A regional perspective on poverty in Myanmar - United Nations ...

Count
Poverty in Myanmar 16
Figure 13: Underemployment gap
2000
1500
1000
500
0
-100,00 -50,00 0,00 50,00
Average Underemployment Gap HH
The whole economy generates more work than the available labour force can provide based on a
44 hour work week: projecting the survey results to the whole economy of 59.13 million people, the
Myanmar people do work almost 60 million hours (precisely 58,864,343 hours) too much (or 1 hour
per person) 14 . Expressed differently, the economy could provide 1.34 million additional full time
jobs, if work could be distributed equally. The problem of underemployment is hence not one of
insufficient labour demand, but of an unfavourable labour distribution.
As can be expected, the underemployment at household level is negatively correlated with
household expenditure, though less than one might expect (only -0.11**). Yet, the average
underemployment gap per household is only slightly lower for poor households than for non-poor. In
fact: both are “over-employed”, the poor household with 4.3 hours weekly (median: 6.0 hours), and
the non-poor with 5.6 hours (median: 8.0 hours).
It can be concluded from this that it is not underemployment which leads to poverty, but the low
return of employment received by poor (ver sus non-poor). In case of employed people, the low
return is a result of low wages. In fact, since 2005, real wages have barely grown. In case of selfemployed,
it is likely a result of low productivity. Further, as the labour supply curve bents below a
certain minimal income (the household offers more labour the lower the return, to make both ends
meet), one can assume that poor people would offer more labour to make both ends meet, if more
paid labour was available.
14 The household survey collected data on 95,021 people, or 0.1607% of the population.