زهرا میلا علمی

Poverty reduction is the first priority of the Millennium Development Goals. All United Nation member states have to implement sound policies to halve absolute poverty by 2015. Several studies show that female education has a great impact on reducing poverty by reducing the fertility rate, increasing women’s entrepreneurial activities, and assuring better child nourishment and health (Moser 1989; Elson 1998; Khandker and et al. 2003). In this paper, we utilized household survey data in 2010 conducted by the Statistical Center of Iran which covered 18,701 households to show determinant factors of poverty in Iran’s urban areas through the use of a multivariate binary logit model. Our data analysis showed poor households have less education and the regression results showed female headed households are more likely to be poor than households headed by men. Therefore, promoting female education will have a considerable positive impact on poverty alleviation. This policy can also have an impact effect on household size, which is another important determinant of poverty. Because of high correlation between age and experience, we include experience as an explanatory variable in the model. The effect of the experience of the head on poverty was U shaped. It means that in the early years of one’s life, the probability of coming out from poverty is possible while in later years the probability of being poor increases. Therefore, government must pay more attention to poor head of households, especially female ones. Also, the proportion of income earners in a household has a relatively high significant effect on getting out of poverty. This result supports the emphasis on job creation by the government for poverty eradication programs.