ROLE OF SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS IN POVERTY ALLEVIATION: AN ASSESSMENT OF URBAN INFORMAL SECTOR

Resumo

Increasing poverty has featured prominently in the policymaking
landscape of Pakistan for several decades now. We address this issue and
shed light on one of the links that contribute towards generating income
and alleviating poverty in urban Pakistan. In doing so, we utilize primary
data from the most urbanized district of Punjab (i.e., Lahore). In 2015, we
conducted a household survey from 184 informal sector workers to
examine how possibly the informal sector can contribute towards
employment creation and poverty mitigation. By analyzing the data
through the Probit model, results show that education and presence of
assets are still top remedies to alleviate the poverty of informal sector
workers.
Keywords: Human development; Informal sector; Pakistan; Poverty
alleviation; Probittechnique.
JEL Classification: J46, O17