Landlessness and rural poverty in Pakistan.

Anwar, Talat ; Qureshi, Sarfraz K. ; Ali, Hammad 等

I. INTRODUCTION

Poverty imposes a repressive weight on Pakistan particularly in rural areas where almost one third of population and majority of the poor live. Although poverty has declined during the 1970s and 1980s, the absolute number of poor has increased substantially since the 1960s. Despite a number of policy initiatives and programmes undertaken for poverty alleviation by various governments, absolute poverty particularly in rural areas continued to rise in Pakistan during the 1990s. Much has been written about poverty in Pakistan so far. A number of attempts have been made by various authors/institutions to estimate the rural poverty in Pakistan in the 1990s. Discussions have remained limited to estimating the regional and provincial trends for rural poverty in Pakistan. Although landlessness and rural poverty in Pakistan received significant attention in the 1970 and 1980, discussions on this issue remained limited in the 1990s. Landlessness and rural poverty are closely linked since land is a principal asset in a rural economy like Pakistan. Landlessness to agricultural land is considered to he the most important contributor to rural poverty. A high concentration of landownership is a major constraint to agricultural growth and alleviation of poverty. There is a general perception that highly skewed distribution of land in Pakistan is one of the important causes of widespread poverty particularly in rural areas.

It is this context that has guided us to examine the landlessness and rural poverty in Pakistan. The paper is structured as follows. The next section provides a critical review of the most recent work on the extent and trends in poverty in the 1990s. Methods of measurement of poverty are discussed in Section III. Section IV discusses the data set of Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES), 2001-02 that has been used to examine the landlessness and rural poverty in the country. Section V presents the results for the prevalence of rural poverty using the official poverty line. Main conclusions and policy implications conclude the discussion in the final section.

II. REVIEW OF RURAL POVERTY

Various authors/institution have estimated incidence of poverty in Pakistan since the 1960s. The work on poverty include Naseem (1973, 1979); Alauddin (1975); Mujahid (1978); Irfan and Amjad (1984); Kruijk and Leeuwen (1985); Malik (1988); Ahmad and Ludlow (1989); Ercelawn (1990), Malik (1991, 1994); Amjad and Kemal (1997); FBS (2001); World Bank (1995, 2002); Anwar and Quershi (2002); Planning Commission (2003) and Malik (2005). These authors and/or institutions employed different methods, chose different poverty lines and thereby, reported divergent poverty trends.

In contrast to Naseem (1973) and Alauddin (1975); I rfan and Amjad (1984) in a seminal paper showed a significant increase in rural poverty between 1963-64 and 1969-70, whereas a significant reduction in poverty between 1969-70 and 1979 (see Figure 1). The authors finding suggest that rural poverty rose due to the significant changes in the agrarian structure, especially the size distribution of holdings which are said to have had important repercussions for the rural occupational distribution of households. The introduction of new technology allowed large landowners to resume land previously rented-out for self cultivation. Tenant farmers were hence evicted, and had either to operate smaller landholdings, or then join the ranks of the landless labourers. Thus, despite a greater agricultural growth on account of technological innovation, the conditions of those evicted deteriorated. Increased mechanisation led to a decrease in demand for labour which has been one of the key reasons for the increase in poverty. On the other hand, decline in rural poverty in the 1970s was due to a significant increase in remittances that allowed a redistribution of income in the rural sectors having positive impacts on poverty.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

However, rural poverty continued to decline between 1979 and 1987-88 because of respectable growth in agriculture sector together with continuous flow of overseas workers' remittances. Various attempts to estimate rural poverty in the 1990s include FBS (2001); World Bank (2002); Anwar and Qureshi (2002); Planning Commission (2003) and Malik (2005). Except World Bank (2003), these studies found a rising trend in poverty levels in the country during the 1990s (see Table I).

Both FBS (2001) and World Bank (2002) studies are comprehensive in coverage of issues and thus important to understand poverty in the country at regional and provincial level. However, unlike other studies World Bank (2002) is the only exception that argues that rural poverty is more or less stagnant in Pakistan during the 1990s. This contrary trend is mainly attributed to the fact that World Bank (2002) had overestimated the rural poverty in 1990-91 as it had not made correction for household expenditure for its composition via a correction in the per adult equivalent ratio to compute poverty in 1990-91. However, in the later period, it has made such correction to compute poverty in 1998-99. Due to this inconsistency in method of computing poverty, the World Bank (2002) rural poverty estimates were high at 36.9 percent in 1990-91 whereas it were low at 35.9 percent in 1998-99 relative to other studies. (1) It is, therefore, not appropriate to draw a conclusion about poverty trend when the method of measurement is not consistent. Thus, a stagnant trend drawn for the 1990s by the World Bank (2002) study for rural poverty in Pakistan seems to be a puzzling conclusion.

