Remittances and household welfare: Findings from the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS) PDF Download

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Remittances are a critical source of household income in Myanmar and are significantly associated with positive welfare outcomes. In 2022, 33 percent of the households surveyed in the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS) received remittances at least once in the twelve-month period. Remittances made up 7 percent of the average monthly per capita income of households in 2022. Among households that received remittances, 40 percent of their average monthly per capita income was from remittances. Considerably more households received remittances in 2022, compared to 2017, the last year for which there is nationally representative data (World Bank 2017). Despite the increase in the number of households receiving remittances, compared to 2017, the income share from remittances has decreased for all households. Even with internal lockdowns and border closures because of the COVID-19 pandemic, remittance senders migrated internally in 2020 and 2021. As a result, domestic remittance flows appear to have increased steadily since 2012. International remittance flows, on the other hand, decreased substantially during the first two years of the pandemic. They are now increasing rapidly. In 2022, households in Rakhine, Chin, Mon, and Kayin received the most remittances of the states/regions. Households in Chin, Kayin, Tanintharyi, and Mon received a greater percentage of remittances from international senders rather than domestic senders. Most international remittance flows were from Thailand, Malaysia, and China. Households in Kachin, Ayeyarwady, and Mandalay received the most remittances from domestic senders. Most domestic remittance flows were from Yangon, Mandalay, and Shan. Receiving remittances has a positive and significant association with improved welfare outcomes. Households that receive remittances are less likely to have lower income compared with last year and more likely to have a better food consumption score and a higher dietary diversity score. Households who receive remittances use fewer coping strategies. Finally, households who receive remittances are more likely to have an improved house made of brick, brick/wood, or semi-pucca.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
This paper provides evidence on the extent and characteristics of migration in Myanmar between December 2021 and June 2022. We use data from three rounds of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), a nationally and regionally representative phone survey, to analyze migration patterns in Myanmar. The data highlights a complex situation, where there is both new migration, that is driven by conflict, and more traditional migration, that is driven by a search for better employment both within Myanmar and abroad. We find that approximately 3.6 million individuals or 6.5 percent of the population of Myanmar moved over the 6-month study period. Between December 2021 and June 2022 fleeing direct conflict was the primary driver of migration for as many as 604 thousand individuals. During the same period, approximately 2 million individuals moved in search of a job for themselves or a family member. Finally, Chin, Yangon, and Rakhine had the highest rates of migration.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
The sixth round of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), a nationally and regionally representative phone survey, was implemented between the end of August and November 2023. It follows five rounds that were carried out since the beginning of December 2021. This report discusses the findings from the sixth round related to livelihoods and welfare dynamics. The main findings are the following: Nationally, median real household income per adult equivalent declined by 15 percent between late 2022 and late 2023, indicating that the purchasing power of household income declined substantially over the previous year. Between late 2022 and late 2023, median real income per adult equivalent earned from farm wages increased slightly while real income earned from all other sources stagnated or declined. In late 2023, 13 percent of households had at least one jobless household member who in the three months before the survey spent at least one month seeking income generating work without finding it. The share of households with an unemployed member decreases by asset class (15 percent in asset poor households compared to 8 percent in asset rich households). Four percent of households had a child aged 5–11 who was employed at least one hour in any week in the three months before the survey and 8 percent of households had a child aged 12–14 who was employed at least 14 hours in any week during that period. Between late 2022 and 2023, there has been an overall reduction in household engagement in income earning activities. Except for other income sources (e.g., rent, remittances, and other forms of assistance), the share of households engaged in each income generating activity either declined or increased by a small, statistically insignificant amount. In every state/region, income poverty reached a new high in the period of August–November 2023 compared to all previous MHWS rounds in the last two years. Adjusted in accordance with food inflation, the poverty line increased by 35 percent between late 2022 and late 2023. A failure of nominal income to keep pace with this large jump in the poverty line led to an increase in the percentage of the population living in income-poor households by 17 percent