Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Palestine Poverty Maps 2009
March - 2013
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Contents
• Introduction
• Construction of the Palestine Poverty Maps of 2009 .
• Preliminary Results.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Introduction
• The official poverty line in Palestine was established in 1998 by the
National Commission for Poverty Alleviation (NCPA).
• This definition was developed based on expenditures data from the
Palestinian Household Expenditure and Consumption Survey (PECS) of
1996 and 1997. It was derived from a relative concept and used as
absolute poverty line with two boundaries.
• The two boundaries have been constructed according to actual spending
patterns of Palestinian households. The lower boundary is called “deep
poverty line,” which includes a budget for food, clothing and housing.
The second line “higher boundary which is called poverty line” includes
other necessities including health care, education, transportation,
personal care, and housekeeping supplies. The lower boundary was set
at the median expenditure level of certain key items of the poorest 25 to
30 percent of households.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Introduction
• Beginning in December 2009, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
(PCBS) reviewed its prevailing poverty measurement methodology based
on broad consultations with stakeholders within the country and
supported by technical assistance from the World Bank. The aim of this
exercise was to validate the prevailing practice of poverty measurement
and to incorporate approaches according to international best practice.
• This resulted in several adjustments to the measurement methodology
leading to revised official poverty estimates for the period from 2004 to
2009. First, to enable a meaningful comparison of living standards across
the Palestinian regions, the new poverty estimates are adjusted for
differences in regional prices across the Palestinian regions.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Introduction
• In early 2010, PCBS decided to redefine the poverty line by changing the
reference household to 2 adults and 3 children (according the new
reference households that appeared in 2009), and the new poverty series
begins in 2009. This new poverty series incorporates all the
methodological changes referred to above.
• In Palestine, official poverty rates are not produced below regional and\ or
governorate level, (upon the household sample size in the reference
round), where sampling errors of the household survey "PECS" data
become non-negligible.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Construction of the Palestine Poverty Maps of 2009
• PCBS in collaboration with the World Bank managed to
conduct the Palestine Poverty Mapping profile of 2009.
Poverty mapping is an exercise to estimate poverty
incidence at a disaggregated level where a typical
household income and expenditure survey cannot produce
statistically reliable poverty estimates due to high
sampling errors. In addition, Poverty map is not
necessarily maps but rather highly disaggregated
databases of welfare. Depending on data availability, we
can construct disaggregated maps of welfare, eg. Poverty.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Construction of the Palestine Poverty Maps of 2009
• The Small Area Estimation (SAE) method, used in Palestine to
produce the poverty maps, based on two primary data sets; the
PECS 2009 survey and the Population Census 2007. The
method takes advantage of the strengths of both sources: in the
case of the PECS data its strength is associated with the fact
that direct measures of poverty (i.e. expenditure data) are
available, whereas in the case of the Census data its strength is
associated with its size, meaning that data were collected from
all households in the country as opposed to ‘sampled’ from a
primary sampling unit. PECS 2009 was collected by PCBS,
and includes 3,566 households.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Construction of the Palestine Poverty Maps of 2009
• The census data was collected by PCBS, and covered roughly 584,549
households. A wide range of household information was collected including
religion, educational attainments, labor activities, residential information, and
employment and housing conditions. As is the practice in all countries, the
Palestinian Census did not include household consumption and income
levels, but its wide coverage of household characteristics is an advantage for
imputing household consumption precisely. In addition, census data
collection is limited in Jerusalem governorate J1 (J1 is that part of Jerusalem
which was annexed by Israel after 1967 war).
• To construct the Poverty mapping in Palestine, per capita consumption from
the survey is regressed on a set of explanatory and control variables that are
common to the survey and the census. Out of sample prediction on unit
record census data is then used to yield predicted per capita consumption for
each household.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Construction of the Palestine Poverty Maps of 2009
• A software developed by the World Bank’s research
department was used in this exercise "PovMap2"; which
facilitates this process, providing various statistics to help
us undertake the above selections properly. Nevertheless,
it is worth noting that the software cannot solve all
problems and technical challenges through the process,
and thus users need to check every step carefully.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Obstacles in Palestinian Case
• There were two issues of particular importance when
constructing the poverty maps; first selecting a good
consumption model, and secondly, choosing an appropriate
level of disaggregation.
