Journal of Philippine Development NumberTwenty-Five,Volume XIV, No. 2, 1987
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THE STRUCTURE OF RURAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON RURAL POVERTY IN BICOL, PHILIPPINES Edno A ngeles-Reyes.
Introduction The Philippines today remains a predominantly agricultural country, with the rural population accounting for more than 60 percent of the total population, the majority of whom are engaged in agricultural activities (seeTable 1). Despite rapid economicgrowth during the 1970s, it has also remained a country with a relatively high level of poverty. A recent World Bank (1985) study estimated the number of families living in poverty in 1975 to be about 61 percent. Although this proportion slightly declined in the early 1980s, the economic conditions towards the middle of the decade suggestthe incidence of poverty to have gone up again. Moreover, the majority of these poor people are found in the rural areas,where the incidence of poverty asof 1983 remained high at 45.4 percent (World Bank 1985, p. 10). In fact, rural areasstill account for nearly three-fourths of the country's total poor. An actual count indicated that the number of poor families in rural areas increased from 2.5 million in 1971 to 2.8 million during the period 1980-83. In urban areas, the figure of 0.8 million remained constant for the two periods considered (World Bank 1985, p. 10). Another recent study by NEDA (1984) also reported that although rural incomes improved over the period 1975-82, the rate at which real incomes per family grew was relatively low at 3.6 percent. Urban-rural disparity widened as(l) underemployment in rural areas became widespread, (2) profit margins accruing to farmers
Research Fellow, Philippine Institute for Development Studies. The author would like to acknowledge the able research assistance provided by Miss Cynthia Yuchang and the computational work done by Fe LJsondra.
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