The FBS (2001) study evaluates the poverty trends during the 1990s. The study used its estimated poverty line of Rs 782 per adult per month in 1998-99 prices sufficient to meet minimum calorie intake of 2550 per adult per day. The rural poverty trends drawn by the study is consistent with the other studies. The study concludes that rural poverty increased significantly from 29.6 percent in 1992-93 to 36.3 percent in 1998-99. Furthermore, Anwar and Qureshi (2002) used an inflation adjusted poverty line of Rs 668 per adult per month in 1998-99 prices and concluded a substantial rise in rural poverty from 32.1 percent 1998-99 and to 41.0 percent 2001-02. Although Malik (2005) did not mention the poverty line used in the study, his results also corroborate a rising trends in rural poverty during the 1990s. The rise in rural poverty was attributable to a decline in growth rates of agriculture sector which reversed the historically declining trend and resulted in rise in rural poverty (see Figure 1). In addition, Malik (2005) concluded that the growth in agriculture sector was overstated due to incorrect account of livestock fishing and forestry for some years of the 1990s. With a population growth rate of 2.5 percent over this period, growth in per capita growth remained stagnant at 0.6 percent over the 1990s. Consequently, real wages of agricultural workers fell during the period. Thus, the rise in poverty was certain given the decline in real wages of the population during the 1990s. Furthermore, Malik (2005) argued that skewed land distribution results in sharecropping which exploits the poor tenants and is thus one of the major constraints for rural poverty reduction.

In 2002-03, the Planning Commission reduced the reference threshold in determining national poverty line from minimum calorie intake 2550 to 2350 per adult per day required on average for an individual for physical functioning and daily activities. Planning Commission notified the estimated official poverty line at Rs 673 per capita per month in 1998-99 price and Rs 748 per capita per month in 2001-02 prices. The implications of this change of the definition of poverty is that the poverty levels has been reduced by 2 percentage points at national as well as the province level which is an statistical artefact but not a decline in reality. Poverty estimate implied by the above official poverty line suggests that 32 percent of population in Pakistan and 38.9 percent of population in rural areas were poor in 2001-02. It is noteworthy that Anwar and Qureshi (2002) using lower poverty line of consumption expenditure of Rs 735 per adult per month in 2001-02 prices estimated a headcount at 35.6 percent for the country as a whole. Thus, official poverty estimates at 32 percent of population using a higher poverty line of Rs 748 per capita per month in 2001-02 seem to be significantly lower and needs to be corroborated from independent sources. (2) Thus, there is need to use official poverty line to estimate poverty level of poverty in the country. In this context, the paper uses the official poverty line and the most recent available household data--HIES 2001-02 to estimate rural poverty in Pakistan.

III. METHODS OF MEASUREMENT OF POVERTY

To estimate the rural poverty in the country, the official poverty line of Rs 748.56 per adult per month in 2001-02 notified by Planning Commission as sufficient resources in rupee term to meet minimum requirement of 2350 calorie per adult has been used. While estimating poverty, an adjustment has been made in the overall poverty line for Pakistan using the Paasche indices at the primary sampling unit level to account for the significant price differences between the rural and urban regions. To obtain representative estimates of population, a weight is assigned to each observation in the sample according to the weighting factors given in HIES, 2001-02.

To measure the poverty, the Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (1984) class of poverty measures [P.sub.[alpha]], have been used. These measures do not only reflect the severity of poverty but also satisfy the axiom of decomposability and additivity.

[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

These measures have clear advantages for evaluating policies which aim to reach the poorest. Note that if [alpha] = 0, the FGT index, [P.sub.[alpha]] = Headcount measure, if [alpha] = 1, [P.sub.[alpha]] = Poverty gap index or quotient and if [alpha] = 2, [P.sub.[alpha]] is the mean of squared proportionate poverty gaps and indicates greater severity of poverty among the poorest. The higher the value of [alpha] the more sensitive the measure is to the well being of the poorest. As [alpha] approaches infinity the measure collapses to one which reflects the poverty of the poorest person.