from 62 percent in February–June 2023 to 72 in August–November 2023. Casual wage earning households continue to be the poorest livelihood group with income poverty rates of 90 and 84 percent in farm and non-farm wage earning households, respectively. Nonetheless, income poverty rose to 63 and 67 percent in households whose primary livelihoods are non-farm salary work and non-farm businesses—23 and 17 percent higher than a similar period in the previous year. Finally, over the same period, income poverty increased by 11 percent in farm households to 69 percent. Remittance income is an important stabilizing force. There are only a few factors helping households stay out of poverty, including earning income from salaried employment, migrating with the whole household, and receiving remittances. Individuals living in remittance receiving households are about 22 percentage points less poor compared to individuals in non-remittance receiving households. Households mainly reliant on ‘other’ forms of income, particularly remittances, are the most resilient livelihood group with poverty rates not changing between late 2022 and late 2023. In late 2023, households in Chin, Kayah, Rakhine, Sagaing, and Tanintharyi struggled most of all regions/states with income poverty, unemployment, and challenges to earning income. During that period, poverty headcounts were 93 percent in Chin, 87 percent in Kayah; and around 80 percent in Rakhine, Sagaing, and Tanintharyi. In Kayah, 49 percent of households reported a loss of employment in June–November 2023, while in Tanintharyi 39 percent of households reported a loss of employment. Further, nearly 30 percent of households in Kayah had an unemployed member—more than double the national average. Chin and Rakhine also had a large share of households with unemployed members. Finally, households in Chin were nearly twice as likely as other parts of the country to have employed children—children aged 5–11 were employed in 7 percent of households and children aged 12–14 were employed in 15 percent of households.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 41

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Book Description
The third round of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), a nationally and regionally representative phone survey, was implemented between July and August 2022. It followed from a second round that was conducted between April and June 2022 and a first round that was carried out between December 2021 and February 2022. This report discusses the findings from the third round related to shocks, coping strategies, and income poverty. During the third round of data collection, the security situation in Myanmar continued to decline. Increasingly, households felt insecure in their communities, as reported by 21 percent of rural households and 25 percent of urban households, an increase compared to previous rounds. This is because crime and violence continued to increase, affecting 10 and 8 percent of communities, respectively. Further, 6 percent of households were directly affected, either through violence against a household member, robbery, or appropriation and/or destruction of their assets. Households also continued to earn less income. In July and August of 2022, 46 percent of households reported lower income compared to the previous year. Disruptions in banking, internet, and electricity also negatively impact household wellbeing and livelihoods. Further, households struggled to receive medical services. Finally, while school attendance recovered, it was still under 50 percent in some states/regions. Eighty-two percent of households used at least one coping strategy to meet daily needs during the month prior to the third-round survey. The three most common coping strategies used were spending savings, reducing non-food expenditure, and reducing food expenditure. Further, some households exhausted some or all of their coping strategies. Finally, income poverty increased during the third round; 62 percent of households were income poor. Casual wage earning and asset poor households were particularly vulnerable. Compared to the other states/regions, households in Kayah and Chin were the most vulnerable. They were more likely to be impacted by conflict, have income loss, and be income poor. Households in Rakhine, Kachin, and Tanintharyi were also vulnerable; more than 70 percent of households in those regions were income poor.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
The fifth round of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), a nationally and regionally representative phone survey, was implemented between March and June 2023. It follows from four rounds that were carried out quarterly beginning in December 2021. This report discusses the findings from the fifth round related to livelihoods, shocks, asset and income poverty, and coping strategies.