Space, Landlessness and Poverty in Myanmar
Hein, Min Ye Paing & Jae Kyun Kim
This paper examines the intersection between landlessness and poverty in Myanmar through the lens of spatial and labor dynamics. This paper employs a plethora of data sources including national household surveys such as Integrated Household Living Condition Survey (UNDP, 2010), regional survey such as the LIFT baseline survey (LIFT, 2013), Dry Zone Survey (JICA, 2010) as well as qualitative reports from Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring (World bank, 2012) to unpack the commonalities as well as spatially distinct characteristics of landless and casual labor across four different agro-ecological zones in Myanmar such as the delta, coastal, dry zone and the hilly region. The paper shows that socio-economic profiles of the landless and causal labor are not monochromatic and there are both qualitative and quantitative differences in the characteristics and contours of deprivation based on the specific location of the landless. For example, urban poor are most often better off than both rural poor and non-poor across multiplicity of welfare indicators. The paper also finds that casual laborers are the poorest of the poor nesting at the nadir of myriad welfare indicators through a systematic comparison between the landless and casual labors across Myanmar. Lastly, the paper identifies three major factors behind the increase in landless and casualization of labor in Myanmar.
Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015
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