IV. THE DATA SET

The most recent available primary data of Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) for the year 2001-02 have been used to examine the rural poverty in Pakistan. The universe consists of all urban and rural areas of the four provinces of Pakistan defined as such by the Population Census. The sample of HIES 2001-02 consists of 14,599 households both rural and urban in all the four provinces of Pakistan. A stratified random sampling has been done. Accordingly, the population is divided into mutually exclusive sub-populations, each of which is sampled independently. The results of these independent random samples are then combined to provide the desired estimate for the entire population. HIES provides complete information on quantity and expenditure of all food and non-food items. Since income of the poor varies particularly in rain fed economy like Pakistan, the household current consumption expenditure is preferred to income as the indicator of living standards. Hence, current consumption expenditure on all non-durables is used as a proxy for 'permanent income' for the measurement of poverty in this paper.

V. POVERTY LEVELS IN PAKISTAN

The poverty appears to be widespread in Pakistan. The results indicate that prevalence of absolute poverty in Pakistan implied by the official poverty line was at 38.02 percent in 2001-02 (see Table 2). Incidence of rural poverty was far greater than the urban poverty. The results suggest that 42.93 percent of population in rural areas and 26.04 percent of population in urban areas were poor in 2001-02. This implies that 55 million individuals out of 145 million were poor in Pakistan; of these, 37.4 and 17.6 million individuals were located in rural and urban areas, respectively.

Poverty estimates at the province level suggest the highest incidence of rural poverty in Sindh at 48.63 percent followed by NWFP at 48 percent and Balochistan at 42 percent. Although rural poverty in Punjab was the lowest among the provinces in terms of ranking but the headcount was still considered to be substantial at 39 percent in 2001-02.

1. Landownership and Poverty

The above results indicate that prevalence of poverty in rural areas was substantially higher than the urban areas. The next question arises, what accounts for causes and persistence of high prevalence of rural poverty in rural area. This section attempts to address this question. The distribution of asset ownership is central in understanding poverty. Land is the principal asset in a rural economy. Results indicate that poverty is strongly correlated with lack of asset in Pakistan. Tables 3 to 5 reports headcount ratio, poverty gap and poverty severity measure by land holding. Poverty incidence was found to be the highest in Pakistan in rural areas among landless at 54.89 percent followed by non-agriculture households at 47.76 percent.

However, poverty incidence declines with increases in the land holding. Poverty gap and poverty severity measures also indicate a substantially high poverty gap among landless in the country (12.15 percent) followed by non-agricultural households (10.58 percent). Poverty gap also declines with increases in landholding (see Table 4). The severity of poverty measure that capture the degree of inequality among the poor also follow a similar pattern.

The above results suggest that the unequal landownership in Pakistan is one of the important causes of poverty since land is the principal asset in an agrarian economy. The landless households are substantially high in Pakistan. About 67 percent households own no land (landless plus non-agriculture, see Table 6). In contrast, about 18.25 percent household own under 5 acres of land and 9.66 percent household own 5 to 12.5 acres of land, which merely provide subsistence level of living standards. A very small proportion of households hold large farm sizes in the country. Strikingly, barely I percent (0.64 percent plus 0.37 percent) households own greater than 35 acres of land suggesting a highly skewed landownership pattern. This is also confirmed by the Gini coefficient of land holding which was very high at 0.6151 in 2001-02 (see Table 8). Thus, highly unequal land distribution is the main manifestations of poverty in rural Pakistan.

Data at province level provides a more disaggregated picture of landlessness and rural poverty in Pakistan (see Table 3, 4 and 5). At province level, the highest poverty incidence among the landless was found in Balochistan at 69.6 percent followed by NWFP at 65.9 percent and Sindh at 58.6 percent (see Table 3). Households engaged in non-agricultural economic activities were also severely hit by poverty across rural areas. The highest poverty incidence among the non-agriculture households was found in NWFP at 50.8 percent followed by Balochistan at 45.3 percent and Punjab at 47.5 percent. On the other hand, households with a small land holding under 5 acres were also hit by the poverty in Sindh at 46.6 percent followed by NWFP at 43.2 percent and Balochistan at 42.5 percent. However, poverty levels generally decrease with increases in land holding and eliminates with 55 acres and above. Thus, distribution of landownership seems to be one of the most important determinants of rural poverty in the country.

