To What Extent Are Bangladesh's Recent Gains in Poverty Reduction Different from the Past?

The poor in Bangladesh are more likely
to belong to households with a larger number of dependents
and lower education among household members, be engaged in
daily wage labor, own little land, and be less likely to
receive remittances. This poverty profile for 2005 is
similar to the profile in the mid-1980s and hence at first
glance it would appear that little has changed over time. A
closer look at national household survey data suggests a
more nuanced story. This paper uses the latest two rounds of
the Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey to
decompose the micro-determinants of poverty reduction
between 2000 and 2005, closely following a similar analysis
using five earlier rounds of the Survey. The comparison of
results shows that the spatial distribution of poverty seen
in earlier decades has changed with time and the drivers of
poverty reduction are different in several respects.