Rural Poverty in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a developing country in the world. It has many problems like other developing countries. Poverty is a major constraint in the way of economic development of Bangladesh. Now a day the poverty situation of Bangladesh is prospering due to initiatives taken by the government and non-government organizations. From several studies it has been observed that the poverty situation is diminishing slowly day by day. It is a positive factor for the development of the economy. According the household expenditure survey, 1995/96, 47.1% people are staying under the poverty line i.e. they are taking less than 2122 kilocalorie food in a day and 24.6% people are staying under the absolute poverty line i.e. they are taking less than 1805 kilocalorie food in a day. The poverty situation and trend can be present by the following table.

Table 02. poverty status in Bangladesh(%)

Region	1995/96	1991/92	1988/89	1985/86	1983/84
	Poverty
National	47.5	47.5	47.8	55.7	62.6
Rural	47.1	47.6	47.8	54.7	61.9
Urban	49.7	46.7	47.6	62.6	67.7
	Absolute poverty
National	25.1	28.0	28.4	26.9	36.8
Rural	24.3	28.3	28.6	26.3	36.7
Urban	27.3	26.3	26.4	30.7	37.4

Source: Economic Review – 2000.

In the above table it can be stated that in the urban area the poor is larger than rural area due to population pressure, lack of employment opportunity, lack of housing facilities. It is mentioned that standard of life of people in the rural area have improved. In another study conducted in the urban area in 1995, it is observed that 60.86% people are poor and within this 40.2% people are absolutely poor. But 90% of the poor people use pure drinking water and 41% use the sanitary latrine, have mentioned in the report. 22% of the income of the rural people and 27% of the income of the poor are spend in crisis coping in the rural area, have also mentioned in the report.

The changes in rural poverty from 1987 – 1994 can be show in a table as follows:

Table 03. Types of poverty and its distribution in (%)

Types	1987	1989/90	1994
Absolute poor	25.8	30.7	22.5
Poor	31.7	28.6	29.7
Poor & absolute poor	57.5	59.3	51.7
Poverty gap ratio	21.7	24.8	19.2

Source: Dynamic of rural poverty in Bangladesh, BIDS, April – 1996

Recent Trend: In a survey of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) it has informed that the rate of poverty fall to 44.7% from 47%. In 1999 the rate of urban poverty was 43.3% and 44.9% in rural area. From this information it can be said a small positive change exists in the poverty situation. The recent trend of poverty can be easily presented by a table, as follows:

Table 04. Percentile distribution of poverty in Bangladesh.

Region	1995/96	1991/92	1988/89	1985/86	1983/84
	Poverty
National	47.5	47.5	47.8	55.7	62.6
Rural	47.1	47.6	47.8	54.7	61.9
Urban	49.7	46.7	47.6	62.6	67.7
	Absolute poverty
National	25.1	28.0	28.4	26.9	36.8
Rural	24.3	28.3	28.6	26.3	36.7
Urban	27.3	26.3	26.4	30.7	37.4

Source: Economic Review-2000

According to the table, it can be stated that the rural poverty is higher than urban poverty. Again both the national poverty and urban poverty are more or less closer to each other due to the existence of large amount of rural areas.

Bangladesh has achieved quite improvements in social and economic indicators. The annual growth rate of GDP during 1991-1997 was 3.2 per cent. And GDP further expanded at the rate of 5.5 per cent during 1996-1999 despite huge damages brought by recurring floods in 1998/99. Real gross GDP has increased by 64 percent during 1991-2000 as major sectors like agriculture; service and industry have shown significant growth by 41 percent, 58 percent and 103 percent respectively. It should be noted that per capita income growth rate of 3.7 percent per annum during 19996-99 is respectable performance especially with high population growth at 1.8 percent per year. The incidence of poverty has decreased from 58.8 percent in 1991-92 to 49.8 percent in 2000. However, despite its 9 percent decrease, actual numbers of poor remain the same at 63 millions due to a high population growth. The incidence of extreme poverty has also decreased from 42.7 percent to 33.7 percent in 2000 and the number has also decreased from 45.2 million to 42.5 million. The poverty rate is higher at rural areas at 53 percent than at urban areas at 36.6 percent in 2000. There have been remarkable improvements in human poverty indexes. Progress in reducing some aspects of deprivation was faster than in case of others. According to the UNDP report, total fertility rate has dropped from 6.3 in 1975 to 4.3 in 1991, and further gone down to 3.3 in 1997-1999. Accordingly, population growth rate has gone down from 2.9 percent per annum in the mid-1970s to 1.6 percent in the late 1990s. Infant mortality rate has declined from 104.6 per 1,000 live births in 1985-89 to 92.8 in 1990-94 and further to 66.3 in 1995-99. Maternal mortality rate is believed to have declined from 6 per 1,000 live births to 4.4-4.8. Declining mortality rates have led to an increase in average longevity of the population and life expectancy at birth improved from 55/56 years in the 1980s to 60 years in 1999-2000. The overall adult literacy rate increased from about 26 percent in the mid-70s to 29 percent and to 60 percent by 1999. The gross enrollment in primary schools has increased from 59 percent in 1982 to 96 percent in 1999. The gender gap in gross enrollment at the primary has significantly narrowed down in the order of 6 percent in 1999.