Effect of socioeconomic and demographic factors on the household poverty in Sri Lanka:

Abstract

poverty, it is needed to determine the basic needs of a household. This may be defined as narrowly as “those necessary for survival” or as broadly as “those reflecting the prevailing standard of living in the community”. Although Sri Lanka has downward trend in poverty, still considerable number of households are poor. Therefore, this study was trying to identify the determinants of the poverty of households in Sri Lanka. The major objective of this study is to identify the socioeconomic and demographic factors that mainly associated with household poverty in Sri Lanka. To accomplish the objective, Logistic Regression Model is used. Data gathered for the current study from Household Income and Expenditure survey (HIES) – 2016 conducted by the Department of Census and Statistics in Sri Lanka. According to the descriptive analysis of sample data of the HIES, 2.1% poor households are present. Out of these poor households, most of the poor households are in Batticaloa (10.5%). According to the results of Binary Logistic Regression Analysis, Residential Sector, Ethnicity of the household head, Education Level of the Household Head, Telephone facilities in the household area, Pipe borne line (main line) nearby household area, Any Household member engage to agricultural activity, Age of the Household Head and Household size are significantly effect on the probability of a poverty status of the household while gender of the household head, marital status of the household head, any of the household member receive income as an employee and household head suffer from chronic illness/disability are not statistically significant. The results of the study concluded that probability of being poor households increases with the living in rural area, uneducated household head, not having telephone facilities and pipe borne line in the living area, ethnicity of the household head is not Sinhala, no one of the household member is engaged to agricultural activity, larger household size and younger household heads. Also this study is recommended that the Sri Lankan government should pay more attention on the education of the people, utility facilities of the general public.