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Poverty measurement in low and middle income countries (LMICs) has always been challenging, especially among rural households whose incomes are characterized by seasonality, informality and some degree of subsistence consumption. During the COVID-19 pandemic poverty measurement became even more challenging as research had to resort phone surveys, who necessary brevity precludes the use of detailed household expenditure modules preferred in rural settings. Phone surveys instead typically resorted to qualitative questions on income losses and other welfare impacts of economic shocks. Here we use the new nationally representative Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS) to experiment with three kinds of poverty measures: (1) Asset poverty (10 questions); (2) Income poverty (a maximum of 17 questions); and (3) Food expenditure poverty (based on 4 questions). We first describe the methods for constructing these three indicators – including the poverty lines used for income and food poverty – and their conceptual strengths and weaknesses, before turning to a descriptive analysis of their geographical patterns, their associations with each other and with expenditure-based poverty in the last national survey in 2017. We then test their ability to predict poor diet quality and experiences of hunger, which – based on previous studies – are outcomes that ought to be highly sensitive to household poverty. We draw three important conclusions for measuring poverty in phone surveys. First, asset poverty and income poverty are strongly associated with each other, and with state/region poverty patterns of expenditure-based poverty in 2017. Second, asset poverty was consistently the strongest predictor of poor diet diversity among adults and children, as well as food insecurity at the household level, but income poverty also predicted these outcomes even after controlling for asset poverty. Third, we argue that phone surveys should measure both asset and income poverty, but should likely steer clear of food expenditure measures, which will either require overly long survey instruments, or very short questionnaires susceptible to underestimate of expenditure and overestimation of poverty. However, asset and income poverty are relatively quick and easy to measure, and conceptual complements to each other: income poverty is likely to be sensitive to shocks and seasonality, while asset poverty is insensitive to these fluctuations but captures long-term wealth. Finally, another important benefit of measuring income poverty is its ability to capture the effects of inflationary shocks, as inflation can affect both nominal incomes (e.g. through unemployment) as well as through the analyst’s price adjustments to the real food poverty line.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description
Remittances have emerged as an important source of income for households in post-coup Myanmar. This paper utilizes data from the second and fifth rounds of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS) to analyze remittance trends between January and June 2022 and the same period in 2023. This is supplemented with data from the Myanmar Migration Assessment (MMA) which was conducted with a sub-sample of MHWS households in June and July 2023. According to MHWS, between January and June 2023, 16 percent of households received remittances from at least one member who was residing overseas or in a different state or region. This comprises eight percent of households receiving remittances from migrants outside of Myanmar and ten percent of households receiving remittances from migrants within Myanmar. Around 12 percent of households received remittances from a single migrant and four percent of households received remittances from two or more members. Among households that received remittances from within Myanmar, they received on average 127,559 per month (about 61 USD). Households that received remittances from outside of Myanmar received around 395,835 per month (about 188 USD), significantly higher than the amount from migrants within Myanmar. Among remittance receiving households, remittances made up 39 percent of household income. Based on MMA data, most foreign migrants reside in Thailand and Malaysia while most domestic migrants reside in Yangon, Mandalay, or Shan. During the twelve-month period between June 2022 and July 2023, over 57 percent of migrants in the MMA sent money back to their households in Myanmar. A greater percentage of overseas migrants sent remittances, compared to migrants within Myanmar. Mobile money was the most common method for migrants within Myanmar to send money, with 70 percent sending money in this way. Instead, most migrants abroad relied on Myanmar banks, 47 percent of migrants. More than half of the households surveyed received the same level of remittances in 2022/2023 as in the previous year. Households received more remittances when migrants earned higher salaries and obtained new jobs, or when the household witnessed shifts in exchange rates or faced an increased need for remittances. Conversely, households received fewer remittances when migrants grappled with elevated living expenses, received lower salaries, or remained unemployed. The MMA data also highlights the remittance spending patterns of households over a five-year period from 2019 to 2023. About 75 percent of households allocated remittances to everyday food expenses. Remittances were also heavily used to cover non-food and health expenses, 41 and 36 percent, respectively. Asset-poor households, income poor households, and hungry households were more likely to spend remittances on everyday food and non-food expenses, education, and loan repayment. Compared to 2020, in 2023 households increased their remittance spending on home improvement, construction of new residences, and debt repayment. Combining MMA and MHWS data we investigate the characteristics associated with receiving remittances. Daughters of household heads are more likely to send remittances. Migrants with children are less likely to send remittances. Migrants aged younger than 18 are less likely to send remittances while migrants older than 40 are more likely to send remittances. Migrants with lower education are less likely to send remittances. Those migrating for employment and with work agreements are more likely to send remittances. Finally, remittances play a crucial role in improving household welfare. A final set of regressions reveal that receiving remittances is positively associated with key welfare indicators, including food security, dietary diversity, and poverty reduction.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
