Abstract:   Pakistan continues to be facing a persistent problem of poverty that is more often based on gender or age. Household-level [HL] poverty measures generally ignore this hidden poverty. In rural Pakistan, a substantial number of poor women and children are living in non-poor households, underscoring the need for intra-household poverty analysis for elimination of poverty. This study aims to estimate multidimensional poverty within the households along with its transitions in rural Pakistan. Applying Alkire and Foster (AF) (2011) methodology on a balanced panel data (2012- 2014), the study measure poverty among subgroups of men, women and children. The results show that there are significant poverty differences among women, men and children from 2012 to 2014. Women remain the poorest subgroup with poverty levels from 0.36 to 0.3. This is followed by children with poverty index from 0.32 to 0.35 and men from 0.24 to 0.25. Educational deprivation remains particularly higher than other dimensions across all survey rounds. This deprivation is especially prevalent among women, of whom 66% are deprived in education. While children experience increasing health deprivation with 14 percentage points from 2012 to 2013. Regarding poverty severity, women and children are significantly facing more chronic and transitory poverty than men at both national and provincial levels. This study necessitates to formulate long term policies to eradicate poverty. However, these policies should include specialized measures to reach disadvantaged subgroups within households.

Keywords:   Multidimensional Poverty, intra-household poverty, poverty trends, rural Pakistan

Publisher:   ILMA UNIVERSITY

Published:   22 January 2026

Issue:   Issue 2 (2026-01-05) : Volume 21

E-ISSN:   2409-6520

P-ISSN:   2414-8393