Distribution of land holding at province level indicates that about 86 percent households own no land in Sindh (landless plus non-agriculture), followed by 78 percent in Balochistan and 74 percent in Punjab (see last column, Table 7). The unequal landownership pattern is clearly reflected by the fact that a very small portion of all households holds large farm size in all provinces. Notably, merely 0.1 percent households own 55 acres of land in Sindh and NWFP followed by 0.2 percent households in Punjab and 0.3 percent households in Balochistan suggesting a highly skewed landownership pattern. Distribution of land by per capita consumption quintile shows a greater concentration of first four consumption quintiles in land holding under 12.5 acres. On the other hand, top quintile--the top 20 percent richest have greater concentration of large size land holding of 35-55 acres and 55 acres and above in all provinces suggesting a highly unequal distribution of land across provinces. This is also confirmed by Gini coefficient of landownership as the Punjab had the highest Gini at 0.6339 followed by NWFP at 0.5893 and Sindh at 0.5072 in 2001-02 (see Table 8). Similar ranking can be observed for the coefficient of variation in landownership. It is noteworthy that Gini coefficient of landownership is substantially higher than the Gini coefficient of expenditure (3) (and income) suggesting an evidence of high underreporting of expenditure (and income) by the richest households due to the tax evasion. However, the maximum land holding by a household was in Punjab at 905 acres followed by Sindh 200 acres. The average land holding was highest in Balochistan followed by Sindh and Punjab. The highly unequal land distribution in Pakistan results in tenancy arrangements such sharecropping which are disadvantageous to the poor. The incidence of sharecropping is high as about 72 percent of tenant-operated (4) areas are under sharecropping arrangement. Prevalence of rural poverty by main employment status also confirms the high susceptibility of poverty of share cropper (see Table 9). The highest level of poverty was found among share croppers (47.84 percent) followed by non-agriculture households (44.01 percent), and contract cultivators (34.83 percent) livestock only (34.51 percent).

2. Sources of Income of Landless Poor

However, distribution of landownership is part of the story of rural poverty in the country. Landless households earn most of their income from non-agricultural sources. This is clear from Table 10 that share of non-agricultural income is dominated in total income of landless households in all consumption quintiles which ranges from 45 percent to 74 percent. Landless are mostly engaged in informal activities that absorb a large majority of unskilled, uneducated or less educated and poor individuals. For example, paid employment and self-employment are the two major sources of income of landless households. However, the poorest landless in the first two quintiles have significantly higher income share from share cropping, contract cultivating and livestock than their richest counterpart in the high consumption quintiles. Households involved in these activities can be characterised as the poorest of the poor. On the other hand, high consumption quintiles landless households have higher share of income as employers, income from self and paid employment than the poorest landless in the first two consumption quintiles.

VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The paper examined the landlessness and rural poverty in Pakistan. The results indicate that prevalence of rural poverty based on official poverty line is far greater than the urban poverty 42.9 percent of rural population compared to 26 percent of urban population was poor in 2001-02. The results showed that poverty is strongly correlated with lack of land which is the principal asset in the rural economy of Pakistan. Prevalence of poverty was found to be the highest among landless at 54.89 percent across rural areas in the country. Not only the poverty gap but also the degree of inequality among the landless household was substantially high. A highly unequal landownership pattern is reflected by the fact that merely 1.0 percent households own greater than 35 acres and above land in Pakistan. This result is also supported by the Gini Coefficient of land holding which was considerably high at 0.6151 in 2001-02. It thus appears that highly unequal land distribution is the main manifestations of poverty in rural Pakistan.

Distribution of land holding at province level indicates that a very small portion of all households holds large farm size in all provinces. Strikingly, just 0.1 percent households own 55 acres and above land in Sindh and NWFP followed by 0.2 percent households in Punjab and 0.3 percent households in Balochistan suggesting a highly skewed landownership pattern. Punjab had the highest Gini coefficient of land holding followed by NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan in 2001-02. The finding that Gini coefficient of landownership was substantially higher than the Gini Coefficient of expenditure and income is suggestive of the fact of high underreporting of expenditure and income by the richest households due to the tax evasion. The highly unequal land distribution seems to have resulted in tenancy arrangements such as sharecropping which seem to have resulted in high incidence of poverty particularly in Sindh.