• Good Consumption Model: applying the same model to all
stratums (regions) may thus increase the risk of bias in poverty
estimates and standard errors. Upon that, the Palestinian
poverty mapping conducted two different consumption
models, each of which corresponds to a stratum defined for the
PECS 2009; to adjustment the regional (West Bank and Gaza
Strip) differences in consumption patterns to avoid the large
bias in poverty estimates and corresponding standard errors.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Obstacles in Palestinian Case
• Appropriate level of disaggregation. The size of the
disaggregation level, control the level of the disaggregation.
Upon that, the Palestine poverty mapping chose the locality level
for disaggregation. Localities with population less than 400 is
merged to contiguous localities. In addition to that, Upon the
limitation in data collection in Jerusalem (J1), Jerusalem
governorate is excluded from the model. The governorate will be
presented in the poverty mapping profile as one unit (locality)
depending on data available from other surveys, eg. Poverty
rates from PECS; socio-economic indicators from labor force
and other surveys data sets collected in the reference year 2009.
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Preliminary Results
West Bank: PECS 2009 and Census 2007
Unit
Jenin
Tubas
nHHLDs
nDroppe
dHHLD
% HH dropped
nIndividuals
YTrimed
nSim
Min_Y
Max_Y
Mean
StdErr
avg_FGT0
(poverty
rate)
se_FGT0
46540
1282
0.027546
245497
%0.00 %10000.00 184.2162
13904.63 1215.724 12.6263
0.2026
0.0078
8628
203
0.023528
47161
%0.00 %10000.00 190.2567
11783.8 1111.062 22.4358
0.1644
0.0242
29708
606
0.020399
154104
%0.00 %10000.00 184.5265
13576.12 1173.369 12.9033
0.2181
0.009
58750
867
0.014757
311801
%0.00 %10000.00 184.3082
13903.3 1194.055 17.6673
0.2151
0.0096
16000
314
0.019625
86935
%0.00 %10000.00
26.93
0.2058
0.0161
10958
93
0.008487
58330
%0.00 %10000.00 184.6465
10845.21 1110.006 15.2799
0.2186
0.0139
49637
2240
0.045128
252645
%0.07 %10000.00 184.0937
13919.53 1723.748 17.7256
0.0944
0.0046
7262
350
0.048196
38656
%0.13 %10000.00 184.0883
13919.83 1191.931 31.3401
0.2535
0.0184
31471
1038
0.032983
164647
%0.00 %10000.00 196.0871
13683.55 1231.554 13.5564
0.1792
0.0074
87645
1931
0.022032
527345
%0.01 %10000.00 184.1361
13667.23 1104.682
16.439
0.28
0.0093
346599
8924
0.025747
1887121
%0.02
13919.83 1239.929
7.8559
0.2118
0.0048
Tulkarm
Nablus
Qalqilia
Salfeet
Ramallah & AlBireh
Jericho and
Alagwar
Bethlehem
Hebron
West Bank
185.944
100 184.0883
13384.49
1199.18
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Preliminary Results
Gaza Strip: PECS 2009 and Census 2007
Unit
nHHLDs
nDroppe
dHHLD
% HH dropped
nIndividuals
YTrimed
nSim
Min_Y
Max_Y
Mean
StdErr
avg_FG
T0
(Poverty
rate)
se_FG
T0
Gaza
39604
525
0.013256
261681
%0.07
10000.0
%0 153.1722
11368.15
1165.797
26.9933
0.2206 0.0148
75023
1383
0.018434
474854
%0.15
10000.0
%0 153.1428
11371.12 1091.651
50.6715
0.3609 0.0302
31340
447
0.014263
197718
%0.08
10000.0
%0 153.1513
11355.12 1019.664
16.6266
0.3378
42402
411
0.009693
262970
%0.13
10000.0
%0 153.1324
11365.34 926.8798
17.2643
0.4261 0.0148
26391
787
0.029821
164875
%0.19
10000.0
%0 153.1493
11371.25 1072.278
28.7556
0.3095 0.0201
214760
3553
0.016544
1362098
%0.13
100 153.1324
11371.25 1061.285
24.2805
0.337 0.0132
Gaza
North
Deir Al Balah
0.0116
Khan Yunis
Rafah
Gaza Strip
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Poverty Percentage in Palestine by Region
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Localities in Palestine
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Poverty Percentage in Palestine by Locality
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
Linking Unemployment and Poverty
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS)
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