Income inequalities and well-being in rural Pakistan

HT Communities. Classes. Races;H Social Sciences (General)

Shams, Khadija ; Angeles, Luis

University:University of Glasgow

Department:Adam Smith Business School

关键词: Inequalities, Poverty, Well-being;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3261/1/2012ShamsPhD.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

Income inequalities and subjective well-being have been increasinglyidentified in the literature as important measures of socio-economic cohesion.This is particularly relevant for developing economies that are typicallycharacterised by strong population growth and relatively low incomesper head. Although in those economies a considerable share of resources isderived from rural areas, data availability for these regions is often an issuewhich precludes important insights into the overall socio-economic tissueof the developing world. This dissertation seeks to advance our knowledgeon various aspects of inequalities and well-being with particular emphasison rural Pakistan. At the core of the present monograph lie three chaptersthat deal with income inequality, subjective well-being as well as physicalwell-being (i.e. health). The empirical analysis is based on a unique surveydataset that covers the four provinces of rural Pakistan. The dissertationseeks to contribute to the existing literature in several dimensions. Wedecompose overall income inequality by its different types to disentanglewhich sources of income are inequality-increasing and which ones reducesocio-economic divergence. The empirical measurement and assessment ofboth subjective and physical well-being in rural Pakistan is a rather novelaspect. We introduce and examine different well-being measures as indicatorsof (subjective) poverty and find that well-being in rural areas is largelydriven by financial factors. When it comes to health, however, overall resultsare less clear-cut. The thesis is therefore able to offer several policyrecommendations for important socio-economic factors in rural Pakistan.On a more general note, some of the results discussed might also illuminatethe policy debate in other geographic areas with similar characteristics.