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

Poverty in Myanmar 22
Agriculture,
hunting and
forestry
Table 12: Sectoral concentrations across S/R
Manufacturing
Construction
Wholesale
and retail
trade incl.
repairs
Transport,
storage &
communications
Kachin 54.31 1.76 2.99 12.48 (-) 1.93 6.68
Other
community,
social and
personal
services
Kayah 49.34 (+) 6.58 (+) 7.24 15.79 (+) 9.21 (-) 2.63
Kayin 51.60 1.74 4.36 16.72 (+) 7.56 7.85
Chin (+) 66.23 3.90 2.60 (-) 9.74 (-) 0.97 5.52
Sagaing 59.75 3.16 3.82 12.19 2.79 3.63
Taninthayi (-) 36.40 2.49 5.12 15.79 4.39 6.29
Bago (East) 53.71 5.43 (-) 2.10 16.94 5.43 4.10
Bago (West) 64.00 2.58 3.32 15.11 2.83 (-) 2.21
Magway 60.67 2.26 2.85 11.71 3.68 4.69
Mandalay 43.70 (+) 8.34 5.00 17.10 5.38 7.23
Mon 45.21 3.72 (+) 7.05 19.95 5.05 5.98
Rakhine 41.06 1.81 2.47 16.98 5.11 (+) 13.52
Yangon (-) 17.65 (+) 8.78 (+) 6.78 (+) 31.48 (+) 11.39 6.87
Shan (South) 64.01 2.99 3.81 11.61 2.82 4.48
Shan (North) (+) 64.92 2.40 4.92 11.80 5.25 (-) 2.84
Shan (East) 73.14 (-) 1.73 3.29 11.61 2.77 (-) 2.08
Ayeyarwady 48.68 3.15 2.96 16.63 4.54 (+) 10.14
Total 50.97 4.03 4.01 15.90 4.77 6.29
StDev 13.50413 2.253918 1.632549 4.97854 2.644386 2.987998
Own account workers
Overall, 22% of the household members –or one person per household- work on own account
(median: 16.7%). But 42.4% of the households are without any own account worker. Should each of
the own account workers effectively run a different business and register it, Myanmar’s business
density rate would be 220 (220 businesses per 1000 population), which is about sevenfold the world
average of around 30. This average takes however only registered businesses into account, and the
global informal sector can be assumed to be at least double the formal sector in terms of numbers
(i.e., a hypothetical density rate of about 90 to 100). Still, Myanmar’s business sector appears to be
at least twice the global average. One can conclude that the vast majority of Myanmar’s businesses
are so called ‘necessity businesses’, which is a clear sign of poverty and lack of opportunity.
The percentage of household members working on own account is not correlated with the
household expenses. In fact, in the poorest expenditure quintile the share of own account workers is
lower than in the other quintiles. The share of own account workers in rural areas is higher than in
urban areas, showing also that employment is more difficult to obtain in rural areas.
Men and women headed households have on average similar shares of own-account workers, but
the median for male headed is about 17%, it is 0% for female headed households. This shows a
slightly more two poled distribution of own-account workers among female headed households than