Incidence and Determinants of Poverty among Rural Labour Households in Punjab

The present paper is an attempt to analyse the incidence and determinants of poverty among the rural labour households in Punjab. The study is based on a survey of 530 rural labour households from 22 villages. The study reveals that as per the Tendulkar criterion, the incidence of poverty is 40.89 and 37.40 per cent for the rural labour households on the basis of their income and consumption expenditure, respectively. As per the World Bank’s moderate poverty line criterion, the proportion of population living below the poverty line is 60.47 and about 56 per cent on the basis of income and consumption expenditure. The incidence of poverty is higher among agricultural labourers as compared to non-agricultural labourers. The family size, number of earners and income from subsidiary occupations are the determinants of income-based poverty and the number of dependents and education level of the decision maker in the family are determinants of consumption-based poverty.