David Lawson

Poverty Persistence and Transitions in Uganda: A Combined Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

Abstract Despite Ugandas impressive reduction in income poverty during the 1990s, recent evidence has shown there to be substantial mobility into and out of poverty. This paper represents one of the first attempts to combine qualitative and quantitative information to understand the factors and processes underlying poverty transitions and persistence. In some instances similar factors are identified by both qualitative and quantitative approaches, including lack of key physical assets, high dependency ratios and increased household size. In other instances though one approach identifies additional factors not so easily identified by the other, for example the impacts of excessive alcohol consumption in many cases. The paper argues that there is considerable value added in combining the two approaches allowing us to provide a much richer understanding of many of the processes underlying poverty and poverty transitions.

Gender and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa : Issues and Evidence

Since at least the mid-1970s, sub-Saharan Africa’s growth performance has lagged behind all other developing regions, with large and rising income gaps compared with the rapidly growing economies in East and South Asia. This poor growth performance has translated into a similarly poor performance in terms of poverty reduction, with Africa having the highest poverty rates (incidence as well as depth using the international

Chronic Poverty: A Review of Current Quantitative Evidence

1-a-day poverty line) and showing no progress in meeting Millennium Development Goal 1 (MDG1) since the early 1980s (Chen and Ravallion 2004). Africa also suffers from a low poverty elasticity of growth, largely due to its high inequality, which by now is among the highest in the developing world (World Bank 2005a).

Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Research to Further Our Understanding of Poverty Dynamics: Some Methodological Considerations

Many aspects of living conditions can fluctuate significantly from one period of time to another, as for example the income levels or nutritional status of small scale agricultural producers subject to the effects of climatic variability or price changes. Therefore in discussing poverty, it is highly desirable to adopt a dynamic perspective, and draw a distinction between transient and chronic poverty. For those experiencing transient poverty their poverty is temporary; such individuals may experience movements into and out of poverty but are not persistently poor. The chronically poor by contrast experience persistent poverty over a reasonably long period of time. As in the analogous case of short-term and long-term unemployment, these two types of poverty may be quite distinct and call for different policy responses.This paper discusses available quantitative evidence in relation to chronic poverty. After an introduction, section 2 discusses conceptual issues in defining and measuring chronic poverty. To identify chronic poverty will generally require either comparable information on individuals at two or more points in time (longitudinal or panel data) or information that though only collected once, provides information on dynamics (e.g. retrospective information). Much of the literature has focused on panel data sets and monetary measures of living conditions; this section discusses the two approaches that have been used in such studies to the chronically poor (the spells and components approaches). It also highlights the importance of measurement error in making this distinction and the need to identify chronic and transient aspects of deprivation in non-monetary dimensions where this distinction is relevant. Available evidence from panel data sets on the extent of chronic poverty and the characteristics of the chronically poor is reviewed in section 3.In almost all instances a minority of the poor at a given point in time are identified as being chronically poor, though often this is still a substantial minority. The chronically poor are typically associated as having distinct characteristics which may explain their persistent poverty, such as low levels of human capital and productive assets, being in households with high dependency ratios and working in low return activities. By contrast the transient poor are those that have difficulty in insuring themselves against the consequences of shocks such as adverse price changes. In many cases though panel data are not available, and even where they are, they inevitably suffer from various limitations - in particular the difficulty of measuring changes accurately at the individual level. Section 4 therefore considers various ways in which it may be possible to consider chronic poverty in the absence of panel data. Section 5 concludes, including by summarizing important issues for future research.

The Influence of Ill Health on Chronic and Transient Poverty: Evidence from Uganda

Abstract The paper combines qualitative and quantitative (‘Q-Squared’) research methods to further our understanding of poverty dynamics. Using existing nationally representative panel data from Uganda we adopt the same sampling frame and collect life history information to consider some of the methodological issues that are of importance when combining such research methods and furthering our knowledge of poverty dynamics. Although using relatively old panel data as a base for ‘Q-Squared’ work may not be ideal for sequencing and triangulation of data, we find that if undertaken correctly this can still provide the basis for unique insights regarding key factors that underpin poverty dynamics.

Health and Female Labour Market Participation: The Case of Uganda

The paper uses nationally representative household panel data to investigate if ill health is important in influencing poverty persistence and transitions in Uganda, a country that was both at the centre of Africas HIV/AIDS pandemic and experienced impressive poverty reduction during the 1990s. Through a combined discrete choice and micro growth level approach we find that ill health and long term sickness, such as that associated with HIV/AIDS, is particularly associated with households moving into poverty. However, households affected by ill health also experience larger land and livestock reductions, providing some support for participatory evidence that has found land and asset sales to be a major coping mechanism for Ugandas poor.

Health Inequality and Development: Achieving Better Health in Developing Countries

There is growing evidence that reducing gender inequality in access to the job market and control of key productive resources necessary for growth are concrete means of accelerating and diversifying growth, making it more sustainable, and ensuring that the poor both contribute to, and benefit from, that growth (see, for example, World Bank 2001, Blackden et al. 2007). This has resulted in a common finding in many developing countries during the past decade that there has been a substantial growth in female employment (Standing 1999). Despite this, countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are still characterized by an underutilization of their female labour, of which human capital, and health in particular, plays a major role. In many sub-Saharan African countries, as in many other developing countries, women who participate in the labour market are more likely to be in self-employment or, more generally, informal sector employment (Glick and Sahn 1997).

Gender and Growth in Africa: Evidence and Issues’

Throughout most of the last century there has been steady improvement in health outcomes. Among them are improvements in life expectancy, which has increased significantly across countries. On average people now live longer and healthier than even 50 years ago. Life expectancy improved globally from a lowly 48 years in 1955 to 68 years by 2005, and for a number of countries it currently exceeds 80 years (WHO 1996; UNDP 2007). This substantial increase in longevity has been coupled by a dramatic control of infectious diseases that has further improved the average quality of life. Despite this massive improvement in health outcomes there is a growing concern that disparities in health achievements are increasing. Consider the life expectancy for African females, which was 49 years in 1978 compared to the world average of 63. By 1998, the average life expectancy for females improved by six years, whereas in African countries it only increased by two years, thus widening the life expectancy gap (WHO 1999).