IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/rwirep/753.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Understanding poverty dynamics in Rwanda

Author

Listed:
  • Bizoza, Alfred
  • Jäger, Philipp
  • Simons, Alexandre

Abstract

Poverty rates in Rwanda have fallen substantially in the last decades. So far, however, it is not well understood what has driven this poverty decline. Thus, in this paper, we rely on a newly available household panel dataset collected in 2010/11 and 2013/14 to investigate poverty and poverty trajectories in Rwanda. According to our estimates increased labor market participation among originally poor households - especially off-farm employment - has facilitated poverty escape. Even though overall poverty rates have declined, our analysis reveals that a non-negligible part of originally non-poor households have fallen below the poverty line between the two survey waves. The estimates suggest that lower educated households are more vulnerable of becoming impoverished.

Suggested Citation

  • Bizoza, Alfred & Jäger, Philipp & Simons, Alexandre, 2018. "Understanding poverty dynamics in Rwanda," Ruhr Economic Papers 753, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:753
    DOI: 10.4419/86788875
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/179961/1/1025210425.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4419/86788875?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Araar, Abdelkrim & Giles, John, 2010. "Chronic and transient poverty: Measurement and estimation, with evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 266-277, March.
    2. Azevedo, Viviane & Bouillon, César P., 2009. "Social Mobility in Latin America: A Review of Existing Evidence," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1656, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp, 2013. "Poverty Dynamics, Violent Conflict, and Convergence in R wanda," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(1), pages 66-90, March.
    4. Ansoms, An & McKay, Andrew, 2010. "A quantitative analysis of poverty and livelihood profiles: The case of rural Rwanda," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 584-598, December.
    5. Chemouni, Benjamin, 2018. "The political path to universal health coverage: Power, ideas and community-based health insurance in Rwanda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 87-98.
    6. Viviane Azevedo & Cesar Bouillon, 2009. "Social Mobility in Latin America: A Review of Existing Evidence," Research Department Publications 4634, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    7. Michael Carter & Christopher Barrett, 2006. "The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty: An asset-based approach," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 178-199.
    8. Mckay, Andrew & Lawson, David, 2003. "Assessing the Extent and Nature of Chronic Poverty in Low Income Countries: Issues and Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 425-439, March.
    9. Jyotsna Jalan & Martin Ravallion, 2000. "Is transient poverty different? Evidence for rural China," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 82-99.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bird, Kate & Chabé-Ferret, Bastien & Simons, Alexandre, 2022. "Linking human capabilities with livelihood strategies to speed poverty reduction: Evidence from Rwanda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Glauben, Thomas & Herzfeld, Thomas & Rozelle, Scott & Wang, Xiaobing, 2012. "Persistent Poverty in Rural China: Where, Why, and How to Escape?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 784-795.
    2. Bigsten, Arne & Shimeles, Abebe, 2008. "Poverty Transition and Persistence in Ethiopia: 1994-2004," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1559-1584, September.
    3. Paul Shaffer, 2018. "Causal pluralism and mixed methods in the analysis of poverty dynamics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-115, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Andrés Mideros & Franziska Gassmann, 2021. "Fostering social mobility. The case of the Bono de Desarrollo Humano in Ecuador," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 385-404, October.
    5. Kimberly Bolch & Luis F. Lopez‐Calva & Eduardo Ortiz‐Juarez, 2023. "“When Life Gives You Lemons”: Using Cross‐Sectional Surveys to Identify Chronic Poverty in the Absence of Panel Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(2), pages 474-503, June.
    6. Pishnyak, A. & Khalina, N. & Nazarbaeva, E. & Goriainova, A., 2021. "The level and the profile of persistent poverty in Russia," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 50(2), pages 56-73.
    7. Ward, Patrick S., 2016. "Transient Poverty, Poverty Dynamics, and Vulnerability to Poverty: An Empirical Analysis Using a Balanced Panel from Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 541-553.
    8. Jennifer Fernández-Ramos & Ana K. Garcia-Guerra & Jorge Garza-Rodriguez & Gabriela Morales-Ramirez, 2016. "The dynamics of poverty transitions in Mexico," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(11), pages 1082-1095, November.
    9. Paul Shaffer, 2018. "Causal pluralism and mixed methods in the analysis of poverty dynamics," WIDER Working Paper Series 115, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Mai, Tung & Mahadevan, Renuka, 2016. "A research note on the poverty dynamics and cost of poverty inequality: Case study of Indonesia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 100-107.
    11. Lee, Seungmin & Barrett, Christopher B. & Hoddinott, John F., 2021. "Food Security Dynamics in the United States, 2001-2017," Working Papers 316604, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    12. Andersen, Lykke E., 2010. "Social Mobility in Bolivia is Finally Improving!," Revista Latinoamericana de Desarrollo Economico, Carrera de Economía de la Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB) "San Pablo", issue 13, pages 117-136.
    13. Eric Yaw Naminse & Jincai Zhuang, 2018. "Does farmer entrepreneurship alleviate rural poverty in China? Evidence from Guangxi Province," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-18, March.
    14. Henrietta A. Asiamah, 2021. "Childhood Chronic Poverty Estimations: Looking Beyond a Count Index," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(1), pages 185-215, February.
    15. Bayudan-Dacuycuy, Connie & Lim, Joseph Anthony, 2013. "Family size, household shocks and chronic and transient poverty in the Philippines," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 101-112.
    16. Tareq Sadeq & Michel Lubrano, 2018. "The Wall’s Impact in the Occupied West Bank: A Bayesian Approach to Poverty Dynamics Using Repeated Cross-Sections," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-24, May.
    17. Johan Sandberg, 2012. "Conditional Cash Transfers and Social Mobility: The Role of Asymmetric Structures and Segmentation Processes," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 43(6), pages 1337-1359, November.
    18. Cunming Zou & Jianzhi Liu & Bencheng Liu & Xuhan Zheng & Yangang Fang, 2019. "Evaluating Poverty Alleviation by Relocation under the Link Policy: A Case Study from Tongyu County, Jilin Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-20, September.
    19. David Lawson & Andy Mckay & John Okidi, 2006. "Poverty persistence and transitions in Uganda: A combined qualitative and quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1225-1251.
    20. Abanokova, Kseniya & Dang, Hai-Anh H & Lokshin, Michael, 2020. "The Important Role of Equivalence Scales: Household Size, Composition, and Poverty Dynamics in Russia," IZA Discussion Papers 13043, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Poverty; Rwanda; EICV;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:753. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rwiesde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.