It appears that landlessness to agricultural land is one of the most important contributors to rural poverty in Pakistan. A high concentration of landownership and unfair tenancy contracts are major obstacles to agricultural growth and alleviation of poverty. Thus both agricultural growth and poverty alleviation can be achieved, if land inequality is reduced and the tenants are protected by well-enforced tenancy contacts. Analysts have shown that land redistribution (5) has been a source of increased efficiency, increased demand for labour and reduced poverty. While landlessness appears to be one of most important causes of rural poverty in Pakistan, some policy implications to reduce rural poverty are discussed here.

First, we found that landless and the poor a largely dependent upon nonagricultural sources of income. In rural economy employment is mainly seasonal and determined at low wages, leaving a large proportion of the landless households in poverty. In this context, employment programmes for rural public works can have significant role in reducing rural poverty. It is, therefore, suggested to initiate rural public works programmes and scale up the existing programmes.

Second, though agricultural growth is considered essential for poverty reduction in rural areas, it may not alone be sufficient to reduce poverty because of the factors that drive the growth in agriculture sector. These included the higher use of conventional inputs such land, water, fertiliser and seed; increase in total factor productivity that depends on agricultural research and extension; adequate rural infrastructure; and targeted transformations in the institutional set up including financial institution and input and output markets. These are the areas where future research can be focused to design and implement pro-poor policy and institutional packages to reduce rural poverty.

Finally, there has been a much discussion about microcredit to the poor in Pakistan but much remains to be done to develop this sector. Although the micro finance institutions in Pakistan are emerging as an important player for poverty reduction, a substantial segment of the poor population remained underserved. Our estimates show that 38.1 percent of population (or 8.3 million households) were below the official poverty line in 2001-02, while just 6 percent (or 0.5 million) households were provided with loan, through microcredit schemes in the country so far. A bulk of rural poor in Pakistan remained unable to benefits from the microcredit programmes. On the contrary, in Bangladesh 95 percent of the poor households (or 9.79 million out of 10.2 million poor households) were provided microcredit so far which has greatly reduced absolute poverty during the last three decades. While economic growth is not sufficient for poverty reduction, the government should pay a serious attention to the expansion microcredit schemes so as to give adequate coverage to bulk of the poor particularly in rural areas. Along with expansion of the microcredit to the poor, there is also a need to monitor and assess the impact of existing microcredit scheme on the poor.

REFERENCES

Ahmad, E., and S. Ludlow (1989) Poverty Inequality and Growth in Pakistan. The Pakistan Development Review 28:4, 831-850.

Alauddin, T. (1975) Mass Poverty in Pakistan: A Further Study. The Pakistan Development Review 14:4, 431-450.

Amjad, R., and A. R. Kemal (1997) Macroeconomic Policies and their Impact on Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan. The Pakistan Development Review 36:1, 39-38.

Amjad, R., and M. Irfan (1984) Poverty in Rural Pakistan. In ILO-ARTEP (1984) (eds). Impact of Return Migration on Domestic Employment in Pakistan: A Preliminary Analysis.

Anwar, T. (1996) Structural Adjustment and Poverty: The Case of Pakistan. The Pakistan Development Review 35:4, 911-926.

Anwar, Talat (2003)Trends in Income Inequality in Pakistan between 1998-99 and 2001-02. The Pakistan Development Review 42:4, 809-821.

Anwar, Talat, and Sarfraz K. Qureshi (2002) Trends in Absolute Poverty in Pakistan: 1990-191 and 2001. The Pakistan Development Review 41:4, 859-878.

Binswanger, Hans, K. Deininger, and G. Feder (1995) Power, Distortions, Revolt and Reform in Agricultural Land Relations, In J. Behrman, and T. N. Srinivasan Hand Book of Development Economics, Vol. 3B. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Ercelawn, Aly (1990) Absolute Poverty in Pakistan. Applied Economics Research Centre, Karachi. (Mimeographed.)

Foster, James., J. Greer, and E. Thorbecke (1984) A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures. Econometrica 52, 761-765.

Irfan, and Amjad (1984) Poverty in Rural Pakistan. In A. R. Khan and E. Lee (eds.) Poverty hi Rural Asia. ILO-ARTEP. 19-47.

Kruijk, Hans de and Myrna van Leeuwen (1985) Changes in Poverty and Income Inequalities in Pakistan during the 1970's. The Pakistan Development Review 24:4, 407-422.

Liption, Michael (1985) Successes in Anti Poverty. Geneva: International Labour Office.

