Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has very recently released a preliminary report on Household Income and Expenditure Survey-2016 (henceforth, HIES 2016). Based on a representative national survey of approximately 46 thousand households (rural: 32000 and urban 14000), the report warrants attention on more than one count. First, it is in fact one of the most credible surveys that holds hope. Second, income and expenditure are generally tricky and sensitive information which are hard to come by accurately. Third, Bangladesh in the past as well as at present banks heavily on BBS data to derive policy suggestions. Special mention may be made of on-going policies that derive a lot of direction from the findings of HIES. However, as it is not possible to cover all aspects of the report in one shot, as in this write-up today, we shall attempt to pick up the prominent ones in the following paragraphs.
As BBS HIES data tend to reveal, Bangladesh witnesses a decline in size of households from 4.50 in 2010 to 4.06 in 2016. In fact, two decades back, the size was over 5. The decline in household size took place both in rural and urban areas. The household size has an importantly inverse relationship with economic condition - the bigger the size, the worse the condition is likely to be and vice versa.
HIES data 2016 seemingly sheds important insights on demographic structure. In both 2016 and 2010 HIES, highest concentration of population centred around 10-19 age group. This perhaps points to the emerging faces to fill in the labour force. Few interesting developments pervaded the population structure during the last few years which need a closer look from the angle of policy making. First, the proportion of people in the lower rung of age structure (0-9) declined while that of highest rung (65+) has increased. The former trend apparently indicates falling population growth rate and total fertility rate while the latter suggests that longevity has increased owning to access to healthcare facilities. However, important observations that may boggle the mind is that, while proportion of people (0-4 years of age) increased in urban areas, it fell in rural areas. Of course, this could partly be attributed to inclusion of areas with rural characteristics in urban areas. It is also partly attributable to poor family planning services delivery in urban areas. On the other hand, and disconcertingly perhaps, the share of people aged 65+ has increased in rural areas but decreased in urban areas. By and large, the demographic dependency ratio, defined as the ratio of population of 0-14 yrs and 65-plus to total population of 15-64 years age group, depicts a discernibly remarkable decline over time. Needless to mention that the decline of dependency carries clear implications for households' economic improvements. Larger dependency ratio implies that household embraces more eaters than earners and vice versa thus forcing a diversion of scarce resources to consumption from productive pursuits.
Important improvements in living standard is reflected by data generated by HIES between 2010 and 2016. The HIES 2016 report that three-fourths of households in Bangladesh have access to electricity compared to 55 per cent in 2010. In fact, while urban areas showed marginal increase in the access to electricity, the rural areas witnessed substantial progress where about 70 per cent of rural households can now access electricity as against barely 42 per cent in 2010. If access to electricity is an indication of development, then Bangladesh rural areas have progressed well. Housing condition has improved between 2010 and 2016 as reflected by a decline of houses made of straw/bamboo and increase in the use of housing materials like tin and bricks/cement. Wall materials now comprise more of CI sheet. Besides housing condition, access to sanitary latrines also increased. The proportion of households using water-sealed sanitary latrines increased to 44 per cent from 36 per cent in 2010 and those not with water-sealed increased from 16 to 18 per cent during the same period. Over four-fifths of households have access to pure drinking water. Users of mobile phone reached 93 per cent from 62 per cent in 2010.
School enrolment (6-10 years) now stands at an average 90-95 per cent from both poor and non-poor households as against 80-90 per cent in 2010. What is worth noting is the fact that male-female and urban-rural disparities have disappeared to a large extent, Bangladesh has now a literacy rate of 66 per cent compared to 58 per cent to 2010 for 7 years-plus population.
The most important changes seem the have occurred in case of food intake. First, rice consumption (person/day) has declined to 367 grams from 416 grams in 2010. Likewise, wheat consumption has declined. By and large, cereal consumption has gone down although rice consumption still dominates the food basket. It should be mentioned here that in both urban and rural areas, cereal consumption has declined over time. It is very pleasant to observe that fish consumption has increased from 49 grams in 2010 to 63 grams in 2016; meat consumption went up from 19 gms to 25 gms and egg consumption doubled - from 7 to 14 grams. However, the most disconcerting fact is that consumption of milk and milk products and fruits has gone down. And finally, access to social safety net has increased both in terms of households and individuals - roughly 30 per cent from 26 per cent.
In 2016, head-count poverty under lower poverty line declined to about 13 per cent from about 18 per cent in 2010. Poverty gap and squared poverty gap have also declined. Despite these positives, there are a lot of challenges lurking in the horizon to be dealt with steadfastly.
The writer is a former Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.