Poverty and vulnerability transitions in Myanmar. An analysis using synthetic panels

While Myanmar achieved distinct progress in economic growth and poverty reduction over the past decade, extreme natural events; economic, political, and social crises; and the ongoing COVID-19 shock pose serious challenges. This study complements previous analyses of poverty and vulnerability by providing a dynamic perspective for the period 2015–2017. Given the lack of longitudinal household data, the analysis relies on the synthetic panels approach to further our understanding of transitions between different states—poverty, vulnerability, non-poverty—and the characteristics of the households associated with these transitions. Among the main results, we find that there was a relatively high probability for people, who were poor in 2015 to exit poverty in 2017, and that the probability of remaining in a vulnerable situation was non-negligible. Moreover, the results point to important differences in the probability of transitioning between different states depending on household and location characteristics. While the COVID-19 shock has likely increased the proportion of households in the vulnerable and poor groups, these results highlight the need to focus on households with specific characteristics that make them more at risk of remaining or falling into poverty than the rest of the population in a context of diminishing poverty rates and localized vulnerability pockets.