The composition of households frequently change due to births, deaths, divorces, marriages,
the departure of children from home, and other compositional changes. Consequently, a large
number of people undergo some fundamental change in household arrangements during
relatively short periods of time. However, using data from Indonesia, this study finds that
change in household composition is not a major cause of chronic poverty. Similarly, it finds
no evidence that households change their composition to cope with negative shocks.
Nevertheless, the study confirms that the larger the number of household members, the
higher the probability that a household is chronically poor. Comparing different types of
household compositions, households with a single female without children have the lowest
probability of being either chronically poor or vulnerable, while single male households with
or without children have the highest probability of being vulnerable. Frequent changes in
household compositions imply that the use of household as the unit of analysis for poverty
may undermine, or at least complicate, the conceptualization and measurement of chronic
poverty. This also implies that the problem of targeting social protection programs not only
relates to implementation, but also has some conceptual roots.