Description:
Many of the poorest Argentines are
invisible in official statistics. Four million rural
residents and another 12 million in small urban areas lie
outside the reach of the Permanent Household Survey (EPH),
which is the basis for poverty figures and most data on
social conditions in the country. According to the best
estimate, roughly a third of rural residents, more than a
million people, live in poverty. The urban bias common too
many countries have been accentuated by the lack of data on
the rural poor. With little information on their condition,
it is exceedingly difficult for policy makers to design
policies and programs to help move people out of poverty.
The report is organized as follows: chapter one profiles
rural poverty base on the limited existing data, including
the first in-depth analysis of rural poverty ever conducted
with the 2001 population census. Chapter two presents
findings from the new qualitative study of the rural poor
conducted in the first half of 2007. Finally, chapter three
concludes with a discussion of methodology for rural poverty
analysis, focusing on the issues related to expanding the
EPH to full national coverage.