban Bangladesh: trends, profiles and spatial differences. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 131-171. https://doi.org/10.57138/PNKL5994

Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in reduction of poverty headcounts, poverty gap, and squared poverty gap since 2000. While scores of studies rigorously looked into drivers of poverty reduction from the perspective of sources, both the cross country and single country literature on poverty convergence is scant. Even most of these convergence estimates are biased arising out of omitted variable due to ignorance of unobserved individual heterogeneity and endogeneity of at least a subset of regressors. This paper exploits a unique set of data to provide credible evidence of convergence in poverty across the districts of Bangladesh during 2000-2016 using the Arellano-Bond system dynamic panel estimator and panel generalized method of moments estimator. We find that poverty convergence is present during this period both through direct estimation and decomposition with relevant indirect estimates. Our results are robust to the alternative frequency of data (cross-section vis-à-vis panel) and the consequent estimation techniques, sources of data (direct estimates from the Household Income and Expenditure Surveys vis-à-vis small area estimates) and the alternative transformation of the dependent variables. Both growth-accounted poverty convergence effect and strong growth effect dominate the adverse effect of initial poverty on growth effectiveness to ensure strong overall poverty convergence found across the districts.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/HQIK6908Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsBangladesh, Poverty, Income, ConvergenceJEL Classification CodeI32, O47, O53Recommended CitationYunus, M. (2019). Convergence in regional poverty rates in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 103-129. https://doi.org/10.57138/HQIK6908

Bangladesh has documented consistent reductions in poverty since 2000 and has also seen considerable transformation in the sector and location of economic activities. This paper exploits variation in sectoral growth and migration across districts and time to examine whether spatial variation in sectoral growth patterns—growth in agriculture, industry, or services—can explain spatial variation in poverty reduction, and what the role of migration was. We control for district fixed effects and instrument growth in agriculture and international migration to explore causal effects. We find that reductions in poverty were largest in places where agricultural output growth was highest and where industrial growth was highest. Poverty reduction was greater in districts which were sending larger numbers of international migrants. The relationship between agricultural growth and poverty reduction holds when instrumenting agricultural growth with rainfall data, and manufacturing growth has a significant impact on poverty reduction when proxied by a Bartik-style instrument, indicating that some of these findings are causal. DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/NVVG8036Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsSpatial Growth, Structural Change, PovertyJEL Classification CodeR12, I30, I39, J43, J61Recommended CitationHill, R., & Cevallos, J. J. E. (2019). Spatial and structural changes in poverty reduction in Bangladesh from 2000 to 2016. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 75-101. https://doi.org/10.57138/NVVG8036

Bangladesh has continued to make remarkable progress in reducing poverty since 2010. In some regards, poverty reduction has continued in a manner consistent with the previous decade. However, important differences emerge when trends are examined more closely. Poverty rates in the poorer West and richer East converged until 2010, then diverged, as poverty reduction in the poorer Western divisions again started to lag. Poverty reduction was concentrated among those in agricultural activities until 2010, while in the more recent period it was not. This paper uses decomposition analysis to examine the changing nature of poverty reduction from 2005 to 2010 and 2010 to 2016. Why was the nature of poverty reduction so different in these two periods? Four insights emerge from the analysis: (1) Reductions in fertility and family size have been important for poverty reduction throughout the periods considered, and have been slower in the Western divisions; (2) Gains in educational attainment were key to improving household fortunes, and can help explain the divergent trajectories of the East and West; (3) Structural change is occurring, but not equally everywhere. Structural change lags in the West, where consumption remains as closely correlated with land ownership as in the past. This is concerning, given declining land holdings in the West; and (4) Special conditions were present in 2010 that increased gains to agriculture, benefiting the more agricultural West of the country and causing a temporary convergence. DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/EUYF3222Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsRegional Inequality, Poverty Decomposition, Lagging RegionJEL Classification CodeR12, R58, I30, I39, O18Recommended CitationHill, R., & Cevallos, J. J. E. (2019). Understanding the changing east-west divide in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 42(2/3), 23-73. https://doi.org/10.57138/EUYF3222

This paper uses the latest round of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey to provide an initial assessment of Bangladesh’s poverty trends from 2010 to 2016/17. The paper documents that Bangladesh has made remarkable gains in reducing poverty. However, with almost 1 in 4 people still living in poverty today, the country needs to make further progress. Economic growth has led to gains in welfare, but even though economic growth has accelerated in recent years, it has delivered less poverty reduction. Consumption has grown at a slower rate and has been less equally shared since 2010 than in the prior decade. Welfare differences between the historically poorer West and the rest of the country have re-emerged, as poverty has increased in the North-western division of Rangpur. The decline in urban poverty has also slowed. Slower agricultural growth, combined with slower job creation in manufacturing, could explain why growth has become less poverty reducing over time in Bangladesh.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/AOBP9532Date of Publication December 2020KeywordsBangladesh, Poverty, Measurement, ProfileJEL Classification CodeI30, I32, I39, O53Recommended CitationHill, R., & Genoni, M.E. (2019). Poverty in Bangladesh during 2010-2016. The Bangladesh Development Studies 42(2/3), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.57138/AOBP9532