Estimation and determination of chronic poverty in India: an alternative approach

The chronically poor are generally identified using longitudinal household panel data on income or expenditure. The basic motivation for our approach is to overcome the absence of a nationally representative panel data in analysing chronic poverty issues. A household is identified as chronically poor if its income is below the poverty line and if its children are suffering from malnutrition for a longer period of time. Making use of a set of common variables available in two nationally representative surveys (that deal with the estimation of consumer expenditure and malnutrition), the incidence of chronic poverty is estimated among the different social groups and across the various states of India. The paper aims to improve our understanding of the determinants of chronic poverty by considering economic, demographic and social factors. It attempts to answer specific questions such as: how important is household income as a determinant of chronic poverty? What factors inhibit escape from chronic poverty? How different are the ‘other poor ’ from the chronically poor? Demographic pressure, low wage rates for households offering labour in rural and urban areas, low household income, and social factors all have a significant impact on chroni