Poverty transition through targeted programme: the case of Bangladesh Poultry Model

only 5.7% with a standard deviation of 11.7%, while mean level of income share from
livestock as a whole (including poultry) was about 16.2% with a standard deviation of
23.5%. Only 10% of the households considered livestock as a major source of income
(having 50% or more of income share).

Table 3 identifies 5 dominant strategies from the recorded 28 activities, identified on
the basis of income share¹⁰. Qualitative self-assessed poverty declined through all
these routes, but the decline is very little through wage labour route. Quantitative
income poverty appears much higher than self-assessment except for those who are in
regular employment in government and private organisations. Overall, the difference
between qualitative and quantitative measurement is statistically significant at less
than 1% and 5% respectively for upper and lower poverty lines. Thus hardcore
poverty measured by lower poverty line is closer to self-assessed poverty; the
difference is not significant at 1% but at 5%. We further examined the cross-
tabulation between self-assessed poverty and quantitative measurement and observed
that 62% of the self-assessments matched with lower poverty line measurement and
52% of the answers matched with the upper poverty line measurement.

Table 3: Poverty status by main source of livelihood.

*#1. Either 50% of household income is derived from livestock or 60% of income is derived from
agriculture plus livestock, #2. Either 60% of income is derived from livestock plus business or 60% of
income is derived from livestock plus skilled services, #3. 60% of income is from livestock plus
regular job, #4. 60% of income is derived from livestock plus wage labour, and #5. 60% of income is
derived from multifarious non-farm activities include 26 international migrants contributing from a
minimum of 48% of family income share.

**Upper poverty line is Tk 893 per person per month, and lower poverty line is Tk 772 per person per
month, Tk is Bangladesh currency Taka. They are based on the Report of the Households Income and
Expenditure Survey 2005 (pages 160 and 161) data on Dhaka rural poverty lines upper and lower (cost
of basic needs approach), composite price index and food price index respectively (BBS 2007).
Poverty based on upper poverty line is called absolute poverty and that based on lower poverty line is
called hardcore poverty in Bangladesh.

When we compare the routes of livelihoods in terms of annual per person income,
international migration combined with other non-farm activities (#5) appears the best,
followed by regular job (#3). Agriculture (#1) is in the third position among the five

¹⁰ Strategies are defined in Table 3 note.

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