Estimating Poverty Line of Iranian Rural Households with Respect to Household Size, 2006-2011

Rural poverty is a basic challenge in most countries and its reduction is the most important target of sustainable development. In this study, the rural poverty line was estimated according to household size during 2006-11 by using raw data. For this purpose, the household characteristics such as age, sex, occupational status, and educations were included in household utility function and based on Stone-Geary model; the rural absolute and relative poverty lines were estimated with the data of 416519 rural households during the span time of 1981-2011 in both pre-determined non-linear regression and two-steps panel methods per household (1-10 people). The results indicated that attention to social-economic characteristics of the rural households especially household size was the basic requirement for calculations related to the rural poverty line and the effect on the household poverty line in the form of a predetermined and per capita could create underestimation of the rural poverty line; therefore, the costs of a specific level of household welfare would not increase in a one by one scale.