Impact of Nonfarm Participation on Household Welfare: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan
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Abstract
This article employs propensity score matching approach to estimate the impact of nonfarm participation on rural household welfare in Punjab province of Pakistan. For the study cross sectional data set was collected from 325 households from the southern Punjab province. The data was collected from both categories of farmers having participated in the nonfarm activities and not participated in the nonfarm activities. The propensity score matching approach was employed to correct for potential sample selection biased ness, which may arise due to systematic differences between the participants and non participants. A numberof matching algorithms were employed to check the robustness of the results. The empirical results indicate that education play a significant role regarding nonfarm participation. The nonfarm participants’ households have higher incomes and have lesser poverty levels in the range of 9-18 percent.
Key Words: Nonfarm; Poverty; Income; Propensity Score Matching;Pakistan.
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