The determinants of urban household poverty in Malaysia
Abstract
Since independence in 1950s Malaysia has been recognized as one of the more successful
countries in fighting poverty: head count ratio came down to 5.7% by 2004. However the recent
process of rapid urbanization has led to an increase of urban poverty aggravated further by the 1997
Asian financial crisis. It is important to understand the nature and scale of urbanization, the various
driving forces that affect it and the determinants of urban poverty as linked to this process. Our
research identified the determinants of urban poverty in Malaysia using a logistic regression. A sample
of 2,403 urban households from the 2004-05 Household Expenditure Survey (HES) had been used in
this research. We first estimated the probability of households with specified characteristics to fall
below Malaysia’s official poverty line. Then we analyzed the sensitivity of the probability estimated to
shift of the poverty line over a reasonable range. Results showed that human capital significantly
reduced the chance of being poor while migrant workers are more prone to poverty. Household size,
race and regions were also important determinants of poverty outcome in urban Malaysia. The findings
had important policy implications for Malaysian government which had pledged to reduce overall
poverty rate to 2.8% and eradicated hardcore poverty by 2010 under the Ninth Malaysian Plan.... [Show full abstract]
Keywords
urban poverty; logistic regression; sensitivity analysisFields of Research
1699 Other Studies in Human SocietyDate
2007-12Type
Journal ArticleCollections
© 2007 Science Publications