The first round of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), a nationally and regionally representative phone survey, was implemented between December 2021 and February 2022 with 12,100 households. This report discusses its findings related to shocks, livelihoods, coping strategies and food security. We find that almost 1 in 5 households experience physical insecurity, more than 1 in 10 were negatively affected by climatic shocks, and 3 in 5 experienced sickness or death of household members in the past three months. Two thirds of households reported a lower income in the beginning of 2022 compared to 12 months earlier, indicating widespread impacts of the pandemic, the political crisis, and the ensuing economic crisis. Ninety percent of households applied at least one coping strategy to deal with lack of food or money during the past month. More than half of all households lowered food and non-food expenditures. A large number of households also used more dramatic coping strategies, including high-risk income generating activities (4 percent), children working (3 percent of households), migration (1 percent), or selling of the dwelling or land (1 percent). Even though data were collected in the beginning of 2022 after the monsoon harvest and thus a relatively favorable time of the year for food security, still 9 percent of the households did not have an adequate food consumption pattern and 4 percent suffered from moderate or severe hunger. Violent events in the township, self-reported physical insecurity, climatic and health shocks all are strongly associated with negative outcomes for income, coping and food security. Chin and Kayah state experienced high levels of violence and consistently perform worse across the range of welfare indicators considered.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
The fourth round of the Myanmar Household Welfare Survey (MHWS), a nationally and regionally representative phone survey, was implemented between October and December 2022. It follows from three rounds that were carried out quarterly beginning in December 2021. This report discusses the findings from the fourth round related to shocks, coping strategies, and income poverty. The security situation in Myanmar continued to deteriorate during the fourth-round recall period. Increasingly, households felt insecure in their communities, as reported by 22 percent of rural households and 27 percent of urban households, an increase compared to the previous rounds. This is because crime and violence continued to increase, affecting 12 and 8 percent of communities, respectively. Further, 8 percent of households were directly affected, either through violence against a household member, robbery, or appropriation and/or destruction of their assets. Households faced multiple disruptions besides insecurity. Disruptions in banking, internet, and electricity also negatively affected household wellbeing and livelihoods. Further, households struggled to receive medical services. Finally, while school attendance recovered, it was still under 70 percent in some states/regions. Eighty-four percent of households used at least one coping strategy to meet daily needs during the month prior to the fourth-round survey. The three most common coping strategies used were spending savings, reducing non-food expenditure, and reducing food expenditure. This has been consistent across rounds. Further, some households exhausted some or all of their coping strategies. Remittances were the only factor inversely associated with households’ probability of having lower income compared to last year, being income poor, and using coping strategies. In R4 income-based poverty increased by 30 percent compared to R1 (15 percentage points) and 7 percent compared to R3 (4 percentage points). Sixty-six percent of the population was income poor. The rise in income poverty between R3 and R4 was largely attributable to changes in urban poverty. Casual wage-earning households, both farm and non-farm, had the highest levels of income poverty. Compared to the other states/regions, households in Kayah, Chin, and Sagaing were the most vulnerable. They were more likely to be impacted by conflict, have income loss, and be income poor. Despite reporting comparatively less conflict, households in Rakhine were also vulnerable; nearly 80 percent of households in Rakhine were income poor and many were mortgaging/selling assets to cope.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
Myanmar experienced four distinct COVID shocks to its economy over 2020 to early 2022 as well as a military takeover in February 2021 that created severe political, civil and economic turmoil. COVID and the coup d’état reversed a decade of growth and poverty reduction, but the full extent of the crisis on household poverty has remained uncertain because of the challenges of conducting large-scale in-person welfare surveys during the pandemic and recent political instability. Here we combine ex ante simulation models with diverse phone survey evidence from mid-2020 to early 2022 to estimate the poverty impacts of these shocks and some of the mechanisms behind them. Both simulations and surveys are consistent in painting a grim picture of rising poverty, capital-depleting coping mechanisms, and the complete collapse of government-provided social protection.