This study has used two rounds of the two panel data sets to examine the
poverty dynamics in rural Pakistan (Sindh and Punjab). The Pakistan SocioEconomic
Survey (PSES ) covers two periods, 1998 and 2000, while the
Pakistan Rural Household Survey (PRHS) covers the 2001 and 2004 period.
More than one-fifth of the households were chronically poor in the PSES
rounds, and 11 percent in the PRHS rounds. Further, both chronic and transitory
poverty are higher in Sindh and southern Punjab than in centra l and northern
Punjab. Illiteracy, household size, dependency ratio, lack of livestock,
landlessness, lack of ownership of dwellings, and health expenditure are the
factors responsible for aggravating long-term poverty. The higher incidence of
transitory poverty in rural Sindh and southern Punjab indicates the impact of
large investments made in the public sector to raise the living standards there to
the level of the better-off regions.