Malik, Muhammad H. (1988) Some New Evidence of Poverty in Pakistan. The Pakistan Development Review 27:4, 509-516.

Malik, S. J. (2005) Agricultural Growth and Rural Poverty: A Review of the Evidence. (ADB Pakistan Resident Mission Working Paper No. 2.)

Malik, Sohail J. (1991) Poverty in Pakistan 1984-85 and 1987-88. In M. Lipton and J. Van deer Gaag (eds) Including the Poor. Washington, D. C.: World Bank.

Malik, Sohail J. (1994) Poverty in Pakistan 1984-85, 1987-88 and 1990-91. IFPRI, Washington D.C. (Mimeographed.)

Mujahid, G. B. S. (1978) A Note on Measurement of Poverty and Income Inequalities in Pakistan. The Pakistan Development Review 17:3, 365-377.

Naseem, S. M. (1973) Mass Poverty in Pakistan: Some Preliminary Findings. The Pakistan Development Review 12:4, 312-360.

Naseem, S. M. (1979) Underdevelopment, Poverty and Inequality in Pakistan. Islamabad: Vanguard.

Pakistan, Government of (1985) Energy and Protein Requirements. Report of a joint FAO/WHO Ad-hoc Experts Committee, Geneva, Islamabad.

Pakistan, Government of (2001), Poverty in the 1990s. Islamabad: Statistics Division, Federal Bureau of Statistics.

Pakistan, Government of (2002) Economic Survey, 2001-2002. Islamabad: Ministry of Finance.

Pakistan, Government of (Various Surveys) Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES). Islamabad: Statistics Division, Federal Bureau of Statistics.

World Bank (1995) Pakistan Poverty Assessment. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.

World Bank (2002) Poverty in Pakistan: Vulnerabilities, Social Gaps, and Rural Dynamics. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.

(1) See Anwar (1996); Malik (1991, 1994); A naiad and Kemal (1997) and Anwar and Qureshi (2002).

(2) World Bank (2005) Poverty Update also reports high level of poverty at 37 percent for 2001-02 using the official poverty line. ADB working paper by Malik (2005) also reports sufficiently high poverty level.

(3) See Anwar (2003), Trends in Inequality between 1998-99 and 2001-02; paper presented in 19th AGM of Pakistan Society for Development Economics.

(4) See Malik (2005).

(5) See Binswanger, et al. (1995) and Lipton (1998).

Talat Anwar is affiliated with the Research Department, State Bank of Pakistan, Karachi. Sarfraz K. Qureshi was Director, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad. Hammad Ali is affiliated with the Federal Bureau of Statistics, Islamabad.

Table 1
Headcount Measure for Pakistan-1990-91 to 2001-02

 Planning Anwar and
 FBS World Bank Commission Qureshi
 (2001) (2002) (2003) (2002)
Years 2550 2550 2350 2550
 Calories Calories Calories Calories
Overall
 1990-91 -- 34.0 -- 17.2
 1992-93 26.6 25.7 -- --
 1993-94 29.3 28.6 -- --
 1998-99 32.2 32.6 30.6 30.4
 2001-02 -- -- 32.1 35.6
Rural
 1990-91 -- 36.9 -- --
 1992-93 29.9 27.7 -- --
 1993-94 34.7 33.4 -- --
 1998-99 36.3 35.4 34.6 32.1
 2001-02 -- -- 38.9 41.0

Source: Various studies cited above.

Table 2
Headcount by Province acrd Region Using Poverty Line
Official 748.56 per Adult in 2001-02

 Urban Rural Overall

Punjab 26.92 39.27 35.71
Sindh 22.73 48.63 38.50
N W FP 34.21 48.00 45.97
Balochistan 28.57 42.07 39.72
Pakistan 26.04 42.93 38.02

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 3
Headcount by Landholding, Using Official Poverty Line
748.56 per Adult in 2001-02

 Rural

Punjab Landless 45.12
 Under 5 Acres 32.18
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 21.43
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 19.36
 35 to under 55 Acres 7.78
 55 and above Acres 5.42
 Non-agriculture 47.54
 Total 39.27
Sindh Landless 58.67
 Under 5 Acres 46.62
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 43.66
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 42.77
 35 to under 55 Acres 9.80
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 46.82
 Total 48.63
NWFP Landless 65.95
 Under 5 Acres 43.21
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 35.57
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 29.66
 35 to under 55 Acres .00
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 50.87
 Total 47.88
Balochistan Landless 69.63
 Under 5 Acres 42.55
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 25.37
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 34.27
 35 to under 55 Acres 14.55
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 45.39
 Total 42.07
Pakistan Landless 54.89
 Under 5 Acres 37.00
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 28.l7
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 27.67
 35 to under 55 Acres 8.43
 55 and above Acres 3.72
 Non-agriculture 47.76
 Total 42.91

