Abstract

This study aims at assessing the most prevalent type of poverty in rural Mozambique, and if the causes of chronic and transitory poverty are similar to recommended policy, strategies to address each of them caused by different factors. This paper concludes that, most poverty is transient (66%) than chronic (34%), unlike in earlier studies where the determinants of chronic and transient poverty are not necessarily similar. However, it is recommended to prioritize addressing the chronic poverty given its damaging and long-lasting effects. Also, it is believed that by addressing chronic poverty some synergies can be generated, which allow tackling of the transient poverty as well. The most important set of variables for transient poverty are the household landholdings, head’s age, family and hired labor, land quality, and livestock. All these covariates tend to increase the transient poverty, except the family labor which is likely to decrease it. The same variables are important to chronic poverty, in addition to education especially in men, where the number of members with self-employment and widowed household heads has a negative effect on chronic poverty. Policies aimed at reducing chronic poverty should concentrate more on improving household characteristics such as investing in education, agricultural reform that encourages landholding expansion and energy such as human power or animal traction for farming while reducing transient poverty would call for policies oriented at allowing economically active families to earn income for their livelihoods.

Key words: Chronic, transient, poverty, Mozambique, panel data.