Measurement of Economic Contribution in a Rural Developing Country

Nizam Khan, University of Colorado at Boulder

Measuring individual income in rural developing countries is problematic for various reasons, primarily because a significant number of individuals work in family-owned farm/non-farm enterprises. Some earn income by combining work in family and non-family enterprises. Most studies exclude women and the elderly because a very small proportion of women work in the formal sectors and it is assumed that elderly do not contribute anything to the household economy. In addition, most studies ask only about income earned in the formal sector, where income is visible and thus reported. The Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey (MHSS) conducted in 1996-97 in a rural area of Bangladesh took extra effort to collect information on all kind of economic activities irrespective of age and gender, both at the individual and household level. This study use this rich set of information to develop a new measures of individual economic contribution.