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 4
Poverty Gap by Landholding, Using Official Poverty Gine
748.56 per Adtrlt in 2001-02

 Rural

Punjab Landless 8.41
 Under 5 Acres 5.67
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 4.43
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 3.39
 35 to under 55 Acres 2.84
 55 and above Acres 2.20
 Non-agriculture 10.94
 Total 8.45
Sindh Landless 14.48
 Under 5 Acres 8.94
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 10.92
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 7.28
 35 to under 55 Acres 3.71
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 10.54
 Total 11.16
NWFP Landless 14.43
 Under 5 Acres 7.52
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 7.09
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 6.51
 35 to under 55 Acres 6.41
 55 and above Acres 3.00
 Non-agriculture 10.11
 Total 9.28
Balochistan Landless 10.76
 Under 5 Acres 7.68
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 3.59
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 4.21
 35 to under 55 Acres 1.68
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 8.57
 Total 7.35
Pakistan Landless 12.15
 Under 5 Acres 6.56
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 6.11
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 4.68
 35 to under 55 Acres 3.27
 55 and above Acres 1.63
 Non-agriculture 10.58
 Total 9.12

Table 5
Poverty Severity by Landholding, Usirrg Official Poverty Line 748.56
per Adult in 2001-02

 Rural

Punjab Landless 2.21
 Under 5 Acres 1.52
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 1.42
 12.5 to under 35 Acres .94
 35 to under 55 Acres 1.03
 55 and above Acres .89
 Non-agriculture 3.67
 Total 2.70
Sindh Landless 4.97
 Under 5 Acres 2.61
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 3.68
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.98
 35 to under 55 Acres 1.41
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 3.38
 Total 3.65
NWFP Landless 4.58
 Under 5 Acres 1.93
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 1.89
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.61
 35 to under 55 Acres .81
 55 and above Acres .19
 Non-agriculture 2.87
 Total 2.59
Balochistan Landless 2.17
 Under 5 Acres 1.67
 5 to under 12.5 Acres .76
 12.5 to under 35 Acres .75
 35 to under 55 Acres .19
 55 and above Acres .00
 Non-agriculture 2.30
 Total 1.84
Pakistan Landless 3.83
 Under 5 Acres 1.75
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 1.94
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.22
 35 to under 55 Acres 1.10
 55 and above Acres .61
 Non-agriculture 3.41
 Total 2.84

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 6
Percent Distribution of Households by Landholdings

 Rural

Landless 10.36
Under 5 Acres 18.23
5 to under 12.5 Acres 9.66
12.5 to under 35 Acres 3.87
35 to under 55 Acres 0.64
55 and above Acres 0.37
Non-agriculture 56.87
Total 100.00

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 7
Percent Distribution of Owned Lands, by per Capita
Consumption Quintiles, by Province

 Q1 Q2 Q3

Punjab Landless 6.9 7.0 5.5
 Under 5 Acres 9.9 16.3 15.7
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 4.3 4.5 7.3
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.1 1.4 2.2
 35 to under 55 Acres .4 .1
 55 and above Acres .1 .3
 Non-agriculture 77.4 70.7 68.9
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Sindh Landless 27.1 17.8 17.3
 Under 5 Acres 4.9 6.0 6.0
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 8.8 5.9 7.2
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 2.0 3.6 2.6
 35 to under 55 Acres .3 .7
 55 and above Acres .2 .3 .3
 Non-agriculture 56.9 66.4 65.9
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
NWFP Landless 13.6 9.0 6.4
 Under 5 Acres 22.4 28.0 36.2
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 3.3 4.3 5.3
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.3 .5 1.1
 35 to under 55 Acres .3
 55 and above Acres .1
 Non-agriculture 59.4 57.7 51.0
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Balochistan Landless 8.5 10.8 5.2
 Under 5 Acres 2.9 1.9 1.9
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 4.7 8.6 12.7
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 2.6 8.2 10.1
 35 to under 55 Acres .3 .4
 55 and above Acres .2 .5
 Non-agriculture 81.1 70.3 64.3
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Pakistan Landless 12.6 10.0 8.3
 Under 5 Acres 10.4 15.3 15.8
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 5.2 5.0 7.3
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.4 2.1 2.5
 35 to under 55 Acres .3 .1 .2
 55 and above Acres .1 .1 .3
 Non-agriculture 70.1 67.5 65.6
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

