Poverty, Vulnerability, and Welfare in Bhutan
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World Bank, Washington, DC
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This note uses data from the Bhutan
living standards survey (BLSS) for 2007, 2012, and 2017 to
examine trends in poverty reduction and shared prosperity
and to assess the drivers of poverty reduction in the last
decade. The note documents the remarkable progress that
Bhutan has made in reducing poverty, sharing prosperity, and
improving other measures of well-being. To this end, it
first establishes a poverty trend that is measured in a
consistent manner over time. The resulting poverty trend
deviates from official poverty rates for mainly two reasons:
(a) the consumption aggregate is being measured in a
consistent way over time, resulting in a different
distribution of consumption in each survey year; and (b) the
3.20 dollars World Bank poverty line for lower middle-income
countries is used as the cut-off to define poverty. Poverty
reduction was helped by improved earnings in the commercial
agriculture sector. Moreover, vulnerability has remained
high, partly because farmers are exposed to various
uninsured risks, including price shocks, but also because
the social protection system is weak overall and nonfarm
diversification is low. Going forward, it will be important
to continue increasing agricultural productivity and
creating productive jobs outside of the agriculture sector.
Proper prioritization and sequencing of policies may also
help in this regard.
Palabras clave
DEMOGRAPHIC AND HEALTH SURVEY, POVERTY ASSESSMENT, POVERTY REDUCTION, SHARED PROSPERITY, EQUITY, HYDROPOWER, EMPLOYMENT, JOB CREATION, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY, VULNERABILITY, POVERTY MEASUREMENT