Structural Determinants of Poverty in Pakistan

Poverty of the person is a frustrating hurdle for the household to acquire goods and services. Because of restricted access to resources, a poor person also falls short of his welfare targets. The determination of root causes of poverty must be the primary focus for the underdeveloped and developing economies. This study has used the labour force survey 2010 of Pakistan and extracted 21 indicators which are expected to affect the poverty profile of individuals. Principle factor analysis is used to find important indicators and logit model is used to analyse the effect of important indicators on $1.25 a day poverty status of individual. The result shows that it is the education levels, household size, and job characteristics which define the person being poor.