 Q4 Q5 Total

Punjab Landless 5.6 3.6 5.4
 Under 5 Acres 15.8 14.0 14.5
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 9.8 9.9 7.7
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 3.7 4.7 2.9
 35 to under 55 Acres .3 1.2 .5
 55 and above Acres .3 .6 .3
 Non-agriculture 64.5 66.1 68.7
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Sindh Landless 11.2 4.3 13.9
 Under 5 Acres 4.5 1.6 4.3
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 6.1 3.9 6.0
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 2.4 2.9 2.7
 35 to under 55 Acres .6 1.2 .6
 55 and above Acres .1 .8 .4
 Non-agriculture 75.0 85.4 72.0
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
NWFP Landless 5.5 1.4 7.4
 Under 5 Acres 32.4 17.9 28.0
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 5.5 6.7 5.0
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 1.7 2.3 1.3
 35 to under 55 Acres .7 .2
 55 and above Acres .4 .1
 Non-agriculture 54.9 70.7 58.0
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Balochistan Landless 3.2 1.8 5.8
 Under 5 Acres 4.1 2.0 2.5
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 13.7 11.3 10.6
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 9.6 5.8 7.6
 35 to under 55 Acres 1.4 .4 .5
 55 and above Acres .9 .3
 Non-agriculture 67.2 78.8 72.7
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Pakistan Landless 6.8 3.5 7.7
 Under 5 Acres 14.6 10.8 13.3
 5 to under 12.5 Acres 8.6 8.2 7.1
 12.5 to under 35 Acres 3.4 4.1 2.9
 35 to under 55 Acres .4 1.1 .5
 55 and above Acres .2 .6 .3
 Non-agriculture 66.0 71.7 68.3
 Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

Source.' Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 8
Land Inequality by Province

Land Owned (Acres) Punjab Sindh NWFP

Maximum 905 200 75
Mean 8.2493 12.4086 3.5637
Standard Deviation 31.0081 17.9607 5.9887
Coefficient of
 Variation 3.7589 1.4474 1.6805
Gini (Land Owned) 0.6339 0.5072 0.5893
Gini (Expenditure) 0.3099 0.3082 0.2684

Land Owned (Acres) Balochistan Pakistan

Maximum 80 905
Mean 13.4157 8.1539
Standard Deviation 11.0927 26.0994
Coefficient of
 Variation 0.8268 3.2008
Gini (Land Owned) 0.3761 0.6151
Gini (Expenditure) 0.2314 0.3067

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 9
Percent of Poor by Main Employment Status

 Rural

Share Cropper 47.84
Contract Cultivator (Lessee on Fixed Rent) 34.83
Live Stock only 34.51
Owner Cultivator 25.03
Non-agriculture 44.01

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HIES 2001-02.

Table 10
Distribution of Income by Household Head for Landless Household
(Rural)

 Occupation of Head of Household

 Landless
 Income as Employer, Employer, Self-
Per Capita % of Employing Employing employed
 Emp. Total Less than 10 or More
 Quintiles Income 10 Persons Persons

 Q1 74.09 1.19 2.00 25.49
 Q2 66.73 .85 .10 23.85
 Q3 59.18 1.19 .29 24.81
 Q4 52.98 1.67 0.23 28.61
 Q5 45.56 4.20 1.79 26.70

 Occupation of Head of Household

 Paid Unpaid Share
Per Capita Employee Family Cropper
 Emp. Worker
 Quintiles

 Q1 51.14 43. 14.78
 Q2 55.40 .79 12.45
 Q3 54.93 1.68 9.86
 Q4 50.60 .91 9.95
 Q5 52.19 1.70 5.68

 Occupation of Head of Household

 Contract Livestock Total
Per Capita Cultivator Only
 Emp.
 Quintiles

 Q1 2.96 3.98 100
 Q2 3.16 3.40 100
 Q3 3.52 3.73 100
 Q4 4.42 3.61 100
 Q5 2.82 4.92 100

Source: Authors' computation from primary data of HISS 2001-02.