Poverty and its Determinants in Bikaner District of Rajasthan State, India

Abstract

The study used primary data from 100 households following multistage random sampling process. Minimum consumption expenditure per person was used as standard of measurement to categorize households into poor and non-poor. To address principal determinants of household poverty in the study area, the study used, logit model. In Bikaner poverty headcount was 17 percent. The poverty gap index and the squared poverty gap index were 0.2 and 0.011 respectively. Descriptive analysis results showed that,82 percent poor, 46 percent non-poor and 52 percent overall sampled households responded their own production is not enough year round. In Bikaner farm generates nearly 63 percent and non-farm incomes has 37 percent share. Out of monthly total expenditure 64 percent goes to food, 17 percent to non-food, 15 percent to education and the remaining 4 percept to medical expenditure monthly. Logit analysis found that, as family size increases by one member in adult equivalent, citrus paribus, the probability of that household to falls into poverty increase by 5.8 percent. As farm size increases by one hectare, the probability that a household falls into poverty decrease by 8.5 percent and as irrigated land increases by one hectare, the probability that a household falls into poverty decrease by 16 percent. As livestock ownership increases by one TLU, the probability that a household falls into poverty will decrease by 14.4 percent. The probability a household falls into poverty decreases by 0.03 percent in the district, as family income increases by one lakh rupees. As decision maker education increases by one unit, the probability that a household falls into poverty decrease by 5 percent and also as wife education increases by one unit, the probability that a household falls into poverty decrease by 2.5 percent.