Abstract

Poverty reduction has long been one of the most important goals for the international development community. However, multidimensional poverty in Malawi has been significantly high, with an MPI above 50%, for the past decade (2004-2016). Previous studies on poverty in Malawi have focused on money-metric poverty. Still, there is a lack of understanding of the changes in multidimensional poverty and the factors that contribute to these changes. This study provides a longitudinal analysis of multidimensional poverty in Malawi using a new, Malawi-specific Multidimensional Poverty Index (M-MPI) from 2010 to 2019. The study utilizes nationally representative data from the Integrated Household Panel Survey (IHPS) from 2010 to 2019. It employs the Alkire-Foster method for MPI computation and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, an unconditional quantile regression model, to gain a holistic and more nuanced insight into the drivers and dynamics of poverty and disadvantage in Malawi. The study findings indicate that there have been significant favourable changes in the MPI and incidence of multidimensional poverty in Malawi over the time period, with child labour, school attendance, electricity, unemployment, asset ownership, housing, education, nutrition, and food security being major contributing indicators. The study identifies, on the one hand, an increase in household income, literacy of the household head, and higher education levels of the household head to be the factors that influence the decline of the household`s MPI scores over time. On the other hand, the experience of a household to any shock, an increase in household size, being in a social protection program, being married, and residing in rural areas are the determinants that influence an increase in the MPI over time. In addition, access to credit was found to have an ambiguous effect on MPI changes, as it can influence the changes positively and negatively depending on the variable distributions. Policymakers can use these findings to devise targeted and cost effective interventions to reduce socio-economic deprivation and maximize economic growth in Malawi.

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School	: School of Law, Economics and Government
Issued Date	: 2023

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